Degrees of restructuring in Creole languages

DEGREES OF RESTRUCTURING IN CREOLE LANGUAGES

CREOLE LANGUAGE LIBRARY (CLL) A companion series to the “JOURNAL OF PIDGIN & CREOLE LANGUAGES”

Editors Jacques Arends (Amsterdam) John Victor Singler (New York)

Editorial Advisory Board Mervyn Alleyne (Kingston, Jamaica) Norbert Boretzky (Bochum) Lawrence Carrington (Trinidad) Glenn Gilbert (Carbondale, Illinois) George Huttar (Dallas) John Holm (Coimbra)

Salikoko Mufwene (Chicago) Pieter Muysken (Leiden) Peter Mühlhäusler (Adelaide) Pieter Seuren (Nijmegen) Norval Smith (Amsterdam)

Volume 22

Ingrid Neumann-Holzschuh and Edgar W. Schneider (eds.) Degrees of Restructuring in Creole Languages

DEGREES OF RESTRUCTURING IN CREOLE LANGUAGES

Edited by

INGRID NEUMANN-HOLZSCHUH EDGAR W. SCHNEIDER University of Regensburg

JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY AMSTERDAM/PHILADELPHIA

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TM

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences — Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Degrees of restructuring in Creole languages / edited by Ingrid Neumann-Holzschuh, Edgar W. Schneider. p. cm. -- (Creole language library, ISSN 0920-9026 ; v. 22) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Creole dialects--History. I. Neumann-Holzschuh, Ingrid. II. Schneider, Edgar W. (Edgar Werner), 1954- 4. III. Series. PM7831.D43 2000 417’.22--dc21 00-050828 ISBN 90 272 5244 0 (Eur.) / 1 58811 039 7 (US) © 2000 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. • P.O.Box 75577 • 1070 AN Amsterdam • The Netherlands John Benjamins North America • P.O.Box 27519 • Philadelphia PA 19118-0519 • USA

Table of Contents Introduction: "Degrees of restructuring" in creole languages? Ingrid Neumann-Holzschuh and Edgar W. Schneider

1

State of the art Semi-creolization: Problems in the development of theory John Holm

19

Theory Theories of creolization and the degree and nature of restructuring Philip Baker

41

Creolization is a social, not a structural, process Salikoko S. Mußvene

65

Defining "creole" as a synchronic term John McWhorter

85

Opposite processes in "creolization" Mervyn C. Alleyne

125

Two types of restructuring in French creoles: A cognitive approach to the genesis of tense markers Ulrich Detges

135

The fate of subject pronouns: Evidence from creole and non-creole languages Susanne Michaelis

163

Reassessing the role of demographics in language restructuring Mikael Parkvall

185

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Case studies: English-based "Intermediate" creoles and degrees of change in creole formation: The case of Bajan Donald Winford

215

Differential creolization: Some evidence from Earlier African American Vernacular English in South Carolina Alexander Kautzsch and Edgar W. Schneider

247

Restructuring in vitro? Evidence from Early Krio Magnus Huber

275

Phonological restructuring in creole: The development of paragoge in Sranan Ingo Plag and Christian Uffmann

309

The development of the life form lexicon in Tok Pisin Peter Mühlhäusler

337

Case studies: Romance-based Créolisation du français et francisation du créole: Le cas de Saint-Barthélemy et de la Réunion Robert Chaudenson

361

Restructuration dans un créole "conservateur": Le cas du créole louisianais Ingrid Neumann-Holzschuh

383

The myth of decreolization: The anomalous case of Palenquero Armin Schwegler

409

Bozal Spanish: Restructuring or creolization? John M. Lipski

437

Centre africain et périphérie portugaise dans le créole santiagais du Cap Vert? Jürgen Lang

469

Subject Index Language Index

483 489

Introduction: "Degrees of restructuring" in creole languages?

Ingrid Neumann-Holzschuh and Edgar W. Schneider University ofRegensburg

I One of the dominant topics in creole studies of the last decade has been a redis­ covery and a renewed questioning of basic issues and notions in the field and, consequently, a restating of the question of precisely what it means when a given language is classified as "a creole". There is not only the question of how far extant theories of creole genesis can be harmonized; rather, the very process of creolization has turned out to be a central concern of recent research. Hall's (1966) conventional model of creolization as spontaneous language generation by a first generation of children, caused by the structurally and communica­ tively insufficient input provided by a pidgin, has turned out to be too idealized and untenable in the light of recent evidence. Several considerations and research directions have contributed to an increased insecurity about the funda­ mentals of the discipline. Most importantly, the very process of creolization itself has come under closer scrutiny, based upon improved sociohistorical as well as linguistic evi­ dence on early phases of such processes in certain creole communities. For instance, in contrast with classic models as proposed by Bickerton (1981) it was suggested that creolization did not happen abruptly but rather gradually (Arends 1993), and that the role of children in the formation of a new creole appears to have been greatly overestimated (cf. Singler 1996). The precise mechanisms and strategies effective in this process are still insufficiently understood. Obvi­ ously, substrates, superstrates and universals interact in creole formation; sub­ strates and superstrates appear to offer structural possibilities from which elements of emerging structures are selected on the basis of universal prefer­ ences, typological affiliation or formal similarities. A related view was that of seeing creolization as "grammaticalization in quick motion", i.e. the emergence of missing grammatical categories derived from existing lexical items. Most recently, it was suggested that creoles can be defined on structural grounds by

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identifying certain structural traits which mark them as "young" languages (cf. McWhorter this volume). In contrast, some scholars have come to give up the notion of creole as a linguistic category altogether, suggesting that what sets these languages apart as a group from others are not linguistic traits but purely sociohistorical parallels (cf. Mufwene this volume). Another aspect that has turned out to be influential was the recognition that the intensity of creolization varied from one creole region to another. It has always been clear intuitively that certain creoles — like Saramaccan and Sranan among English-related languages, less so basilectal Jamaican and Guyanese, and Haitian among the French-based creoles as against Réunionnais, for instance — are "deeper", more "radical", presumably structurally closer to their substrates, than others which are considerably closer, relatively speaking, to their respective European superstrates. Earlier creole theory explained much of this variability as products of "decreolization", later approximations towards the superstrate of an erstwhile fully basilectal creole; but the historical reality and the sociolinguistic usefulness of the concept of decreolization have also increasingly come under fire (LePage and Tabouret-Keller 1985; Rickford 1983). Thus, increasing attention was given to varieties which, clearly without ever having undergone "decreolization" (or, a more fashionable term, "debasilectalization"), show but some of the characteristics of creoles, have been "creolized" (or "restructured", for that matter) only partially — varieties tenta­ tively labelled "creoloids" (of. Mühlhäusler 1998) or "semi-creoles". These include (at least) Réunionnais, Cuba's habla bozal, "Popular Brazilian Portu­ guese", the English spoken on the Cayman Islands, perhaps Bajan in Barbados, and, most probably, also African American English in the United States. Corre­ spondingly, it has been suggested that there may be a "cline of creoleness" (Schneider 1990; 1998), "degrees" or "differential" stages/forms of creolization. In the light of such concepts creolization (and, by implication, the membership in a category of "creole languages") has to be understood as inherently scalar rather than dichotomous. A third trend that has contributed significantly to the reorientation of creole studies discussed here has been a much more substantial diachronic empirical grounding and theoretical orientation of the discipline (Arends 1995). For several creoles, including Sranan, Negerhollands, Louisiana French Creole, the Indian Ocean French Creoles or the English-based creoles of Jamaica, Guyana, Trinidad, and Barbados, the discovery and linguistic analysis of early records from the nineteenth or even eighteenth centuries has provided an im­ proved understanding of the linguistic processes in the early phases of a Creole's evolution as well as, in general, a deepened interest in the relationship between language change and change in creole languages (Adone and Plag 1994). Again, such investigations have uncovered and frequently focussed upon changes in the "depth", the positioning between related superstrate and substrate patterns, of any given creole, or for that matter, of any of a Creole's structural properties.

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In the light of such considerations, we felt it timely to organize a confer­ ence to focus specifically on the issue of "degrees of restructuring" in creole languages. The present volume brings together revised versions (and in one case a follow-up study) of select papers given at that conference, held at the Univer­ sity of Regensburg on June 24-27, 1998. We were lucky to host a remarkable group of renowned scholars from 10 countries; of these, some we were able to invite with the support of sponsors, and others reacted to a call for papers. It was our intention to promote a better understanding of the processes of partial restructuring in creolization, to support the development of theoretical models of this process, and to encourage further and improved descriptive analyses of the varieties in question, some of which are still insufficiently documented. The questions that we asked contributors to address were the following: • Which is the most suitable theoretical framework for the description of processes of restructuring? • Which morphological and syntactic categories are predominantly affected by restructuring in individual creoles, and to what extent? • In individual cases, what was the rate and which were the stages of restruc­ turing? • To what extent do creoles with a common base language form a continuum of varieties? • To what extent can tendencies towards restructuring already be seen in the respective base languages? • When seen in this light, what is the status of concepts emphasizing the hybrid character of creoles (mixed-language theory, relexification hypothe­ sis)? • Are there any intralinguistic features and typical structural conditions which favor or cause different degrees of restructuring? • What is the relationship between different degrees of restructuring on the one hand and sociolinguistic conditions, e.g. varying demographic propor­ tions between different population groups, on the other? • What is the role of bilingualism, first and/or second language acquisition, or the numerical ratio of children to adults in the process of varying degrees of restructuring? One aspect of our conference and its resulting discussions that has turned out to be quite fruitful was the contact between scholars working on "Englishbased" and "Romance-based" creole languages — despite the common ground of creole theory it appears that at second glance different traditions and different lines of thinking have evolved in the two groups that have rarely been explicitly addressed, let alone discussed. In part there may be linguistic reasons behind resulting misunderstandings — the fact that English-lexifer and French-lexifier creoles appear to have followed different paths of creolization (as Alleyne shows in his contribution).

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II The two central concepts of the title of both our conference and this volume, "degrees" and "restructuring", respectively, are essential for the delimitation of our topic but at the same time defy uncontroversial definitions; in fact, some of the contributions to this volume make it clear that varying understandings of these notions are employed at times, or at least different aspects of them are emphasized. As to the notion of "restructuring", so far no generally accepted definition and no uniform understanding of it have been achieved (cf. Baker this volume). It seems to be generally accepted that the term describes processes of language change which result in some sort of a reorganization of linguistic, especially morphosyntactic, structures — but there is no consensus at all with respect to the specific modalities of such processes. Are "restructuring" and "creolization" identical, or, for that matter, two sides of the same coin? What actually is it that is being restructured in such a process: the European base languages, the Afri­ can (in the case of the Atlantic and Indian Ocean creoles) substrate languages, both, or even a creole itself, after its genesis? The latter view seems to be held only by Schwegler (this volume), who uses "restructuring" almost synony­ mously with what has conventionally been called "decreolization". On the other hand, most creolists would probably take the term to relate to the fundamental processes of structural modifications that affected and radically altered pre­ dominantly non-standard varieties of European languages as a consequence of the specific sociolinguistic conditions in former colonies. For instance, this is how Salikoko Mufwene uses the term: As for the term restructuring, I use it here in the sense of "system reorganiza­ tion", which makes a creole different from its lexifier. The latter was primarily the colonial variety which was spoken by the European colonists and was itself developing from the contact of diverse metropolitan dialects. [...] this reor­ ganization often consists in modifying grammatical features selected in a Creole's system from the lexifier, the language that was being appropriated by foreign populations and undergoing some changes. (Mufwene 1996: 83-4) These processes of linguistic reorganization were triggered by the special con­ tact situation in the former European colonies; and it is essential to state that all languages affected by the contact situation were involved in the reshaping of linguistic structures. In one sense, it was predominantly the European base languages that were restructured in the process of incomplete acquisition by the slaves. While this process certainly involved both incomplete L2-acquisition and successful structural creation, the mutual impact of these creative processes, and the way these interacted, are not quite clear (cf. Baker this volume). In any case, it is clear that the influence of African substrate languages resulted in fundamental structural changes. While it cannot be denied that to a certain

INTRODUCTION

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extent these changes constitute also accelerations and continuations of internal developmental tendencies of the respective base languages, it is clear that the changes that occurred in creolization were considerably more radical and fundamental than instances of "internal", "normal" language change. The out­ comes of these various processes of restructuring (whose chronology may have been different in English- and French-based creoles) are novel, autonomous languages — varieties which, despite the fact that on purely lexical grounds they can be seen as "based" upon or at least "related to" a European language, are characterized by a break with many rules and principles of the base language on the level of grammatical organization. Thus it would be equally inadequate to see creoles just as (grammatically) "restructured" variants of their respective "lexifiers" as to understand them purely as modifications and "relexifications" of substrates. Which are the linguistic mechanisms underlying these processes of restructuring, and to what extent do they correspond to or differ from processes of language change in non-creole languages? It is widely agreed in recent research that creolization is marked by certain processes of grammaticalization, i.e., following Chr. Lehmann, pro­ cesses by which a lexical item becomes a grammatical one, or a partially gram­ matical item becomes more grammatical (cf. Lehmann 1995: 11). Such phenomena of grammaticalization were frequently initiated already in the non­ standard base varieties, and were systematized and automatized subsequently in creolization (Chaudenson 1992; Bollée and Neumann-Holzschuh 1993; Bruyn 1995). Another core notion is that of reanalysis. The classic definition of reanalysis as "change in the structure of an expression or class of expressions that does not involve any immediate or intrinsic modification of its surface manifestation" (Langacker 1977: 59) allows us to understand certain processes observed in creolization. It is characteristic of natural second language acquisi­ tion (and this is what happens in creolization) that the participants of a conver­ sation, having developed a supposition as to the presumed meaning of an utter­ ance based upon the context of situation, attempt to work out how this meaning was encoded by the speaker. In other words, in a communicative model this is a recipient-based process in which the hearer (in the given context typically Afri­ can slaves) worked out a structural analysis of an utterance sequence which up to that stage was non-transparent to them. This is a mechanism which has been pointed out by Rebecca Posner1 and Salikoko Mufwene2. The contribution by 1) "I do argue both that French creoles continue popular French tendencies [...] and that initially substrate may have had a drastic effect on the way new speakers (here, imported slaves) understood the structure of the popular French to which they were exposed" (1985: 183). 2) "Grammaticization is of course not the full story, since other changes took place, starting with the simple selection and integration into one system of forms, structures, and principles which did not use to form one system even in the lexifier itself' (1996: 124).

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Ulrich Detges in this volume constitutes a significant advancement in our understanding of such processes: departing from a cognitively and semantically based theory of grammaticalization he works out a real-life example which documents how universal processes of grammaticalization and specific pro­ cesses of reanalysis interact in the formation of a creole grammar. In the light of these considerations we suggest that the notion of restruc­ turing should be taken to refer to all structural modifications that a lexifier language undergoes in the selection and evolution of new linguistic elements, influenced by other, competing languages, in a contact situation. The final out­ come of this process is a new linguistic code which consists of a variable, fairly subtle mixture of both substrate and superstrate features.3 This is achieved by the interaction of two fundamentally different processes of linguistic change which are effective in regular language transmission as well but which, due to the special contact situation in slave societies, operate considerably more intensely and rapidly: first, universal grammaticalization tendencies; and second, various processes of structural re-interpretation and selection, triggered by reanalysis and ultimately determined by cognitive mechanisms such as sali­ ence, semantic transparency, the impact of token frequencies, and the like (cf. Plag 1994). It remains to be seen to what extent other types of language change, such as "extension" or analogy (cf. Harris and Campbell 1995), are effective, or what the role of convergence in the selection of certain grammatical patterns is (cf. Bollée 1982; Hazaël-Massieux 1993). The familiar, frequently described structural parallels between creoles of various bases suggest the importance of the effect of certain recurrent patterns of restructuring; but on the other hand these processes appear not to have been carried out to the same extent, with the same intensity, and with the same effects in all creoles. An empirical observation that underlies the idea of "degrees" of creoleness was addressed earlier as one of our original motivations for having this question focussed upon — the fact that different creole languages vary greatly in the set of creole properties that they share. Of course, such a defini­ tion in itself stands on shaky ground, as it builds upon the existence of a set of "typically creole" structural features (which are then present in any given language to a greater or lesser extent). It seems clear that the justification for assuming such a set of features is pragmatic, not structural, in nature — it is uncontroversial that there are no linguistic features exclusive to creole languages, and one of the questions to be addressed in the present context is in fact whether, how and why a typology of creole languages differs from analyses of analytic languages in general. Nevertheless, it is clear that there are certain 3) In other words, our understanding of the term "restructuring" is a fairly narrow, specifically creolistic one. Obviously, in a wider sense "restructuring" may be taken to designate almost any kind of language change, and it may even be assumed that the restructuring of the base languages was initiated even before they reached the colonies (Mufwene 1996: 90-1).

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structural properties which have repeatedly been identified and analysed as and taken to be typical of creoles, whatever the cause and theoretical justification establishing this set may have been; and creolists have commonly referred to and focussed upon such "typical" structural elements (as is done in the present volume most pointedly in the papers by Parkvall, Kautzsch and Schneider, and — with a new interpretation and classification of such features — Baker). If it is true that creoles come in different degrees of "radicalness" (an assumption that will be shared by most but perhaps not all creolists at present), then it is implied that this fact positions any individual language on a continuum between varieties closely modelled upon substrate(s) on the one hand and superstrates (nonstandard dialects) on the other. In other words, "radical" creoles display many features deviant from their superstrate input forms and/or possibly resulting from substrate transfer; on the other hand, so-called "semicreoles" will have many superstrate-derived properties and but a few patterns or forms derived from the substrate (or from universals). In all these cases, it is to be understood that the mixture of features should be the product of the process of original creole formation per se, not the outcome of a later approximation of a creole to its lexifier language by "decreolization". Several papers in the present volume (e.g. Baker, Mufwene, Winford) address the question of how in this light the process of creole formation has to be redefined. One point that has turned out to be highly relevant is the question of what exactly the notion of "degrees of restructuring" relates to: is it really languages as entire systems (as is entailed by many of the above considerations or by labels such as "radical creoles" or "semi-creoles"), or shouldn't it rather be applied to individual linguistic features exclusively (a point made most strongly by Neumann-Holzschuh in her contribution)? In other words, can we even talk of, say, Réunionnais or AAVE being "less creole-like" than Haitian or Jamai­ can, for that matter, or shouldn't we use such categorizations only with respect to (for instance) the TMA-systems or the plural marking patterns of these varie­ ties, respectively? Again, this is apparently one of the points where differences in scholarly traditions have surfaced. The former approach may have been more common in the study of English-related creoles than in the Romance tradition. In any case, it is undisputable that the amount of restructuring that characterizes creoles affects certain structural traits more than others, so that in any given variety any part of its grammar, say the TMA system, may be more distant from the superstrate (and, conversely, closer to substrates) than any other — say, NP constituent sequences. While the points discussed so far are central to and perhaps innovative for an understanding of the idea of "degrees" in creole formation, there are several other aspects that also need to be addressed and that feed into this problem but that are perhaps more familiar from earlier publications. One such question clearly concerns the nature of the input to the process in question: What, precisely, is meant by "superstrate'7"lexifier'7"base language" (in most cases a

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INGRID NEUMANN-HOLZSCHUH AND EDGAR W . SCHNEIDER

European language but usually an earlier dialect, or a mixture of such dialects, rather than a present-day standard variety), or by "substrate" (a specific African — or Pacific — language, a group, or mixture, of such languages, characteris­ tics of such language families, or areal phenomena?). Also, of course, there is still the old, though currently less popular question of the role of language uni­ versals (Muysken and Smith 1986) — related to the more pressing issue of how strongly theories of Second Language Acquisition can be made fruitful for (and applied to) an understanding of the emergence of creoles. Another central ques­ tion obviously concerns the causes, external or internal, of different "degrees" of creoleness. The most obvious and most frequently mentioned factor, specifi­ cally investigated in the present volume by Parkvall and also Kautzsch and Schneider, is the demographic proportion of superstrate and substrate speakers in a given community and at any given point in time (recent research has focussed strongly upon the interaction between speaker proportions and the time that has elapsed since the establishment of a new plantation society). Additional components to be considered include psycholinguistic factors (such as slaves' attitudes towards different varieties that they were faced with, and their motiva­ tion to acquire a white "target language" or any other code) as well as structural aspects (e.g. similarity effects between the structures involved).

III The papers assembled in this volume certainly address many of the issues raised above and provide a lively picture of and substantial contributions to ongoing debates in the field (as reflected also in many recent contributions to the CreoLIST online discussion list, for instance). While all the papers combine general considerations with the discussion of specific structural examples, the emphasis on theoretical and descriptive aspects, respectively, varies from one paper to another, and so we have decided to arrange the contributions according to a loose thematic grouping, beginning with a state-of-the-art report and statements of decidedly general (though in essence quite conflicting) positions and pro­ ceeding with more empirically oriented investigations of English-based and Romance-based languages. The paper by John Holm lays the groundwork by surveying the theoreti­ cal and empirical background of scholarship into the prototypical forms of partially restructured varieties, which he calls "semi-creoles". Beginning with Schuchardt's "Halbkreolisch", he traces early references to the concept and con­ siders terminological questions in the early phase of creole studies. The main part outlines the history of research into five putative semi-creoles, of different lexical bases, and assessments of their linguistic status: African American Vernacular English, Brazilian Popular Portuguese, Nonstandard Caribbean

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Spanish, Afrikaans, and Réunionnais. In conclusion, he identifies evolutionary processes that are effective in the emergence of these varieties. Philip Baker begins by addressing the question of what precisely the notion of "degrees of restructuring" may imply in three familiar models of creolization (Bickerton's "Language Bioprogram Hypothesis", Chaudenson's "Approximations of Approximations" concept, and Lefebvre's relexification model). Subsequently, he outlines his own "constructive approach", suggesting that there are two linguistic processes which account for the development of the majority of pidgins and creóles: (1) the creation of a medium for interethnic communication (MIC) and (2) the development of a medium for community solidarity (MCS). While the creation of an MIC, an emerging pidgin, builds upon the varying needs of communities coming into sustained but restricted contact and pursues the limited goal of achieving efficient interethnic communi­ cation in a minimum of time, an MCS is consciously developed by slaves culti­ vating an enhanced form of in-group communication. Thus, in terms of restructuring, the construction of an MIC involves a limited but deliberate language construction in contact situations, building upon morphologically reduced versions of the languages involved, while the formation of an MCS usually operates by elaborating and expanding on an earlier MIC. Thus, both pidginisation and creolisation are regarded not as instances of imperfect second language acquisition but rather as cases of deliberate language construction. Within this framework, Baker sketches possible early linguistic developments on select islands as model cases of the evolution of MIC's and MCS's, thus accounting for some linguistic differences between Mauritius and Réunion as well as working out the impact of St. Kitts upon later developments in the English and French Caribbean. In conclusion, Baker questions the use of "typi­ cal" creole features as a methodological tool for establishing "degrees of restructuring", given that these constitute an unpredictable mix of retentions and innovations. Salikoko Muftvene takes issue with Thomason's (1997) claim that there are "prototypical" creoles and McWhorter's (1998) idea of specific structures identifying a "Creole Prototype", arguing instead that creole languages can be defined solely on sociohistorical, not on structural, grounds. In his view, there are no linguistic features that serve to set this group of languages apart from any other, and the relationships between individual creoles are best characterized as Wittgensteinian "family resemblances" rather than varying degrees of proximity to a "best exemplar". He claims that creoles are products of language contact in which processes of feature diffusion (from superstrate and substrate languages) and competition between such features operated in essentially the same way as in other varieties, obeying the same principles of language change and linguistic evolution and approximating the respective lexifier languages' structures as "target languages". Consequently, he suggests that creoles should be seen as "disfranchised" dialects of their lexifiers.

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INGRID NEUMANN-HOLZSCHUH AND EDGAR W . SCHNEIDER

By contrast, McWhorter (1998) — a paper which was presented at the Regensburg conference — stirred a substantial debate by claiming that there are in fact structural properties that set off creoles, or at least a subset of them con­ forming to a "Creole Prototype", from other languages, making them a synchronically and structurally distinct type of languages. In the present paper, John McWhorter elaborates further on this thesis and reacts to the first responses to his earlier suggestion. Comparing creoles with other, "older" languages, he specifies precise conditions that define the three structural traits of the Creole Prototype more accurately (for instance by making clear that the absence of tone as a property of creoles relates to monosyllabic lexical and morphosyntactic tonal functions, not phonological uses of tone, or that noncompositional derivation has to be distinguished from institutionalized complex formations). In essence, his claim is that the features which creoles lack are symptoms of the aging of natural languages; but as these indicators allow for gradience in various ways, it is allowed for individual creoles to be close to the hypothesized "Creole Prototype" to varying degrees — in fact, McWhorter discusses features which determine how close a given creole will be to the prototype. Some properties of Haitian Creole and other creole and non-creole languages are discussed as test cases as to how the Prototype theory might be substantiated or, for that matter, refuted. In a very insightful paper, Mervyn Alleyne points out a fundamental observation and difficulty that may underlie many misunderstandings in the field. Comparing sociohistorical and structural properties of English-lexifier and French-lexifier creoles of the Caribbean, and looking most closely at certain verbal structures of Haitian French Creole, he argues that there may actually be two opposite processes in operation under the single label of "creolization": English-lexifier creoles appear to have originated as very "radical" creoles, structurally most distant from the lexifier to which they approximated later on, while with French creoles the structural differences from the lexifier language have grown over time, with the most distinct creole structures being fairly recent developments rather than products of an early phase of creole genesis. In a theoretically oriented article that can be expected to have substantial impact on further discussions of creolization, Ulrich Detges analyzes the cognitive and semantic mechanisms that underlie the formation and subsequent evolution of the tense and aspect markers in the French creoles. His central thesis is that creolization is the product of two fundamentally different types of restructuring processes: grammaticalization and reanalysis. While in grammaticalization new markers normally emerge on the basis of speaker-related linguistic forms, in creole-specific reanalysis, viewed as the result of a hearer's strategy who wants to make sense out of what he has heard, new markers are selected as a consequence of their high frequency of occurrence or their con­ ceptual saliency in the context of situation. Detges is thus able to show that the grammatical restructuring which happens in creolization results from two pro-

INTRODUCTION

11

cesses best analyzed within a cognitive and semantically based framework of grammaticalization. Thus, he documents that restructuring in creole languages cannot be readily equated with polygenetic universals of grammaticalization and language change but must rather be accepted as a process of its own kind, characterized by the intertwining of two different cognitive mechanisms. Comparing the same type of language change in various creole and non­ creole languages with the aim of detecting possible differences, Susanne Michaelis investigates a characteristic path of grammaticalization, viz. a tendency of free personal pronouns to develop into subject clitics (marking the following predicate as finite) and, subsequently, into verbal copulas. She argues that the cause of this tendency is the effect of token frequency, not a trend to­ wards iconicity. The typological approach, using data from two French creoles and Tok Pisin in comparison with other languages, shows that this process of "restructuring" is by no means specific to the creoles in the sample — so the important overall claim made here is that the processes of restructuring in creoles are the same as those in other languages. Mikael Parkvall probes into the obvious question of whether there is a correlation between demographic speaker proportions (between superstrate and substrate speakers) and the degree of restructuring in any given speech commu­ nity. To that end, he develops a broad research design that builds upon demo­ graphic as well as linguistic data from a wide range of creoles of various lexical bases. For each of these languages he develops a "restructuring index", based on the presence of a certain number of linguistic features, and determines the dates and periods of settlement when certain speaker proportions were reached, trying to correlate these two factors. Indeed, he finds a mutual relationship, albeit a weak one, and argues that demographics is but one factor possibly contributing to the degree of radicalness of a creole, strongly modifed by others, above all motivation to acquire the target language — but that it is valuable to have worked out the impact of this single factor in isolation. Having set out with a consideration of the theoretical problems posed by the existence of "intermediate" varieties for creolization theory, Donald Winford presents a thorough case study of a Caribbean creole whose nonbasilectal character has repeatedly puzzled creolists and triggered conflicting explanations, the English-derived variety spoken on Barbados. Winford looks closely at the historical background, dividing the history of Bajan into four phases and discussing the sociohistorical framework for language contact in each of these, and at possible sources of select structural features of Bajan, mostly in the tense and aspect system, in British dialects and African languages. His conclusion is that a West African substrate influence has resulted in the structural reanalysis and modification of an English dialectal input largely from southwestern England and also, in some instances, from Hiberno-English. More generally, he suggests that intermediate varieties of Caribbean creoles like Bajan are not accounted for adequately by a conventional decreolization

12

INGRID NEUMANN-HOLZSCHUH AND EDGAR W . SCHNEIDER

scenario but have existed alongside more "basilectal" variants from early phases in the settlement of a community. In his view, these varieties emerged through a process of language shift to the target language, dialects of the superstrate, a process during which this superstrate was reanalysed and restructured to varying degrees. Using data from Earlier African American English in South Carolina as evidence, Alexander Kautzsch and Edgar W. Schneider suggest that the notion of "differential creolization" accounts for different degrees of creoleness that can be documented in the performances of speakers from different parts of that state. After an initial discussion of the theoretical background and of earlier assumptions on the relationship between Gullah and AAVE, they propose a "rainbow hypothesis" of variation in South Carolina, claiming that the number of creole features in idiolectal grammars decreases in correlation with the in­ creasing distance from the coast, which at the same time correlates with a de­ creasing African American proportion of a sub-region's population. Both a structural analysis of several idiolects and an implicational arrangement of idiolectal grammars from three sub-regions of the state largely confirm this hypothesis, and also serve to document the special situation of Horry County on the coast, for which possible reasons are proposed. Graphic displays suggest structural ranges of more or less creolized individual and regional grammars. Magnus Huber provides a rare case study of an early phase of an on­ going restructuring process. He investigates records of the "broken English" jargon as spoken in the 1810s by "Liberated Africans" (recaptives from slave ships) who settled in independent villages near Freetown, Sierra Leone. Attes­ tations of individual structural phenomena in a missionary's notes are docu­ mented, interpreted, and compared to dates of earliest attestations of features in Krio and West African Pidgin English. It is shown that the liberated Africans' variety constitutes largely an independent development, mostly uninfluenced by and without influence on Krio. Remarkably, the emergence of this jargon is accounted for predominantly by the impact of foreigner talk on the side of the superstrate speakers involved in the contact situation — a set of words and phrases found useful for the communication with indigenous peoples. In the light of recent phonological theory Ingo Plag and Christian Uffmann look into the phonotactic restructuring of loan words in early Sranan and, more specifically, into the causes of the emergence of paragogic vowels. In four 18th century text sources they investigate the conditions that determine the occurrence and the choice of epenthetic vowels, employing a sophisticated statistical factor analysis approach. They find diachronic changes in phonological effects and compare these to an analysis of related effects in three African substrate languages that are known to have influenced Sranan, disclos­ ing significant parallels but also some differences. Thus, their central claim is that paragoge in Sranan satisfies syllable structure constraints (but not rules)

INTRODUCTION

13

transferred from substrate languages, modified by universals of second language acquisition and dialect mixing. Peter Mühlhäusler discusses quite a different type of restructuring pro­ cess, thus opening a new perspective, viz. the evolution of lexical rather than structural patterns. He argues that ecological conditions and the social needs of a community exert an influence upon the evolution of folk classification systems. This general point is underscored by a detailed documentation of the emergence of terms for fauna and flora in Tok Pisin on five levels of generali­ zation, based upon early word lists and dictionaries. A few general insights into the principles governing the evolution of this word field can be gained. Robert Chaudenson focusses upon two communities which are of special importance in the discussion of the degrees of restructuring: Réunion and St. Barthélémy. On both of these islands basilectal creoles coexist with varieties of the base language, with the latter, the "patois" in St. Barth and a creolized variety of French in Réunion, representing earlier stages preceding the evolution of the respective creoles. To understand why creoles differ in terms of their distances to the base language, scholars must investigate not only the specific sociolinguistic and demographic histories of the respective regions, the author argues, but also the diachronic processes that have shaped creoles out of nonstandard varieties of their base languages — processes that may vary considerably from one region to another. Due to the different situations in the creolophone communities, the restructuring processes differed as to their radicalness and speed: not only are there differences between various creoles with the same base language, but usually there is also a high degree of intralinguistic variation within a single creole-speaking community. In this respect both islands provide perfect examples of the "continuum interlinguistique" charac­ teristic of many creolophone communities. Among the French-based Creoles Louisiana Creole is considered a "con­ servative" variety, given the fact that it retained more superstrate features than other creoles. In this variety the structural break with French has not been as radical as for example in the case of Haiti, where the demographic and sociolin­ guistic conditions were quite different. Ingrid Neumann-Holzschuh argues that in order to measure degrees of restructuring it is necessary not only to have a close look at earlier stages of the creoles and the base languages involved, but also, as far as morphosyntax is concerned, to examine each grammatical cate­ gory separately — which is what she sets out to do, focussing upon examples from Louisiana French Creole. It can be shown that in a diachronic perspective the Atlantic French Creoles display a high degree of similarity during their early stages of creolization, with present-day differences typically having emerged only later in their histories; furthermore, the "radicalness" of restructuring tends to vary from category to category. Consequently, restructuring appears as a dif­ ferential process that does not necessarily affect the entire grammatical system of a language at the same time and to the same degree. A related question that

14

INGRID NEUMANN-HOLZSCHUH AND EDGAR W . SCHNEIDER

arises in this context is whether it is actually possible to measure the degree of divergence from the base language, a problem that has already been discussed in a similar vein in the study of the evolution of the Romance languages. The central question of Armin Schwegler's article is why certain languages appear to have resisted restructuring (used by this author in the sense of "decreolization"). It has long been held that extensive, prolonged exposure of a creole to a socially dominant superstrate necessarily causes decreolization or restructuring. Palenquero is one of those rare creole languages which appear to have escaped decreolization or restructuring altogether. Analyzing a series of Palenquero phonetic and grammatical features, Schwegler is able to show that Palenquero indeed appears to have remained surprisingly stable in spite of the 300 years of heavy Spanish/creole bilingualism: There is no continuum, no "inbetween" in terms of lects. Palenque presents a situation of language abandon­ ment rather than language change. The local creole is simply dying out, without suffering the natural effects of gradual neglect. As regards degrees of restruc­ turing, Palenquero is a troublesome case: Given the prolonged heavy bilin­ gualism and centuries-old intensive code-switching, the Palenqueros have had ample opportunity to "adjust" the structure of their local language to the super­ strate — yet they have not done so, having kept the systems neatly separate for at least a century. Palenquero has not become more heterogeneous by introduc­ ing variant hybrid elements. The subject of John Lipski's contribution is the Afro-Hispanic bozal language as spoken in various places in the Caribbean. He claims that the habla bozal was by and large a transitory phenomenon, emerging in different guises in each Afro-Hispanic speech community and reconverging with native varieties of Spanish within a single generation. In his view, claims to the effect that AfroCaribbean bozal Spanish, particularly from 19th century Cuba, coalesced into a true creole are in large measure overstated, although creolization undoubtedly occurred in isolated slave barracks and maroon communities. The study addresses the difference between restructuring and creolization of bozal Spanish by examining the beginnings of a new verb system, based on a combination of Yoruba-like constructions and hybrid combinations, which emerged in Cuban bozal Spanish during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, only to disappear as subsequent generations of Afro-Cubans acquired Spanish natively. Due to its limited spread as a native language, Afro-Hispanic bozal language never underwent complete restructuring. In its least coherent form Caribbean bozal was a structurally reduced variety of Spanish sharing features with other learn­ ers' modes and not likely to coalesce into a stable creole. By treating contactinduced bozal Spanish as a steadily evolving interlanguage rather than as the product of interrupted transmission which produces creolization, a more accu­ rate picture of events shaping 19th century Afro-Caribbean Spanish can be obtained.

INTRODUCTION

15

Jürgen Lang examines restructuring within Capverdian Creole, demon­ strating that certain structures in its verbal system can be assigned to either of two different levels, the "center" or the "periphery". According to Lang, this bipartite verbal system is a product of two different kinds of reanalysis. During creolization slaves were exposed to a linguistic system they were not familiar with. Faced with urgent communication needs, they analysed these patterns in the light of structures they were familiar with. This kind of "reanalysis" has produced structures which may still evoke the original Portuguese forms on the surface but are much closer to corresponding substrate structures on the seman­ tic and functional level. These structures constitute the center of the creole grammar, with others, borrowed at a later time when the creole already existed, remaining much closer to the lexifier in both respects. Thus, divergences between Portuguese and Creole are relatively deep within this central stock of forms, while at the "periphery" the creole and its base language tend to con­ verge structurally. For a variety of reasons, several other papers given at the Regensburg confer­ ence do not appear in this volume; these include the following: Dany Adone (Northern Territory University): "Restructuration and innovation in creoliza­ tion"; Jacques Arends (Amsterdam): "Sociohistorical factors in the development of complementa­ tion in Saramaccan and Sranan"; Angela Barrens (Helsinki): "Existe-t-il un modèle de semi-créolisation qu'on puisse déceler à partir des systèmes verbaux du portugais brésilien vernaculaire, de l'espagnol carabéen vernaculaire, du réunionnais, de l'afrikaans et de l'anglais afro-américain vernaculaire?"; Annegret Bollée (Bamberg): "La restructuration du pluriel nominal dans les créoles français de L'Océan Indien"; Lawrence D. Carrington (Mona, Jamaica): "Fuzzy labels and fuzzy systems — a critical appraisal of terminology in the study of language contact"; Hildo Honorio do Couto (Brasilia): "Anti-creole"; Katherine Green (New York/Paris): "Semi-creolization as a model for non-standard Domini­ can Spanish"; Frans Hinskens (Nijmegen): "The diachrony of R-deletion in Negerhollands: Phonological and sociolinguistic aspects"; John McWhorter (Berkeley): "Identifying the creole prototype: Vindicating a typological class"; Pieter Muysken (Amsterdam): "Restructuring in Ecuadorian Quechua"; Matthias Perl (Mainz): "Kolonial-Deutsch as restructured German"; Lambert Félix Prudent (Martinique): "Maturation et maturité du créole martiniquais: Retour sur quelques étapes historiques et comparaison avec des systèmes voisins";

16

INGRID NEUMANN-HOLZSCHUH AND EDGAR W . SCHNEIDER

Norval Smith and Tonjes Veenstra (Amsterdam and Potsdam): "Synthetic compounds in a radical creole: Abrupt versus gradual change"; Peter Stein (Regensburg): "Au milieu du gué: Quelques réflexions à propos de l'origine et de l'avenir des langues créoles"; Sali Tagliamonte (York, UK): "Patterns of restructuring in FUTURE temporal reference: A cross-linguistic perspective on go"; Albert Valdman (Indiana): "Lexical restructuring in French-based creoles"; Daniel Véronique (Paris), "Négation et marqueurs pré-prédicatifs dans les créoles français: émergences et restructurations". Having documented the breadth and versatility of the topic and the conflicting positions that can be found on various aspects, we will refrain from concluding with an overall summary, which would overstate or exclude some aspects by necessity. One thing has become clear, though: Whatever happens in the pro­ cess of "restructuring", and however it can be explained that the results of this process come in varying degrees, the ultimate background for all these pro­ cesses is the sociolinguistic, psychological and historical framework of the interaction between groups of human beings on a permanent basis, with all the conflicts and opportunities that this entails. In that sense, creolistics is probably best seen as but a branch of a flourishing, more comprehensive discipline of contact linguistics (Thomason/Kaufman 1988; Thomason 1996). Language contact and the social and linguistic conditions underlying it are the parameters decisive in shaping the degrees of restructuring in any instance of creolization. Acknowledgements A number of institutions, colleagues, assistants and friends contributed to the success of the 1998 Regensburg conference and to the production of this volume. We would therefore like to extend our warmest thanks to the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, Bonn) and the Regensburger Universitätsstiftung Hans Vielberth for having provided funding for the con­ ference; our support staff in Regensburg (Heidi Eidelloth, Andreas Hiltscher, Alex Kautzsch, Katharina Schwindt, Verena Sopott, Hildegard Spreider, Bettina Tragi, Christian Wagner) for having greatly helped us in organizing and running the conference and for guaranteeing a cheerful atmosphere; several student and research assistants (Karolin Heil, Michael Hierl, Magnus Huber, Alex Kautzsch, Holger Saurenbach, Regina Trüb) for having assisted in the editing of this book; and Jacques Arends as the series editor in charge of this volume for his advice and support.

INTRODUCTION

17

References Adone, Dany and Ingo Plag, eds. 1994. Creolization and Language Change. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Arends, Jacques. 1993. "Towards a gradualist model of creolization". In Francis Byrne and John Holm, eds. Atlantic Meets Pacific: A Global View of Pidginization and Creoli­ zation. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins, 371-80. —, ed. 1995. The Early Stages of Creolization. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. Bickerton, Derek. 1981. Roots of Language. Ann Arbor: Karoma. Bollée, Annegret. 1982. "Die Rolle der Konvergenz bei der Kreolisierung". In P. Sture Ureland, ed., Die Leistung der Strataforschung und Kreolistik: Typologische Aspekte der Sprachkontakte. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 391-405. — and Ingrid Neumann-Holzschuh. 1993. "Pour une grammaire historique des créoles". In Jürgen Schmidt-Radefeldt and Andreas Harder, eds. Sprachwandel und Sprach­ geschichte. Festschrift für Helmut Lüdtke zum 65. Geburtstag. Tübingen: Narr, 9-21. Bruyn, Adrierme. 1995. Grammaticalization in Creoles: The Development of Determiners and Relative Clauses in Sranan. Amsterdam: IFOTT. Chaudenson, Robert. 1992. Des îles, des hommes, des langues. Essai sur la créolisation linguistique et culturelle. Paris: L'Harmattan. Hall, Robert A. 1966. Pidgin and Creole Languages. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Harris, Alice C. and Lyle Campell. 1995. Historical Syntax in Cross-linguistic Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hazaël-Massieux, Guy. 1993. "The African filter in the genesis of Guadeloupean Creole: At the confluence of genetics and typology". In Salikoko Mufwene, ed. Africanisms in Afro-American Language Varieties. Athens, London: University of Georgia Press, 109-22. Langacker, Ronald W. 1977. "Syntactic reanalysis". In Charles Li, ed. Mechanisms of Syntactic Change. Austin: University of Texas Press, 59-139. Lehmann, Christian. 1995. Thoughts on Grammaticalization. München, Newcastle: Lincom Europa. LePage, Robert and Andrée Tabouret-Keller. 1985. Acts of Identity: Creole-based Approaches to Language and Ethnicity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McWhorter, John. 1998. "Identifying the creole prototype: Vindicating a typological class". Language 74: 788-818. Mufwene, Salikoko. 1996. "The Founder Principle in creole genesis". Diachronica 13: 83134. Mühlhäusler, Peter. 1998. "How creoloid can you get?". Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 13:355-371. Muysken, Pieter and Norval Smith, eds. 1986. Substrata versus Universals in Creole Gene­ sis. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. Plag, Ingo. 1994. "Creolization and language change: A comparison". In Dany Adone and Ingo Plag, eds. 1994:3-21.

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Posner, Rebecca. 1985. "Creolization as typological change. Some examples from Romance syntax". Diachronica 2: 167-188. Rickford, John. 1983. "What happens in decreolization". In Roger Anderson, ed. Pidginisation and Creolization as Second Language Acquisition. Rowley, MA: Newbury House, 298-319. Schneider, Edgar W. 1990. "The cline of creoleness in English-oriented creoles and semicreoles of the Caribbean". English World-Wide 11: 79-113. —. 1998. "Negation patterns and the cline of creoleness in English-oriented varieties of the Caribbean". In Pauline Christie, Barbara Lalla, Velma Pollard and Lawrence Carrington, eds. Studies in Caribbean Language II. Papers from the Ninth Biennial Conference of the Society for Caribbean Linguistics, 1992, 204-227. Singler, John Victor. 1996. "Theories of creole genesis, sociohistorical considerations, and the evaluation of evidence: The case of Haitian Creole and the Relexification Hypothesis". Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 11: 185-230. Thomason, Sarah G. 1997. "A typology of contact languages". In Arthur K. Spears and Donald Winford, eds. 1997. The Structure and Status of Pidgins and Creoles. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins, 71-88. — and Terrence Kaufman. 1988. Language Contact, Creolization and Genetic Linguistics. Berkeley: University of California Press. —, ed. 1996. Contact Languages: A Wider Perspective. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins.

Semi-creoHzation: Problems in the development of theory

John Holm Coimbra University

1.

Introduction

The past decade has brought an intensification of the search for a theoretical model that can adequately account for the known historical and linguistic facts surrounding partially restructured languages like African American Vernacular English, Afrikaans, and nonstandard varieties of Brazilian Portuguese, Carib­ bean Spanish and Réunionnais French. There are several reasons for this. On the practical side, the varieties themselves — with some 200 million speakers around the world — are far too important to ignore, and the problems they present — for example, in education — show no signs of going away. There has also been a shift in theoretical perspective that is facilitating progress in this area of inquiry. More linguists working in creolistics are coming to see the field as only one part of a broader area of research: contact linguistics, as defined by Thomason (1997). The scope of this wider field includes language varieties that have resulted not only from pidginization and creolization (to whatever degree) but also from such processes as intertwining (Bakker and Muysken 1994), koineization or indigenization (Siegel 1997). Such studies promise to increase our understanding of the range of possible outcomes of language contact by encompassing varieties that fail to fit neatly into the defini­ tional boxes in which we have often tried to restrict pidgin and creole linguis­ tics. This paper examines how scholarship on each of the above-mentioned five semi-creoles — representing five different lexical bases — has taken its own course. Although language barriers can be surprisingly effective in limiting the horizons of linguists, there has been a certain amount of communication across these barriers so that research on one variety has sometimes cast light on theoretical problems connected with another. After surveying views on partial versus full language restructuring as creolistics developed (Section 2), this study 1)1 would like to thank Paul Roberge for his thoughtful comments on parts of this paper. Responsibility for any shortcomings, however, remains solely my own.

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JOHN HOLM

will examine scholarship on each variety, beginning with AAVE (Section 3). To a limited extent (especially in more recent years) AAVE studies have provided models for interpreting the historical development of the other varieties, from the model of a purely European dialect reflecting general western European tendencies (e.g. loss of inflections), to the model of a post-creole retaining substratal features, to the model of differing degrees of restructuring that reflect social factors such as the initial proportion of native to non-native speakers of the lexical source language. This review of the theoretical underpinnings of research on AAVE will then be compared with work on the other four semicreoles examined in this study: Brazilian Vernacular Portuguese (Section 4), Nonstandard Caribbean Spanish (Section 5), Afrikaans (Section 6) and Réunionnais (Section 7). The conclusion (Section 8) describes a project to coor­ dinate research on semi-creolization and the theoretical model it yielded.

2.

Semi-creolization versus decreolization

Although the theoretical foundations for the study of fully creolized languages have been developing for over two centuries, linguists have had more difficulty developing an adequate theoretical model for dealing with partially creolized languages. References to what can only be interpreted as more and less fully creolized varieties date from the latter part of the eighteenth century (e.g. Oldendorp 1777: 263). However, it was not until the late nineteenth century that a linguist observed that there were language varieties that combined features of creoles with those of non-creoles. Schuchardt (1889: 480) coined the term Halbkreolisch (i.e. semi-creole) for certain varieties of Indo-Portuguese and Caribbean Creole French that had taken on superstrate features — varieties that would today be called decreolized varieties. He also noted that American Black English seemed to be losing its creole features (Schuchardt ca. 1893, in Gilbert 1985: 42). In this view, AAVE originated as a full creole that later acquired non-creole features from contact with regional English. Later Bloomfield (1933: 474) reasoned that a restructured variety of English had become nativized among Negro slaves in many parts of America. When the jargon has become the only language of the subject group, it is a creolized language. The creo­ lized language has the status of an inferior dialect of the masters' speech. It is subject to constant leveling-out and improvement in the direction of the latter. The various types of "Negro dialect" which we observe in the United States show us some of the last stages of this leveling. With the improvement of social conditions, this leveling is accelerated; the result is a caste-dialect [...] This view was not elaborated into a full-blown theory of decreolization until interest in AAVE and the English-based Caribbean creoles became widespread in the 1960s and it was reasserted by Stewart (1968: 51-2). DeCamp (1961,

SEMI-CREOLIZATION: PROBLEMS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THEORY

21

1971) developed the idea of a continuum of lects for Jamaican, ranging from the most creole-like to the most English-like. Stewart (1965) applied this idea to AAVE and later the continuum model was further refined by others (e.g. Bickerton 1973; Rickford 1987). By the end of the 1970s there was a general assumption that decreolization explained the varying structural distance between different creoles and their lexical source language: Caribbean creoles based on English, for example, were actually post-creoles at different stages of decreolization away from a very early fully creolized variety (that may have resembled the modern Surinamese creoles) which had been cut off from contact with English in the seventeenth century. The idea behind the modern meaning of semi-creole, on the other hand, originated quite independently of the actual word. In 1897 Hesseling had pointed out that "the Dutch on the Cape was on the way to becoming a sort of creole [... but] this process was not completed" (1979 translation: 12). The first recognition of a whole category of semi-creole languages can be found in Reinecke (1937: 61): In several instances the slaves were so situated among a majority or a large minority of whites (and there were other reasons as well for the result), that they, or rather their creole children, learned the common language, not a creole dialect; or the plantation creole dialects that had begun to form never crystal­ lized, never got beyond the makeshift stage. This happened in [...] Brazil, Cuba and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean countries in general, and in the southern United States in general.

Reinecke was also the first to put this meaning together with the term "semicreolized", which he used in reference to Afrikaans (1937: 559). Bloomfield (1933) had indirectly implied that a non-creole language might take on creole features — a process that could lead to the formation of a semi-creole — when he asked "whether the creolized English of the southern slaves, for instance, may not have influenced local types of sub-standard or even of standard English" (1933: 474). Later Silva Neto (1950a: 12) followed Schuchardt (1889) in referring to re-lusitanized Indo-Portuguese as a semi-crioulo. That same year he extended the use of the term to the Portuguese spoken by non-whites during the early settlement of Brazil (1950b: 166). Although he never spelled out the sequence of social and linguistic events that may have led to a semi-creole from the very beginning, this was the working hypothesis of later studies of the development of Brazilian Vernacular Portuguese (Holm 1984). Thomason, working on a comparative study of a number of different kinds of languages resulting from contact (Thomason and Kaufman 1988), also reserved the term semi-creole for varieties that appeared never to have been fully creolized. Thus the term was contrasted with

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JOHN HOLM

[...] post-creole varieties such as (according to some) American Black English [...] or vernacular Brazilian Portuguese. [...] Others would call these varieties semi-creoles, which also means that they have both creole and non-creole features but does not necessarily imply that they were ever basilectal creoles, since both creoles and non-creoles (e.g. Caymanian English...) can become semi-creoles by borrowing features. Thus some believe that Afrikaans [...] particularly the variety spoken by some people of mixed race [...] could safely be called a semi-creole but not a post-creole. (Holm 1988-89,1: 9-10)

The term is also used in this sense by Thomason and Kaufman in reference to Afrikaans (1988: 148). Around the same time, Mufwene (1987: 99) referred to the possible "half-creolization" of AAVE. Bickerton (1984: 176-8) had pro­ posed what he called a pidginization index to explain why the structure of some creoles is quite close to that of their lexical source language (e.g. Réunionnais) while that of others is quite far from it (e.g. Saramaccan). Although the mathe­ matical formula which Bickerton proposed to indicate the degree of restructur­ ing proved "unworkable" (Singler 1990: 645), he did recognize that creoles stand at different distances from their source languages in terms of the degree of restructuring that they have undergone, and that this differentiation could occur at the beginning rather than the end of the process of restructuring. It was during this period that linguists began to question whether decreolization alone could, in fact, adequately account for the varying distance of the structure of different creoles from that of their lexical source language. Hancock (1987) put it thus: I do not, then, believe that, for example, Black English was once like Gullah, or that Gullah was once like Jamaican, or that Jamaican was once like Sranan, each a more decreolized version of the other along some kind of mystical con­ tinuum. [...] My feeling is that most of the principal characteristics that each creole is now associated with were established during the first twenty-five years or so of the settlement of the region in which it came to be spoken: Black English has always looked much the way it looks now [...] (1987: 264-5)

3.

African American Vernacular English

The decreolization theory for the origin of AAVE — the "creolist" theory that finally received the imprimatur of Labov (1982) — was a much more satisfac­ tory explanation for that variety's creole features than earlier hypotheses that traced its origins solely to British dialects. However, my work on the lexicons of two much more creole-like varieties — Nicargua's Miskito Coast Creole English (Holm 1978) and Bahamian Creole English (Holm and Shilling 1982) — made it clear that archaic and regional British English must have played a primary role in the genesis of all three African American varieties. Research on

SEMI-CREOLIZATION: PROBLEMS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THEORY

23

possible British origins of specific creole grammatical features had been un­ fashionable in the 1970s, but in the 1980s two such studies — Schneider (1981; translated in 1989) and Rickford (1986) — had an important impact on the field, reopening the question of the degree to which British syntactic patterns had been preserved in African American varieties. Further doubt regarding some of the basic assumptions of decreolization theory grew out of my work with several non-creoles that appeared to have acquired creole features: White Bahamian English (Holm 1980), and Caymanian and Bay Island English (Washabaugh 1983; Warantz 1983), leading to the conclusion that Although long contact with creolized varieties of English has influenced the English spoken by white Caymanians and their kin on the Bay Islands of Honduras, this influence seems to be confined largely to areal contact phenomena such as word-borrowing and phonological shifts. Considering the English system of verbal inflections in the speech of Utila [...] as opposed to the system of pre verbal tense and aspect markers that characterizes  [entrai] A[merican] E[nglish] creoles [...] the former would seem to be not a creole but rather a regional variety of English influenced by contact with creolized English, much like the folk-speech of the southern United States. (Holm 1983: 15) The most convincing evidence I found that decreolization alone could not account for the present structure of AAVE was listening to tape recordings of the speech of former slaves (Bailey et al., eds. 1991). Even taking into account that their speech may have shifted considerably between their childhood in the mid nineteenth century and the time they were recorded in the 1930s and later, it was clearly a variety of English with some creole features rather than a variety of creole with some English features: The present study supports the view that the language of the ex-slaves, like earlier attestations of the speech of blacks in the American South, indicates in the light of the relevant sociohistorical and demographic data discussed above that the language of blacks born in North America (outside of the Gullah area) was from its very beginning a semi-creole representing a compromise between the creole of slaves imported from the West Indies and the regional speech of British settlers. While American Black English has certainly undergone de­ creolization over the past 300 years in the sense that it has replaced many of its original creole features with those of English, this is not actually evidence that American Black English itself ever constituted an autonomous creole system. (Holm 1991: 247) A more radical view (which seems inherently unlikely, given what is known about language contact phenomena) is that the very concept of decreolization is misguided, and that it played no role in the development of varieties such as Gullah and AAVE. Mufwene (1991: 382-3) seems to support such a view.

24

JOHN HOLM

Schneider (1990) re-examined the idea of "creoleness" as a graded phenomenon in reference to varieties of English and English-based creoles in the Caribbean area with a view to casting light on the debate over the creole origin of AAVE (Schneider 1989). He concluded that the question as to whether or not a particular variety is a creole can be very difficult to answer: There is a variety of constitutive factors that contribute independently to the notion, and the label applies to some language varieties better than to others, without implying that the latter are necessarily "non-creoles". We may distin­ guish prototypical, or full, creoles that combine all or almost all of these features from varieties that are less typical of the category. Even the notion of semi-creoles does not seem to be very helpful in this dilemma, because its applicability, if not defined too loosely, seems limited, and should not be taken to include the non-prototypical — but nevertheless true — creoles. [...] In linguistic matters, more and less are frequently more appropriate responses than yes and no. (Schneider 1990: 105-6) While Schneider believes that the term semi-creole is not helpful because of its limited applicability (despite the importance of these varieties, as discussed above), there are others who dismiss the validity of the very notion: There can be no such thing, of course, as partial pidginization or partial creolization (this is why the terms post-creole, semi-creole, and creoloid are impre­ cise), just as there is no such thing as partial pregnancy. (Kaye 1990: 301) Recent work on AAVE has focused increasingly on those sociohnguistic factors which have long been considered relevant to the study of full creóles (e.g. demographic figures suggesting the proportion of native versus non-native speakers during the early period of language contact) but which have not been systematically explored for AAVE until now. Winford (1997, 1998) traces the social histories of Virginia and the Carolinas, citing early demographic figures from Wood (1989), and compares the key structures in Gullah, AAVE and Southern White Vernacular English, concluding that "AAVE was never itself a creole, but it was created by Africans, and bears the distinctive mark of that creation" (1998: 152). A similar position has been taken by Rickford (1997); Mufwene also suggests that AAVE "may simply have resulted from a restruc­ turing which was not as extensive as what produced Gullah" (fc). Finally, Hackert and Holm (fc.) have shown that the only hard evidence ever offered for the full creolization of AAVE resulted from a historical misin­ terpretation: the creole nature of the folk speech on the southern Bahamian islands should not be interpreted as evidence that AAVE had been fully creolized on the mainland before 1780 (and later decreolized) since the language that was brought there was in all likelihood eighteenth-century Gullah rather than eighteenth-century AAVE.

SEMI-CREOLIZATION: PROBLEMS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THEORY

4.

25

Brazilian Vernacular Portuguese

The history of the study of BVP from a language contact perspective has been outlined by Holm (1987) and updated by Mello (1997). The similarity of some of BVP's structural features to those of Portuguese-based creoles was pointed out over a century ago by Coelho (1880-86 [1967:170]), who concluded that it shows a tendency towards creolization, but many Brazilian linguists still resist the view that the development of BVP involved significant restructuring. They have done studies of how the Brazilian lexicon has been influenced by indige­ nous languages like Tupi (Sampaio 1928; Marroquim 1934) or African languages (Raimundo 1933; Mendonça 1933 [1973]), but in general they have followed the advice of Melo (1946), who cautioned against exaggerating the importance of such external influences when parallels could be found in archaic or regional usages in Portugal. However, Silva Neto (1950b: 131) asserted that creole and what he called "semi-creole" (semi-crioulo) varieties of Portuguese had existed in Brazil, defining the latter as closer to the European variety but not speculating as to how they had evolved. Révah (1963) discounted substratal influence on BVP in favor of a general tendency toward simplification of morphology in western European languages, a line of thought taken up later by Naro and Lemle (1976). They assumed that BVP was in the process of losing number agreement rules, which were being obscured by certain phonological rules. Among non-Brazilian linguists, Valkhoff (1966) identified BVP features shared by Portuguese-based créoles as evidence of the latter's influence on it. Jeroslow did a detailed study of a rural dialect (1974) that led her to suspect prior creolization (1975). Guy (1981) examined the same BVP phenomenon as Naro and Lemle (1976) but reached the opposite conclusion, i.e. that number agreement in BVP was spreading as a final stage in decreolization, comparable to that of AAVE in the United States. In 1981 the Brazilian linguist Celso Cunha called for the study of BVP from the perspective of modern creole studies, the goal of Holm (1984, 1987, 1992b), who concluded that partial re­ structuring was clearly evident in the BVP varieties of Helvecia (Silveira Ferreira 1985) and Ceará (Jeroslow 1974), and began attempting to work out the development of BVP as the product of semi-creolization. This approach has been taken up by Baxter (1992, 1997), who evaluates the importance of creole-like features through quantitative methods, and in the recent work of some Brazilian linguists such as Couto (1997) and Careno (1997). The most comprehensive of these is Mello (1997).

26 5.

JOHN HOLM

Non-standard varieties of Caribbean Spanish (NSCS)

NSCS is spoken by a substantial portion of Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Cubans, and coastal Venezuelans and Colombians, as well as many of the Spanish speakers of New York City and Miami. Research since the 1960s indicates that a number of features in these varieties have parallels in Spanish-based Carib­ bean creoles. An overview of these studies can be found in Granda (1975, 1987, 1998) and Green (1997), the sources of part of the following summary. One of the earliest references to external influence on a variety of Carib­ bean Spanish is that of Sandoval (1627; reprint 1956: 94), who describes the language spoken by Africans on the coast of what is today Colombia as corrupt Spanish influenced by the Portuguese they call the language of Sao Tomé. This and the emergence of Palenquero Creole Spanish nearby provide sufficient evidence that a Spanish-based pidgin built on Afro-Portuguese did in fact exist in the Caribbean, but it does not confirm the speculation of Bickerton and Escalante (1970: 262) that there existed "a Spanish-based creole spoken in many parts of the Caribbean during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries" since there is no evidence that pidgins or jargons spoken elsewhere in the region ever developed into stable creoles. One such pidgin or jargon was the habla bozal spoken by the large influx of Africans brought to Cuba in the first half of the nineteenth century to work that country's sugar plantations. Pichardo (1862: vii, iii) described their "mutilated Castilian, without concord, number declension or conjugation", but noted that "Negroes born in Cuba talk like the local whites" (my translation). Van Name (1869-70: 125) referred to it as only "the beginning of proper Creole" — an assessment later confirmed by Reinecke (1937: 271). Van Name was also among the first to recognize that Curaçao's Papiamentu was a creole language rather than a dialect of Spanish. Although Cuba's habla bozal was never nativized as a creole, it did leave its traces in the local vernacular; Ortiz (1924) documented its lexicon of African origin. Still, most linguists in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean remained reluc­ tant to admit any significant influence of African languages on local Spanish. Henríquez Ureña (1940: 130, 169), for example, described Dominican Spanish as having no more words of African origin than did general Spanish; he argued for an Andalusian origin for the alternation of /r/ and /1/, seeing African influ­ ence only in the loss of syllable-final -s. Most linguists of this period who recognized the possibility of external influence on local Spanish, such as Wagner (1949), were not from the Caribbean. Cabrera (1954) was an exception; a Cuban anthropologist who interviewed older people of African descent around 1930, her portrayal of their Spanish is considered accurate, revealing a number of African-like features both in their normal speech and in the special language thought to resemble that of their ancestors, used in religious contexts.

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27

An equally exceptional linguist was Alvarez Nazario (1961), who exam­ ined early texts of bozal Spanish in Puerto Rico, concluding it was a "criollo afroespañol" linking local Spanish (especially that of black communities such as Loiza Aldea) to African languages via an Afro-Portuguese pidgin. His work served to encourage others studying Caribbean Spanish from the approach of contact linguistics, and he is now recognized as one of the principle founders of Afro-Hispanic linguistics (Ortiz, ed. 1999). Another founder, de Granda (1968), identified the speech of Colombia's Palenqueros as the New World's other Spanish-based creole, and went on to identify features from African and re­ structured languages in the Caribbean vernacular, focusing on the theory of an early pan-Caribbean creole that gradually decreolized (1970, 1976, 1978). Meanwhile, Otheguy (1973), working from Cabrera's Cuban data, identi­ fied certain phonological and morphosyntactic traits in the vernacular that had survived from the habla bozal as being specifically creole features supporting the pan-Caribbean creole hypothesis (although he has since retreated from this position). Ziegler (1976, 1977) linked the bozal Spanish of Puerto Rico to that of Cuba, also arguing for decreolization. Megenney has focused on non-Penin­ sular features in the vernacular Spanish of coastal Colombia (1976), Venezuela (1985) and the Dominican Republic (1990). Lipski has provided a needed voice of skepticism coming from within the creolist camp; he has offered counter arguments to the pan-Caribbean creole theory (1993, 1994), seeing substratal influence as more likely to have come into Caribbean Spanish through imper­ fect second language acquisition. Schwegler, another creolist but one working primarily on Palenquero (1993, 1996a), has also studied the effects of restructuring on Caribbean Span­ ish (1996b). He helped organize one of the first international conferences on this topic (Moñino et al., eds. fc.) as well as the first book-length survey of Afro-Hispanic linguistics (Perl and Schwegler, eds. 1998). Perl, coming from Afro-Portuguese studies, has studied the Cuban vernacular from a creolist per­ spective (Perl 1985, 1988, 1989), as have Ortiz (1998) and Figueroa (1998). Other younger scholars who have dealt with varieties of NSCS as a semi-creole include Alvarez (1990), Lorenzino (1993, 1998) and Green (1997), the last describing a hitherto unknown basilectal variety of Dominican Spanish.

6.

Afrikaans

Afrikaans, derived from Dutch, is spoken by some five million South Africans; about half are white and the rest are of mixed ancestry. Afrikaans is unique among the language varieties examined here in that it was standardized and made an official state language. Its exhaustive documentation makes it much easier to contrast its structure to that of its lexical source language, which was actually seventeenth-century regional and nautical varieties of Dutch (much less

28

JOHN HOLM

well documented than modern standard Afrikaans). Also of particular relevance to tracing the development of Afrikaans are the nonstandard varieties spoken by various groups, particularly those of mixed race with little education. The history of the study of Afrikaans and its origins has been summarized by Reinecke et al. (1975: 323 ff.) and updated and expanded by Roberge (1993), the sources of much of the following. Hahn (1882) claimed that although Afrikaans is "phonetically Teutonic, it is psychologically an essentially Hottentot idiom" that was learned from indigenous playmates. Viljoen's 1896 dissertation, focusing mainly on the phonetic system of Afrikaans, claimed it was derived from the dialects of North Holland. Hesseling (1897) provided the first extended discussion of the origins of Afrikaans. Although he recognized the influence of Hottentot (now called Khoi), he emphasized the influence of the Malayo-Portuguese creole of early Indonesian slaves and claimed that "the Dutch on the Cape was on the way to becoming a sort of creole ... [but] this process was not completed" because of the continuing influence of metropolitan Dutch (1979 translation, 12). This characterization set off a debate that contin­ ued for a century, at times with considerable heat. Hesseling's Malayo-Portu­ guese theory was adopted by the Afrikaner Du Toit (1905) and later developed further by Valkhoff (1966, 1972). It was opposed by the "spontaneous development" theory initially pro­ posed by the Dutch linguist Kruisinga (1906), who saw Afrikaans evolving early on out of seventeenth-century Dutch dialects through what was essentially normal language transmission. This model was taken up by Afrikaans-speaking linguists such as Boshoff (1921, 1959) and Smith (1927, 1952), who agreed that Afrikaans had developed according to trends already present in earlier Dutch dialects under minimal influence from other languages. The Dutch linguist Kloeke (1950), usually included in this camp, attributed a strong "founder effect" to the South Holland speech of the first Dutch colonists. The sponteist model was later revived in a more drastic form by Van der Merwe (1963, 1968), who went so far as to claim that Afrikaans emerged within a half dozen years after the colonists' arrival (1968: 66) due to accelerated drift, and ruled out the possibility that people of color had influenced it in any significant way (1968: 29). The approach of Bosman (1923, 1947) is considered eclectic by Reinecke et al. (1975: 323), who note that "this view admitted foreign influence, chiefly from Low German colonists and Hottentots, but did not admit a situation favor­ able to outright creolization (unless of the Dutch spoken by Hottentots)". What den Besten (1987) calls the "South African philological school" came to prevail in that country from the 1960s until majority rule in 1994. Its leading writers were Scholtz (1963, 1980) and Raidt (1974, 1983, 1991), who did not concern themselves with the origins of Afrikaans as such but rather the history of specific linguistic phenomena. However, their underlying theoretical model was that of ordinary language change within varieties of Dutch acceler-

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29

ated by the influence of non-native speakers in a multilingual setting, whose speech was influenced by their first languages and had interlanguage features, but never underwent outright pidginization and creolization. During this period, both black and white South African linguists began examining nonstandard varieties of Afrikaans more closely for the light they might cast on the issue of the language's origins, including "Coloured" Afrikaans and Flytaal (Makhudu 1984), Malay Afrikaans (Kotzé 1989), and Orange River or Griqua Afrikaans (van Rensburg 1984, 1989) — the last variety having been studied in a book-length work by Rademeyer (1938). What might be called the "Amsterdam school" of Afrikaans scholars has evolved around den Besten (1985, 1986, 1993) and his colleagues, who have focused on the effects of contact with Khoi and other languages. They see the South African school as antiquatedly Eurocentric in its approach: "If a feature can possibly be European, then it must be European", provoking the opposite complaint about their own approach: "If a feature can be a creolism, it must be a creolism" (Roberge 1993: 40). Now that South Africans are reassessing their cultural identity with the advent of majority rule, the composite identity that "creolism" suggests has become increasingly attractive, and the pendulum may swing wide off the mark in that direction.

7.

Réunionnais

The vernacular French of Réunion, a small island in the Indian Ocean, is spoken or understood by most of the 500 000 inhabitants. Although locally called créole, its structure seems to be descended mainly from that of seventeenthcentury French dialects, including maritime varieties; however, it has a number of creole features as well. The creole or non-creole identity of Réunionnais has long been the subject of considerable debate, and it is the focus of the following brief review of the literature, based largely on Chapuis (fc), rather than the other main point of contention, which is the historical relationship of Réunionnais to the fully restructured Ile de France creoles of Mauritius and the Seychelles. Adam (1883: 12-3) grouped Réunionnais with the French-based creoles: "Creole is the adaptation of French ... by and for the slaves of Africa ... in the Antilles, in Reunion and in Ile de France" (my translation). Schuchardt (1885, translated 1979: 15-7) analyzed a text of Réunionnais spoken by whites as "totally French ... foreign elements merely float on the surface [making it] ... only an apparent creole". Reinecke (1937: 526) noted that in comparison to the creole of Mauritius, "the dialect of Reunion has not departed quite so widely from the original French". Valkhoff (1964: 724) suspected authors of Réunionnais texts "of using an artificial and gallicized language which can be called 'semi-creole' " and decided

30

JOHN H O L M

that the language was a form of "Creole-influenced French rather than Frenchinfluenced Creole" ["plutôt du français créole que du créole français"] and that "there are two varieties of this Creole (without counting many intermediary nuances), namely an urban speech form and a popular speech form, and the former is more gallicized" (my translation). Vintilä-Rädulescu (1976) was the first to mention the possible influence of the Indo-Portuguese spoken by the wives of the earliest settlers in Reunion. She also realized that the mountainous relief of the islands explains the dialectal mosaic (1976: 125). Deltel (1969) proposed that there was a continuum among the different lects of Réunionnais. The most important work on Réunionnais to date is that of Chaudenson (1974 ff), who was the first to distinguish among what are now understood to be the three principal lects: (1) the Créole des Bas, spoken by the coastal Réunionnais of African, Malagasy and Indian origin; (2) the Créole des Hauts, used by the highland whites; and (3) the "urban Creole", which is strongly galli­ cized. He also proposed that Mauritian and Seychellois Creole were derived from Bourbonnais (an earlier form of Réunionnais), which has since decreolized due to the continuing presence of French on Reunion. He argued that there had been no substratal influence on Réunionnais, which had simply evolved out of the français avancé or colloquial French that had developed beyond the reach of those who would have kept it more in line with the standard. Bollée (1977: 116) argued for Mauritian and Seychellois having resulted from a higher degree of reduction than Réunionnais. Papen (1978) provided a comparative study of the grammar and social history of all three varieties, con­ cluding that Réunionnais represented a post-creole continuum. Valdman (1978) was the first to draw parallels between Réunionnais and the patois of St. Barths. Hull (1979) pointed out the difference in structure between Réunionnais and the Ile de France creoles, concluding that Maur[itian] Cr[eole] evolved on Mauritius out of a nucleus of Pidg[in] Fr[ench], with only secondary borrowings from Réunionnais] Cr[eole]. Seych[ellois] Cr[eole] derives from early Maur[itian] Cr[eole], not Réu[nionnais] Cr[eole]. He noted that Where black influence was subsequently removed, a somewhat decreolized form of Cr[eole] could remain on the island, as on Réunion, or on St. Barts [...] But on the whole Cr[eole] and French remain pyschologically distinct [... and] No 'post-Creole continuum' has formed, as in English Cr[eole]-speaking areas. (Hull 1979: 211-3) Baker and Corne (1982) also rejected Chaudenson's Bourbonnais theory, argu­ ing that Réunionnais settlers were not present in sufficient numbers on Mauri­ tius during the crucial period, while "West Africans formed a majority of the

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31

slave population of Mauritius in the period 1730-35" (1982: 241), explaining the striking parallels between the French Creoles of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In the same work, Corne pointed out that the "verbal system of R[eunion] C[reole] is fundamentally Trench' in its makeup ... [while its] Creole features ... are rather marginal" (1982: 102). In more recent work, Chaudenson (1992, 1995) has described creolization as a restructuring process that is not so different from the kind of restructuring found in normal language transmission. This would certainly account for the structure of varieties resulting from semi-creolization, such as Réunionnais, from the perspective of the present study.

8.

Conclusions

Although the research on the five main language varieties described above has followed a number of different paths that often diverge, their similarities to one another in their diachronic development and synchronic structure would clearly seem to outweigh their differences. In order to develop a more coherent theory to account for the partial restructuring of languages, I organized seminars in semi-creolization at the City University of New York between 1991 and 1998. A number of talented doctoral students participated, several of whom were themselves native speakers of likely semi-creoles or their lexical-source languages. These seminars led to publications ranging from conference papers to journal articles (e.g. Craig 1991 on American Indian English) and disserta­ tions (e.g. Mello 1997 on Brazilian Vernacular Portuguese and Green 1997 on non-standard Dominican Spanish), two of which are still in progress (Chapuis fc. on Réunionnais and Slomanson fc. on Afrikaans). The goal of these seminars was to identify the problems that needed to be solved in developing a workable theoretical model for semi-creolization by tracing the genesis of a number of partially restructured languages, comparing the results, and looking for the possible relationship between the social history of the speakers and the linguistic outcome. Some of the results were described in Holm (1992a). Building on that and Thomason and Kaufman (1988), Mello (1997) observed that a number of linguistic processes can combine to trigger partial restructuring. Green (1997) concurred, noting that what sets semi-creoli­ zation apart from other kinds of language shift is that it occurs among a shifting population speaking a number of different first languages. Bearing all these factors in mind, we propose the following theory to account for what is known about semi-creolization: If a population with different first languages shifts to a typologically distinct target language (itself an amalgam of dialects in contact, including fully re­ structured varieties) under social circumstances that partially restrict access to

32

JOHN HOLM

the target language as normally used among native speakers, the following linguistic processes occur: 1. primary leveling, preserving lexical or structural features that are archaic, regional, or rare in the target language, sometimes extending them to new contexts; 2. language drift, following internal tendencies within the target language, such as phonotactic, morphological or syntactic simplification; 3. imperfect language shift by the entire population, perpetuating structural features from ancestral languages and interlanguages in the speech of monolingual descendants; 4. language borrowing, incorporating structural features from fully pidginized or creolized varieties of the target language spoken by newcomers or found locally but confined to contiguous areas where sociolinguistic conditions were favorable to full restructuring; 5. secondary leveling, or the possible loss of features not found in the target language (from any of the above processes) if there is continued con­ tact with the target language and it is perceived to have more prestige. These processes result in a new variety with a substantial amount of the target language's structure intact, but also with a significant number of creole (e.g. substrate and interlanguage) structural features, i.e. a semi-creole (Holm 1998). Comparative work (e.g. Holm, Lorenzino and Mello 1999, contrasting the verbal systems of Nonstandard Caribbean Spanish and Brazilian Vernacular Portuguese) demonstrates the usefulness of the above theoretical model in accounting for the known facts of the historical development and synchronic structure of the five partially restructured languages examined in this study: establishing common sociolinguistic patterns in the history of varieties that make them plausible semi-creoles enables us to examine their linguistic struc­ ture aided by insights gained from studying other varieties that fall into the same category. That is to say that the concept of semi-creole is a useful gener­ alization that facilitates predictions about all members of this category. The discovery of such generalizations is what science is supposed to be about.

References Adam, Lucien. 1883. Les idiomes négro-aryen et maléo-aryen: Essai d'hybridologie linguistique. Paris: Maisonneuve. Alvarez, Alexandra. 1990. "Venezuelan Spanish: The search for a creole continuum". Ph. D. dissertation, Georgetown University. Alvarez Nazario, Manuel. 1961. El elemento afronegroide en el Español de Puerto Rico. San Juan de Puerto Rico: Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña (2nd edition, 1974).

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Arends, Jaques, Pieter Muysken and Norval Smith, eds. 1994. Pidgins and Creoles: An Introduction. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. Bailey, Guy, Natalie Maynor & Patricia Cukor-Avila, eds. 1991. The Emergence of Black English: Text and Commentary. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. Baker, Philip and Chris Corne. 1982. Isle de France Creole: Affinities and Origins. Ann Arbor: Karoma. Bakker, Peter and Pieter Muysken. 1994. "Mixed languages and language intertwining". In Jaques Arends, Pieter Muysken and Norval Smith, eds. 1994: 41-84. Baxter, Alan. 1992. "A contribuição das comunidades afro-brasileiras isoladas para o debate sobre a crioulizaçao prévia: Urn exemplo do estado da Bahia". In Ernesto d'Andrade and Alain Kihm, eds. 1992: 7-35. —. 1997. "Creole-like features in the verb system of an Afro-Brazilian variety of Portu­ guese". In Arthur Spears and Donald Winford, eds. 1997: 265-88. Bickerton, Derek. 1973. "On the nature of a creole continuum". Language 49: 640-9. —. 1984. "The language bioprogram hypothesis". Behavioral and Brain Sciences 7: 173-221. — and Aquiles Escalante. 1970. "Palenquero: A Spanish-based creole of northern Colombia". Lingua 24: 254-67. Bloomfield, Leonard. 1933. Language. London: Allen and Unwin. Bollée, Annegret. 1977. Zur Entstehung der französischen Kreolendialekte im Indischen Ozean: Kreolisierung ohne Pidginisierung. Geneva: Droz. Boshoff, S. . . 1921. Volk en Taal in Suid-Afrika. Pretoria: De Bussy. —. 1959. "Die wonder van die ontstaan van Afrikaans". In M. S. du Buisson, ed. Die Wonder van Afrikaans. Johannesburg: Voortrekkerpers, 25-35. Bosman, Daniel B. 1923. Oor die Ontstaan van Afrikaans. Amsterdam: S wets and Zeitlinger. —. 1947. "Die ontstaan van Afrikaans". In . M. van den Heever and P. de Villiers Pienaar, eds. Kultuurgeskiedenis van die Afrikaner. Cape Town, Bloemfontein and Port Eliza­ beth: Nasionale Pers, 2: 1-22. Byrne, Francis and John Holm, eds. 1993. Atlantic Meets Pacific. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. Cabrera, Lydia. 1969 [1954]. El monte. Miami: Ediciones C R . Careno, Mary F. do. 1997. Vale do Ribeira: A voz e a vez das comunidades negras. Sao Paulo: Editora Arte e Ciencia. Chapuis, Daniel, fe. "Aspects of restructuring in vernacular lects of Réunion French". Ph. D. dissertation, City University of New York. Chaudenson, Robert. 1974. Le lexique du parler créole de la Réunion. Paris: Champion. 2 vols. —. 1992. Des îles, des hommes et des langues: Essai sur la créolisation linguistique et culturelle. Paris: L'Harmattan. —. 1995. Les créoles. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Coelho, F. Adolpho. 1880-6. "Os dialectos románicos ou neolatinos na Africa, Asia, e América". Boletim da Sociedade de Geographia de Lisboa. Reprinted 1967 in Estudos Lingüísticos Crioulos, J. Moráis-Barbosa. Lisbon: Academia Internacional de Cultura Portuguesa.

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Couto, Hildo H. do. 1997. "Falar capelinhense: Urn dialeto conservador do interior de Minas Gerais". Coloquio internacional: Substandard e Mudança no Portugués do Brasil. Berlin: Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut. Craig, Beth. 1991. "American Indian English". English World-Wide 12: 25-62. Cunha, Celso. 1981. Língua, naçao, alienaçao. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Nova Fronteira. d'Andrade, Ernesto and Alain Kihm, eds. 1992. Actas do coloquio sobre crioulos de base lexical Portuguesa. Lisboa: Colibrí. DeCamp, David. 1961. "Social and geographical factors in Jamaican dialects". In R. . Le Page, ed. Creole Language Studies II Proceedings of the Conference on Creole Language Studies (University of the West Indies, Mona, 1959). London: Macmillan. —. 1971. "Towards a generative analysis of a post-creole speech continuum". In Dell Hymes, ed. 1971:349-70. Deltel, Jean-Roland. 1969. "Le Créole de la Réunion". Annales de Nice 7: 29-34. den Besten, Hans. 1985. "Die doppelte Negation im Afrikaans und ihre Herkunft". In Norbert Boretzky and Hans den Besten, eds. Akten des 1. Essener Kolloquiums über Kreol­ sprachen und Sprachkontakte vom 26.1.1985 an der Universität Essen. Bochum: Studienverlag Dr. N. Brockmeyer, 9-42. —. 1986. "Double negation and the genesis of Afrikaans". In Pieter Muysken and Norval Smith, eds. Substrata versus Universals in Creole Genesis. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 185-230. —. 1987. "Review article of Raidt 1983". Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 2: 67-92. —. 1993. "The Khoikhoi basis for the Afrikaans associative construction". Paper presented to the Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics, Amsterdam. du Toit, P. J. 1905. "Afrikaansche studies". Ph. D. dissertation, University of Ghent. Figueroa Arencibia, V. Jesús. 1998. "Rasgos semi-criollos en el español no estándar de la región suroriental cubana". In Klaus Zimmermann, ed. El segundo colóquio interna­ cional de lenguas criollas de base española y portuguesa. Frankfurt: Vervuert. Gilbert, Glenn G. 1985. "Hugo Schuchardt and the Atlantic créoles: A newly discovered manuscript 'On the Negro English of West Africa' ". American Speech 60: 31-63. —, ed. 1987. Pidgin and Creole Languages: Essays in Memory of John E. Reinecke. Hono­ lulu: University of Hawaii Press. Granda, Germán de. 1968. "La tipología 'criolla' de dos hablas del área lingüística hispánica". Thesaurus 23: 193-205. 1970. "Un temprano testimonio sobre las hablas 'criollas' en Africa y América". Thesaurus 25: 1-11. 1975. "Planteamientos y necesidades actuales de los estudios lingüísticos afrohispanoamericanos". Anuario de Letras 12: 53-82. 1976. "Algunos rasgos morfosintácticos de posible origen criollo en el habla de áreas hispanoamericanas de población negra". Anuario de Letras 14: 5-22. 1978. Estudios lingüísticos hispánicos, afrohispánicos y criollos. Madrid: Editorial Gredos. 1987. "Situación actual de los estudios lingüísticos afrohispanoamericanos". Thesaurus 31:481-501.

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—. 1998. "Estudios sobre el español caribeño (1985-1995): Resumen y evaluación de resultados". In Matthias Perl and Armin Schwegler, eds. 1998: 62-9. Green, Katherine. 1997. "Non-standard Dominican Spanish: Evidence of partial restructur­ ing". Ph. D. dissertation, City University of New York. Guy, Gregory R. 1981. "Linguistic variation in Brazilian Portuguese". Ph. D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania. Hackert, Stephanie and John Holm. fc. "Southern Bahamian: Transported AAVE or trans­ ported Gullah?" Paper presented to the Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics, London. Fc. in John Lipski, ed. African American English and its Congenors. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. Hahn, Theophilus. 1882. On the Science of Language and its Study, with Special Reference to South Africa. Cape Town: Herrmann Michaelis. Hancock, Ian F. 1987. "A preliminary classification of the Anglophone Atlantic Creoles, with syntactic data from thirty-three representative dialects". In Glenn Gilbert, ed. 1987: 264-334. Henríquez Ureña, Pedro. 1987 [1940]. El Español en Santo Domingo. Santo Domingo: Editora Taller. Hesseling, D.  1897. "Het Hollandsch in Zuid Afrika". De Gids 61: 138-62; reprinted as "Dutch in South Africa" in Thomas L. Markey and Paul T. Roberge, eds. On the Origin and Formation of Creoles: A Miscellany of Articles. Ann Arbor: Karoma, 1979. Holm, John. 1978. "The Creole English of Nicaragua's Miskito Coast: Its sociolinguistic history and a comparative study of its lexicon and syntax". Ph. D. dissertation, Uni­ versity College, London. —. 1980. "African features in White Bahamian English". English World-Wide 1: 45-65. —. 1984. "Creole influence on Popular Brazilian Portuguese". Paper presented to the Society for Caribbean Linguistics, Jamaica. In Glenn Gilbert, ed. 1987: 406-29. —. 1987. "Creole influence on Popular Brazilian Portuguese". In Glenn Gilbert, ed. 1987: 406-29. —. 1988-89. Pidgins and Creoles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2 vols. —. 1989. "Do creoles have inflectional morphology?" Paper presented at the Workshop on Creole Morphology, University of Amsterdam, March 29-30. —. 1991. "The Atlantic Creoles and the language of the ex-slave recordings". In Guy Bailey, ed. 1991:231-47. —. 1992a. "A theoretical model for semi-creolization". Paper presented to the Society for Caribbean Linguistics, Barbados. —. 1992b. "Popular Brazilian Portuguese: A semi-creole". In Ernesto d'Andrade and Alain Kihm, eds. 1992:37-66. —. 1998. "The study of creóles in the 21st century". Paper presented to the Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics, New York City, January 1998. — and Alison Shilling. 1982. Dictionary of Bahamian English. Cold Spring NY: Lexik House.

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—, Gerardo A. Lorenzino and Heliana R. de Mello. 1999. "Diferentes grados de reestructuración en dos lenguas vernáculas: El español caribeño y el portugués brasileño". In Luís Ortiz, ed. El Caribe Hispánico: Perspectivas Lingüísticas Actuales. Homenaje a Manuel Alvarez Nazario. Madrid: Iberamericano/Frankfurt a. Main: Vervuert, 43-60. —, ed. 1983. Central American English. Heidelberg: Groos/Amsterdam: Benjamins. Hull, Alexander. 1979. "On the origin and chronology of the French-based creóles". In Ian Hancock, Edgar Polome, Maurice Goodman and Bernd Heine, eds. Readings in Creole Studies. Ghent: Story-Scientia, 201-16. Hymes, Dell, ed. 1971. Pidginization and Creolization of Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jereslow, E. Helen McKinney. 1974. "Rural Cearense Portuguese: A study of one variety of non-standard Brazilian Portuguese". Ph. D. disseration, Cornell University. —. 1975. "Creole characteristics in rural Brazilian Portuguese". Paper presented at the Inter­ national Congress on Pidgins and Creoles, University of Hawaii. Kaye, Alan S. 1990. "Observations on pidginistics and creolistics". Semiotica 78: 285-348. Kloeke, Gesinus G. 1950. Herkomst en Groei van Het Afrikaans. Leiden: Universitaire Pres. Kotzé, Ernst F. 1989. "How creoloid can you be? Aspects of Malay Afrikaans". In Martin Pütz and René Dirven, eds. 1989: 251-64. Kruisinga, Etsko 1906. "De oorsprong van het Afrikaans". Taal en Letteren 16: 417-39. Labov, William. 1982. "Objectivity and commitment in linguistic science: The case of the Black English trial in Ann Arbor". Language in Society 11: 165-201. Lipski, John. 1993. On the Non-creole Basis for Afro-Caribbean Spanish. Albuquerque: The University of New Mexico. —. 1994. A New Perspective on Afro-Dominican Spanish: The Haitian Contribution. Albuquerque: Latin American Institute of the University of New Mexico. Lorenzino, Gerardo. 1993. "Algunos rasgos semicriollos en el español popular dominicano". Anuario de Lingüística Hispánica 9: 111-26. —. 1998. "El español caribeño: Antecedentes sociohistóricos y lingüísticos". In Matthias Perl and Armin Schwegler, eds. 1998: 26-39. Makhudu, Dennis. 1984. "Is Afrikaans a creole language?" M. A. thesis, Southern Illinois University. Marroquim, Mario. 1934. A lingua do nordeste (Alagôas e Pernambuco). São Paulo: Companhia Editora Nacional. Megenney, William. 1976. "El elemento sub-sahárico en el léxico costeño de Colombia". Revista Española de Lingüística 6: 405-51. —. 1985. "Africa en Venezuela: Su herencia lingüística y su cultura literaria". Montalbán 15: 1-54. —. 1990. Africa en Santo Domingo: Su herencia lingüística. Santo Domingo: Editorial Tiempo. Mello, Heliana R. de. 1997. "Brazilian Vernacular Portuguese: Evidence of partial restruc­ turing". Ph. D. dissertation, City University of New York.

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Melo, Gladstone Chaves de. 1946. A lingua do Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: Livraria AGIR Editora. Reprinted 1975. Rio de Janeiro: Editora da Fundaçao Getúlio Vargas. Mendonça, Renato. 1933. A influencia africana no português do Brasil, (reprinted 1973, Rio de Janeiro: Civilizaçao Brasileira/MEC.) Moñino, Yves et al., eds. fc. Palenque, Cartagena y Afro-Caribe: Histórica y lingüística. Bogota: Ancora. Montgomery, Michael and Guy Bailey, eds. 1986. Language Variety in the South: Perspec­ tives in Black and White. University, AL: University of Alabama Press. Mufwene, Salikoko. 1987. "Review of Montgomery and Bailey, eds. 1986". Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 2: 93-110. —. 1991. "Review of Holm 1988-89". Language 67: 380-7. —. fc. "African-American English". In John Aigeo, ed. Cambridge History of the English Language, vol. 6: History of American English. Mühlhäusler, Peter. 1982. "Tok Pisin in Papua New Guinea". In Richard Bailey and Manfred Görlach, eds. English as a World Language. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 439-66. Naro, Anthony J. and Miriam Lemle. 1976. "Syntactic diffusion". In Sanford B. Steever, . A. Walker and Salikoko S. Mufwene, eds. Papers from the Parasession on Diachronie Syntax. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society, 221-40. Oldendorp, C. G. A. 1777. Geschichte der Mission der Evangelischen Brüder auf den caraibischen Inseln S. Thomas, S. Croix und S. Jan. Barby: C. F. Laur. Ortiz, Fernando. 1924. Glosario de Afronegrismos. Havana: El Siglo XX. Ortiz, López, Luis A., ed. 1999. El caribe hispánico: Perspectivas lingüísticas actuales. Homenaje a Manuel Alvarez Nazario. Frankfurt: Vervuert; Madrid: Iberomericana. Ortiz, Luís. 1998. Huellas etno-sociolingüísticas bozales y afrocubanas. Frankfurt: Vervuert; Madrid: Iberoamericana. Otheguy, Ricardo. 1973. "Spanish Caribbean: A creole perspective". In . Bailey and R. Shuy, eds. New Ways of Analyzing Variation in English. Washington: Georgetown University Press, 323-39. Papen, Robert A. 1978. "The French-based creoles of the Indian Ocean: An analysis and comparison". Ph. D. dissertation, University of California at San Diego. Perl, Matthias. 1985. "El fenómeno de descriollización del 'habla bozal' y el lenguaje coloquial de la variante cubana del español". Anuario de Lingüística Hispánica 1: 191-202. —. 1988. "Rasgos poscriollos léxicos en el lenguaje coloquial cubano". Thesaurus 43: 47-64. —. 1989. "El 'habla bozal': Una lengua criolla de base española? Anuario de Lingüística Hispánica 5: 205-20. — and Armin Schwegler, eds. 1998. América Negra: Panorámica actual de los estudios lingüísticos sobre variedades híspanas, portuguesas y criollas. Frankfurt: Vervuert; Madrid: Iberoamericana. Pichardo, Esteban. 1862. Diccionario provincial casi razonado de voces cubanas. Havana: Imprenta la Antilla.

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Pütz, Martin and René Dirven, eds. 1989. Wheels within Wheels: Papers of the Duisburg Symposium on Pidgin and Creole Languages. Frankfurt etc.: Lang. Rademeyer, J. H. 1938. Kleurling-Afrikaans: Die Taal van die Griekwas en RehobothBasters. Amsterdam: Swets and Zeitlinger. Raidt, Edith. 1974. "Nederlandse en Kaapse spreektaal in die 17de en 18de eeu". In F. Odendal, ed. Taalkunde — 'n Lewe. Studies Opgedra aan W. Kempen. Cape Town: Tafelberg, 90-104. —. 1983. Einführung in Geschichte und Struktur des Afrikaans. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftli­ che Buchgesellschaft. —. 1991. Afrikaans en sy Europese Verlede. Cape Town: Nasou. Raimundo, Jacques. 1933.  elemento afro-negro na lingua portuguesa. Rio de Janeiro: Renascença Editora. Reinecke, John. 1937. "Marginal languages: A sociological survey of the creole languages and trade jargons". Ph. D. dissertation, Yale University. —, Stanley M. Tsuzaki, David DeCamp, Ian F. Hancock and Richard E. Wood, eds. 1975. A Bibliography of Pidgin and Creole Languages. Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii. Révah, Israel S. 1963. "La question des substrats et superstrats dans le domaine linguistique brésilien: Les parlers populaires brésiliens doivent-ils être considerés comme des parlers 'créoles' ou 'semi-créoles'?". Romania 84: 433-50. Rickford, John. 1977. "The question of prior creolization in Black English". In A. Valdman, ed. Pidgin and Creole Linguistics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 190-221. —. 1986. "Social contact and linguistic diffusion: Hiberno English and New World Black English". Language 62: 245-89. —. 1987. Dimensions of a Creole Continuum. Stanford: Stanford University Press. —. 1997. "Prior creolization of African-American Vernacular English? Sociohistorical and textual evidence from the 17th and 18th centuries". Journal of Sociolinguistics 1: 31536. Roberge, Paul T. 1993. The Formation of Afrikaans. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics, Number 27. Sampaio, Theodoro. 1928. O tupí na geografia nacional. Baía: Secçao da Escola de Aprendizes. Sandoval, Padre A. de. 1627. De instauranda aethiopum salute. Seville: F. de Lira (reprinted in 1956, Bogota : Empresa Nacional de Publicaciones). Schneider, Edgar. 1981. Morphologische und syntaktische Variablen im amerikanischen Early Black English. Frankfurt: Lang. —. 1989. American Earlier Black English: Morphological and Syntactic Variables. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. —. 1990. "The cline of creoleness in English-oriented creoles and semi-creoles in the Carib­ bean". English World-Wide 11: 79-113. Scholtz, J. du Plessis. 1963. Taaihistories e Opstelle. Pretoria: J. L. van Schaik. —. 1980. Wording en Ontwikkeling van Afrikaans. Cape Town: Tafelberg. Schuchardt, Hugo. 1885. "Review of Focard's Du patois créole de l'île de Réunion". Litera­ turblatt für Germanische und Romanische Philologie 6: 513-15. Translated into

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English as "Further remarks on Réunionnais" in Thomas L. Markey, ed. 1979. The Ethnography of Variation: Selected Writings on Pidgins and Creoles. Ann Arbor: Karoma, 15-7. —. 1889. "Beiträge zur Kenntnis des kreolischen Romanisch. Allgemeineres über das Indo­ portugiesische (Asioportugiesische)". Zeitschrift für Romanische Philologie 13: 476516. Schwegler, Armin. 1993. "Subject pronouns and person/number in Palenquero". In Francis Byrne and John Holm, eds. 1993: 145-61. —. 1996a. Chi ma nkongo: Lengua y rito ancestrales en el Palenque de San Basilio (Colombia). Frankfurt: Vervuert. —. 1996b. "La doble negación dominicana y la génesis del español caribeño". Hispanic Linguistics 8: 247-315. Siegel, Jeff. 1997. "Mixing, leveling, and pidgin/creole development". In Arthur Spears and Donald Winford, eds., 111-49. Silva Neto, Serafim da. 1950a. 'Talares Crioulos". Brasilia 5: 1-28. —. 1950b. Introduçao ao Estudo da Lingua Portuguesa no Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: Departamento de Imprensa Nacional. Silveira Ferreira, Carlota da. 1985. "Remanescentes de um falar crioulo brasileiro". Revista Lusitana 5: 21-34. — and John V. Singler. 1990. "On the use of sociohistorical criteria in the comparison of creóles". Linguistics 28: 645-60. Slomanson, Peter, fc. "Language contact and syntactic change in the evolution of Afrikaans". Ph. D. dissertation, City University of New York. Smith, Johannes J. 1927. "The evolution and recognition of the Afrikaans language". Official Year Book of the Union 8: 14-23. —. 1952. Theories about the Origin of Afrikaans. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press. Spears, Arthur K. and Donald Winford, eds. 1997. The Structure and Status of Pidgins and Creoles. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. Stewart, William A. 1965. "Urban Negro speech: Sociolinguistic factors affecting English teaching". In R.W. Shuy, ed. Social Dialects and Language Learning. Champaign IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 10-18. —. 1968. "Continuity and change in American Negro dialects". Florida FL Reporter 6, reprinted in Walt Wolfram and Nona H. Clarke, eds. 1971: 51-73. Thomason, Sarah G. 1997. "A typology of contact languages". In Arthur Spears and Donald Winford, eds., 71-88. Thomason, Sarah G. and Terrence Kaufman. 1988. Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics. Berkeley: University of California Press. Valdman, Albert. 1978. Le Créole: Structure, Statut et Origine. Paris: Klincksieck. Valkhoff, Marius. 1964. "Notes socio-linguistiques sur le parler créole de la Réunion". Revue Philologique 17: 723-35. —. 1966. Studies in Portuguese and Creole with Special Reference to South Africa. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press.

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—. 1972. New Light on Afrikaans and "Malayo-Portuguese". Louvain: Editions Peeters Imprimerie Orientaliste, van der Merwe, H.J.J.M. 1963. "Die ontstaan van Afrikaans". In H.J.J.M. van der Merwe, ed. Inleiding tot die Taalkunde. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik, 67-88. —. 1968. "Die ontstaan van Afrikaans". In H.J.J.M. van der Merwe, ed. Afrikaans — sy Aard en Ontwikkeling Pretoria: J. L. van Schaik, 15-66. Van Name, Addison. 1869-70. "Contributions to creole grammar". Transactions of the American Philological Association 1: 123-67. van Rensburg, M.C.J. 1984. "Oranjerivier-Afrikaans". In M.C.J, van Rensburg, ed. Die Afrikaans van die Griekwas van die Tagtigerjare. Bloemfontein: University of the Orange Free State, 1 (2): 513-8. —. 1989. "Orange River Afrikaans: A stage in the pidgin/creole cycle". In Martin Pütz and René Dirven, eds. 1989: 135-51. Viljoen, Wilhelm J. 1896. Beiträge zur Geschichte der -holländischen Sprache. Strassburg: K. Trübner. Vintila-Rädulescu, Ioana. 1976. Le créole français. The Hague: Mouton. Wagner, Max L. 1949. Lingua e dialetti dell'America spagnola. Florence: Le Lingue Estere. Warantz, Elissa. 1983. "The Bay Islands English of Honduras". In John Holm, ed. 1983: 7194. Washabaugh, William. 1983. "Creoles of the off-shore islands: Providencia, San Andrés, and the Caymans". In John Holm, ed. 1983: 157-79. Winford, Donald. 1997. "On the origins of African American Vernacular English — A creolist perspective. Part 1: Sociohistorical background". Diachronica 14: 305-44. —. 1998. "On the origins of African-American Vernacular English — A creolist perspective. Part 2 : Linguistic features". Diachronica 15: 99-154. Wolfram, Walt and Nona H. Clarke, eds. 1971. Black-White Speech Relationships. Washington D.C.: Center for Applied Linguistics. Wood, Peter H. 1989. "The changing population of the colonial South: An overview by race and religion, 1685-1790". In Peter H. Wood et al, eds. Powhatan's Mantle: Indians in the Colonial Southeast. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 35-103. Ziegler, Douglas V. 1976. "A preliminary study of Afro-Cuban Creole". M.A. thesis, Univer­ sity of Rochester. —. 1977. "Some notes on Puerto Rican Creole Spanish". Ms.

John Holm Grupo de Estudos Anglo-Americanos Faculdade de Letras Universidade de Coimbra 3000-447 Coimbra, Portugal [email protected]

Theories of creolization and the degree and nature of restructuring

Philip Baker University of Westminster

1.

Introduction

The conference title, 'Degrees of Restructuring in Creole Languages', seems to imply that each creole can be regarded as the restructured form of another language (presumably the one typically, if somewhat misleadingly,1 termed "the lexifier" or "the target language"). The legitimacy of this depends very much on one's understanding of how creoles developed, as will be discussed below. I will also endeavour to show that the way in which creoles evolved is also relevant to the extent to which restructuring can be meaningfully measured.2

2.

Theoretical approaches

In this section, I discuss four approaches to creolization, of which the first three seem to represent extremes of opinion among creolists. I examine what "degrees of restructuring" means with respect to each of them, and identify some of what I see as their shortcomings. 2.1.

The Bickerton approach

Bickerton (1979, 1981, etc.) presents a scenario of how creoles arose in planta­ tion settings, broadly as follows. As a consequence of transporting Africans of diverse ethnolinguistic backgrounds across the Atlantic to work collectively for 1) In the discussion following one of the papers presented at the Regensburg conference, Annegret Bollée pointed out that, in referring to the main lexical source of a Creole as "its lexifier", the speaker was implying that the Creole in question had had a prior existence without any lexicon. For comment on the notion of "target language", see below. 2) I am grateful for comments received from Mikael Parkvall on an earlier draft of this article.

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Europeans as slaves in plantation societies, pidginization of the European language took place. Children born of slaves in these societies, realizing that African languages spoken by their parents were understood by relatively few people, acquired vocabulary from the pidginized varieties of the European language they heard around them but, finding these linguistically inadequate, they drew on their innate linguistic capacity — the language "bioprogram" — to make an adequate language out of this. A dozen features typical of many creoles are attributed to this "bioprogram" (1981, Chapter 2). Following creolization, Bickerton assumes that creole-speakers would have modified their speech in the direction of the European language insofar as they had access to the latter. Bickerton also denies the possibility of influence from non-European languages as creoles initially emerged from the mouths of children born to pidginspeaking parents. Bickerton's hypothesis led to the concept of a "radical creole". As Byrne (1987: 3) puts this, "the grammars of the most radical creoles come closest to approximating the unmarked state of our one, innate and genetically endowed faculté de langage". If Bickerton's hypothesis were correct, the degree of re­ structuring in each and every creole could thus be measured on a simple scale running from faculté de langage to the European language from which it draws most of its lexicon, and the possibility of influence from other sources, includ­ ing non-European languages, could be disregarded. This is in effect what he set out in Figure 1 of Bickerton (1984) locating Saramaccan as "nearest to biopro­ gram" and Reunion Creole as "furthest from bioprogram". Note that what this scale actually represents is not the extent of restructuring of the European language but, rather, the extent of restructuring of "bioprogram creole" under the influence of the European language. More recently, the words "radical creole" have been applied by creolists of diverse persuasions to any creole con­ sidered to be unusually far removed from its lexical-source language, without reference to any particular theory of creolization (cf. Parkvall in this volume). Bickerton's Language Bioprogram Hypothesis (LBH) was initially very influential and led to a considerable upsurge in research. It has, however, steadily lost support over the past decade, largely due to the findings of the research his work encouraged, for three main reasons: (i) cross-creole studies have tended to find less similarity among creoles with regard to the "bioprogram-derived" features identified in Bickerton (1981), (ii) work on old texts has suggested that these languages developed some of their "bioprogram-derived" features over a far longer period of time than claimed by Bickerton (1981), and (iii) more rigorous comparisons with relevant non-European languages have produced more compelling evidence of their influence on particular creoles. One other criticism of Bickerton's work which might be made is that only data from territories which were initially settled by people who did not already speak a creole are strictly relevant for testing his hypothesis. Guyanese and Seychelles Creoles — two of the languages he cites most frequently — are both spoken in

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territories initially settled by people who already spoke creole so are relevant to the LBH only in so far as they can be considered direct continuations of processes which had earlier taken place elsewhere. 2.2.

The gradual basilectalization approach

I will use the words "gradual basilectalization" to characterize the account of the formation of the French Creoles set out in Chaudenson (1992) and subsequently elaborated and applied to a wider range of creoles by Mufwene (e.g. 1996). The following comments relate primarily to the Chaudenson (1992) model,3 and the basic assumptions of his approach are: a) that non-Europeans arriving as slaves in territories run by Europeans identi­ fied the European language as their target; b)that the smaller the proportion of the total population which the first waves of slaves formed on arrival, and the younger they were at their time of arrival, the greater would be their progress towards acquiring their European target language, c) that later slave arrivals, in a population in which the proportion of slaves was growing, would increasingly tend to acquire approximations of the target as spoken by slaves who arrived before them rather than the target proper as spoken by Europeans; d)that these trends would continue so that, when the slave trade was at its height, the later slave arrivals would be acquiring approximations of approximations of approximations of the European target language, resulting in the basilectal Creole attested in most territories from the end of the 18th century. According to this scenario, which does not allow for the formation of a Pidgin French at any stage,4 virtually all the restructuring would be of the target language, French, and the degree of restructuring could thus be represented by a simple two-dimensional diagram. This approach also seems to imply that the degree of restructuring would be related primarily to the length of time during which slaves continued to arrive in increasing numbers in a territory, allied to the changing ratio of non-Europeans to Europeans. However, I am not aware that Chaudenson has explicitly claimed that restructuring — insofar as further approximations of approximations can be equated with this process — would 3) As indicated at the start of section 2,1 am concerned with describing what I regard as three extreme positions in 2.1 — 2.3 before dealing with more mainstream approaches. Mufwene's (1996) elaboration of the "gradual basilectalization" approach is in no sense extreme; it might be said to reconcile Chaudenson's approach with mainstream thinking while providing a principled account of how and when African influences could manifest themselves in Atlantic Creoles. 4) See Baker (1996) for critical comment on this and other aspects of Chaudenson (1992).

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necessarily continue until the rate of new slave arrivals declined (which, in most cases, would not be until the 1780s). Nevertheless, there does seem to be an assumption that blacks had to outnumber whites by quite a margin for anything approaching a "typical" creole to emerge. A similar assumption is made by most creolists of all persuasions; cf. Bickerton's (1981: 4) stipulation that whites must form less than 20% for a "true" plantation creole to emerge. However, ratios between blacks and whites can provide only a crude means of estimating the relative use to which a contact language might be put. For example, if in a new colony at a particular time, there happened to be 1 000 whites and 1 000 slaves, the latter of diverse ethnolinguistic origins, it might be suggested that each slave would have as much verbal contact with whites as with blacks, and thus ample opportunity to acquire the white language or a good "approximation" of it. But the reality could be very different. Field slaves would tend to spend more time when working, and all their time when not working, communicating with other slaves rather than with whites so that, if one could measure the number of speech acts, those among slaves might well outnumber those between whites and slaves by 4:1 or more. Another factor is geography. The fact that blacks never outnumbered whites in the state of Virginia as a whole should not blind us to the fact that blacks did outnumber whites by a considerable margin in the Tidewater area of Virginia in the late 17th century. A further factor to be borne in mind is that the distribution of slaves among whites was rarely, if ever, equitable. In Mauritius in 1735, when the population was in excess of 1 500 (900+ slaves, 400+ whites and perhaps 200 Indian artisans), about one third of all whites owned no slaves at all, the other two-thirds owned from 1 to 48, with a further 140+ belonging to the Compagnie des Indes (Baker 1982: 14-33). Even in Reunion in 1705, when there were four whites for every three slaves overall, several whites owned more than ten slaves (Barassin 1978). In the early stages of colonization of many territories, there undoubtedly were a good many whites who, with other members of their families and with two or three slaves, ran smallholdings, but there were always also some larger groups of slaves among whom a contact language is likely to have begun to develop. Note also that the 1671 "merman" texts from Martinique seem to indicate that a distinct creole language had emerged by then even though slaves barely outnumbered whites at that time.5 5) If account is taken of the Caribs, however, non-Europeans outnumbered Europeans from the start. Two different versions of the "merman" texts were distributed at the Regensburg conference, on the handouts of myself and Lambert-Félix Prudent [the title of Prudent's paper was: "Maturation et maturité du créole martiniquais: Retour sur quelques étapes historiques et comparaison avec des systèmes voisins", the editors], respectively. "My" version comes from Carden et al (1991) and is known to be a copy of the 1671 original made in 1719. Comparison of this with the "Prudent" version reveals a great many differences. A number of

THEORIES OF CREOLIZATION

45

With regard to measuring degrees of restructuring under this approach, there is some problem with what may legitimately be considered restructuring. For example, most creolists regard the different systems of preverbal TMA markers with their combinational possibilities, which exist in all French-lexicon creoles, to be very important examples of restructuring but Chaudenson merely examines the etymology of each of these markers individually and, in that perspective, the use of e.g. a form derived from après as a preverbal progressive marker is seen to deviate from popular French primarily in the fact that it does not follow any overt expression of the French copula, i.e. the significance of the TMA system as a whole is not considered. For the French creoles, there is some linguistic evidence which casts doubt on the validity of the "gradual basilectalization" approach. For example, with the exception of Reunion, the earliest texts everywhere indicate the total collapse of the French determiner system (cf. Hazaël-Massieux 1991). Preposed French definite articles disappear or are analyzed as part of the following noun, while a new postposed definite article is developed from the demonstrative (cf. Haitian kè-la/Mauritian leker-la 'the heart', Fr. 'le coeur'; Haitian pudla/Mauritian lapud-la 'the powder', Fr. 'la poudre'). The loss of preposed articles is a general feature of embryonic pidgin data involving contacts between Euro­ pean and non-Europeans, and it is difficult to see how this could possibly result from approximating approximations of approximations of the European language, as the "gradual basilectalization" approach assumes. Furthermore, wherever the European language concerned is French, subsequent data of the developing contact language do not provide any evidence of the (re-) introduc­ tion of the French preposed article (i.e. it is not evident that French was ever, or subsequently became, "the target language" as such). 2.3.

Lefebvre 's relexifìcation hypothesis

I think it would be fair to say that substratists in general are more concerned with identifying particular features as African (or non-European) than with pro­ posing theories of creole formation. Nevertheless, most substratists seem broadly to agree that there was progression towards acquiring the European language, even if with some reluctance. They also seem to agree that a new language resulted from this process, and that its grammar, lexicon and phonological system contained features drawn from both European and nonEuropean sources. Lefebvre's (e.g. 1993, 1999) relexifìcation hypothesis is an the differences of spelling and grammar seem to indicate that the 1719 version used spelling conventions and reflected the spoken language of the latter year. However, other differences indicate conflicting interpretations of the handwriting of the original, e.g. "Prudent" moy teny peur, autre dire c'est un anse monde versus 1719 moi té tini peur bete là manser monde. Such major differences must clearly be investigated before a proper assessment of these important texts can be made.

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extreme form of this and, in effect, an updated version of the approach of Sylvain (1936) namely that, in essence, Haitian Creole is grammatically a Gbe language relexified with French vocabulary.6 If this were really so, it is not obvious that Haitian Creole could be considered as restructured French in any meaningful sense. Lefebvre's relexification hypothesis raises two major problems. Firstly, it requires the assumption that there is an identifiable span of years during which Haitian Creole was "made", and that speakers of a particular language (Fon), or group of related languages to which this belongs (Gbe), were numerically and/or socially dominant throughout that period. Speakers of Gbe languages appear to have formed more than half the slave population in Haiti for at least four decades up to 1740 but they were subsequently outnumbered by speakers of Bantu languages (Singler 1996). Even so, Lefebvre's hypothesis does not address the question of what the substantial minority of slaves who did not speak a Gbe language were doing while the Fon and their ethnolinguistic rela­ tives were busy relexifying their language (Baker 1993: 135). Secondly, the hypothesis proceeds from the assumption that Haitian Creole is an original creole which arose out of a contact situation in Haiti in­ volving only speakers of French and African languages. It ignores entirely the facts that (i) the French had been in communication with Africans in the area since they established their first Caribbean colony in St. Kitts in 1625, (ii) a French-lexicon Creole language had emerged in the Lesser Antilles by at least 1671 (cf. the "merman" texts from Martinique mentioned above), and (iii) a proportion of both the French and the slaves in Haiti from the start of its settle­ ment in 1659 (Singler 1996: 187) are likely to have been speakers of the emer­ gent Lesser Antillean Creole. It is thus inconceivable that Lesser Antillean Creole could not have had a major impact on Haitian Creole, as any comparison between these languages will testify (cf. Baker 1987).

6) Sylvain (1936) considered Ewe to be Haitian Creole|s grammatical source whereas Lefebvre identifies the source as Fon, a related Gbe language. No grammatical description of Fon appears to have been available to Sylvain at the time she was writing. Note that, despite a recent tendency among creolists to refer to the Gbe group as if it were a single language of which Ewe and Fon are but two of several "dialects" (e.g. Singler 1996), Ewe and Fon are not inter-intelligible. The most recent relevant classificatory work, Dalby (1998), subdivides the Gbe "net" (in his terminology) into seven "outer languages" of which Ewe and Fon are but two. This contrasts with Akan which he considers to be a single "outer language" comprising two "inner languages", Fante and Twi. Dalby's hierarchical terminology relates to percentages of shared cognates in basic vocabulary.

THEORIES OF CREOLIZATION

2.4.

Mainstream

47

approaches

As indicated earlier, most creolists today do not ally themselves closely with the approaches of Chaudenson, Bickerton or Lefebvre, even though they may share some of the assumptions of one or more of these authors. A more widely respected approach to both pidginization and creolization than any of these is that set out in Thomason and Kaufman (1988). These authors distinguish the languages known as pidgins and/or creoles into three types: (a) pidgins (i.e. contact languages developed for limited purposes by people who retain their native languages — PB), (b) abrupt creoles (which result from "the emerging contact language at once becom[ing] the primary language of the community"; Thomason and Kaufman 1988: 150), and (c) creoles which result from a pre­ existing stable pidgin subsequently acquiring native speakers. In commenting on this publication, I drew attention to some apparent lack of precision regard­ ing whether or not participants in the situations which gave rise to (a) and (b) were in fact attempting to acquire a particular pre-existing "target language" (Baker 1990). Thomason (1993) offers some clarification of her position on this: Ql [...] in language shift a group of people are giving up their native language and adopting a target language to which they have sufficient accesss that they can learn both vocabulary and grammar. In pidgin genesis, by con­ trast, people are not giving up their native language, and they are not neces­ sarily trying to learn a target language (TL), either; rather, they are trying to talk to each other for limited purposes, and in doing so they are creating a new contact language. In some cases, including most Atlantic creole contexts, even if there is a TL, most of the learners do not have enough access to it to learn much of its structure as well as its basic vocabulary. [...] If there are any Atlantic creole contexts in which a creole developed more or less immediately — that is, in which most people could not continue to use their native languages — then language shift is a factor; but it still is not necessarily true that there was a TL in the sense of a language that the shifting speakers were trying to learn as a whole language. (285; my emphasis) Insofar as Thomason acknowledges here that those who participated in the con­ struction of both pidgins and creoles were not necessarily trying to acquire a particular "target" language as a whole language, her position is compatible with my own, although I regard the lack of a target language as the norm rather than as a mere possibility. She nevertheless goes on to say: Q2 In all these cases, I believe that what is going on is a process of secondlanguage learning: learners are making guesses about the structure of whatever they are learning, and "right" guesses are those that are accepted by the people they are talking to. (285)

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It is at this point that I part company with Thomason entirely. To equate the circumstances in which pidginization and/or creolization took place with "a process of second-language learning" is misleading in that it implies both that one group spoke a particular language among themselves as well as using this to address all other groups, and that the latter groups attempted to acquire the language of the former. In other words, there seems to be an assumption here that Europeans addressed non-Europeans in their own unrestructured European language and that non-Europeans replied in a pidginized variety of the Euro­ pean language. This is not supported by 18th century data which generally indi­ cate that Europeans addressed non-Europeans in the contact language and not in the European language. I hold that Europeans who took part in pidgin genesis were full partici­ pants; their need to make themselves understood by non-Europeans was initially every bit as great as that of non-Europeans to make themselves understood by Europeans. (That non-Europeans would rapidly make greater use of the emergent contact language than Europeans is a separate but extremely important matter — see below.) A related point is that acquiring such vocabulary items as indigo, French pioche or English spade does not "involve making guesses about the structure of whatever they [were] learning" (see Q2 above) except in so far as the identification of word-boundaries can be considered such.

3.

A constructive approach

Since Baker (1990) I have maintained that, wherever and whenever two or more groups of people lacking a common language are brought into sudden, sustained contact and have a mutual interest both in intercommunicating and in retaining their group identity, they are likely to start constructing a medium for interethnic communication (MIC).71 also claim that contact languages are in essence what those who constructed them wanted them to be, rather than being the result of imperfect second-language learning. Precisely how the construction of the MIC is achieved has never been studied in situ and may never be available for study. For example, no data from the first half-century of contact are currently known for any Atlantic territory where an English-lexicon Creole is subsequently attested. However, data from much closer to the start of contact are available for many places in the Pacific, as will be seen below. Partly on the basis of such data, my working assumption 7) I use the terms medium for inter-ethnic communication (MIC) and, later, medium for community solidarity (MCS) in order to emphasize the principal functions of these languages for their users. All pidgins and creoles are, or were formerly, MICs; many subsequently became MCSs. In using these terms, I also wish to emphasize that I do not believe that the distinction between pidgins and creoles on the basis of whether or not they are the first language of some of their speakers serves any useful purpose.

THEORIES OF CREOLIZATION

49

is that, when such inter-ethnolinguistic contacts arose, all parties used morphologically reduced versions of their own languages together with gestures until intercommunication was achieved. Compromises might need to be made by both sides. For example, if Europeans arrived for the first time at a Pacific island and displayed an interest in bartering for, say, firewood and water, they might find brought to them within a short space of time, quantities of both far in excess of their needs and and they might describe these quantities as "too much". The indigenous population might reasonably interpret too much as meaning 'a large quantity'. On realizing this, the Europeans might find it simpler to accept this new meaning as part of the trading vocabulary than to attempt to explain the difference between 'a large quantity' and 'too much'. Conversely, the indigenous population might try to interest the Europeans in a particular kind of local cloth called, say, moho [invented word]. The Europeans might take moho to be the general name for all locally manufactured cloth, rather than a particular variety. The islanders, keen to trade, would probably accept this extended sense for trading purposes. Thus the embryonic pidgin would have two words in semantic conflict with their source languages. But, in that the aim was immediate communication as an aid to barter and that neither side was seriously interested in acquiring the other's language as such, this would not matter at all. In such cases it seems more appropriate to speak of language construction rather than second language learning. The mainstream view that the process of pidginization and/or creolization can legitimately be treated as a special kind of second language acquisition has much to do with the fact that, in many cases, by the time we have written records of such languages — 50 to 100 years after contact began in the case of the Atlantic English Creoles — their vocabulary derives mainly from one particular language. It thus appears reasonable to assume that their speakers (and their predecessors) must have targeted their learning on that particular language. However, that does not preclude the possibility that, a few decades earlier, the contact language may have had a far smaller proportion of English words, as illustrated by examples (la-lj) and discussed below. Another reason for creolists to prefer to regard pidginization/creolization as a form of second language acquisition is that the latter is an established field of linguistic enquiry, and there would seem to be no precedent for studying the acquisition of words without attempting to learn the language from which they come. Yet this is what tends to happen when people spend a few days or weeks in a place where a language of which they have no prior knowledge is spoken, and to which they have no plans to return. Also, in the former British colonial empire at least, it was not unusual for civil servants posted abroad for months or years to pick up a substantial number of words in the dominant local language without ever learning anything of its grammar.

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The examples below all date from 50 years or less from the effective start of regular communication between anglophones and the indigenous population. (la) (lb) (1c) (1d) (le)

(1f) (lg) (1h) (li)

(1j)

1793 [New Zealand] Etiketika no eteka 'a chief never deceives' (Clark 1978) 1814 [New Zealand] homi pickeninee wow 'give the child a nail' (Clark 1978) 1814 [New Zealand] tungata tihi no good 'the thief is bad' (Clark 1978) 1825- [New South Wales] Bel boodgeree kill it pickaninny. (Cunningham 1827,2: 20) 'infanticide is bad' [it is not good to kill chil­ dren] 1835 [New South Wales] you come yallock yarraman over mine toolas, you yan along mine sit-down, pater mine weeli (Graham 1863: 82-3) 'you come riding a horse over my ancestors' graves, you go into my living quarters, and eat my [unidentified food]' 1835 [New South Wales] You bell jerran yan along canoe. Buggerie canoe along a waddy (Graham 1863: 119) 'You're not afraid to go in a canoe? It's nice paddling a canoe' 1835 [New South Wales] What for gin pater bilbi? (Graham 1863: 132) 'Why did the Aboriginal woman eat the bandicoot?' 1843 [Queensland] Hausmann budgery ding all, budgery dalto (Gunson 1960-61: 528). 'Hausmann [a missionary] is nice and fat, [he would be] nice to eat' 1845 [Marquesas] Plenty moee-moee - plenty ki-ki - plenty whihenee. Oh, very good place Typee! (Melville 1846: 264-5) 'lots of rest, lots of food, lots of women. Typee is a very good place!' 1848 [Tahiti] I sabbe you - you ita maitai nuee (Anon 1848: 568) 'I know you. You are superlatively bad' Above: bold = indigenous vocabulary; italic = non-English, nonindigenous vocabulary

It would be foolish to describe the above examples as Pidgin English, or pidginized varieties of Polynesian or Aboriginal languages. Rather they are all examples of an early stage in the process of language construction, the result of all parties drawing on the range of resources available. With the exception of Tahiti and the Marquesas, which subsequently came under French influence, data from these territories show an increasing proportion of English words through time. My point is simply that, where the first records of a contact language postdate the start of contact by 50 years or more, it may be unwise to assume either (a) that such data would necessarily closely resemble the contact language as it had been spoken a few decades earlier, or (b) that the dominant presence of English words in such data is grounds for supposing that speakers had been attempting to acquire English as a whole language from the start of contact.

THEORIES OF CREOLIZATION

51

The above examples include two words which come from neither English nor indigenous languages but from Portuguese: piccaninny 'child' (la: pickeninee, 1d: pickaninny; also and earlier attested in the sense of 'small'), and savvy 'know' (lj: sabbe). Given that the notion that all pidgins and creoles with a predominantly European vocabulary stem ultimately from a Portuguese-lexi­ con contact language formerly spoken in West Africa once enjoyed some support, it may be worth commenting on this briefly. There appear to be only three words of Portuguese origin which are found in English-lexicon contact languages of both the Atlantic and the Pacific: the above-mentioned two and grande 'big'. Words for 'big' and 'small' would clearly have been needed almost immediately in any context-bound trading situation. It would thus not be surprising if these became established very early in African ports visited by the Portuguese, and were then adopted by English-speakers where the latter subse­ quently traded at the same places. In that the meaning of savvy 'know' cannot readily be conveyed by gesticulation, it seems less basic to a trading situation than the other two. However, there is an apparently simple explanation for the adoption of this in English-lexicon contact languages. Among the earliest words attested in all of the latter is the negator no.8 Given that this is homophonous with the verb "to know" — i.e. the sequence [no no] would be liable to interpretation as a reduplicated or emphasized negative — some other lexeme was needed for the verb and, if the Portuguese-derived word savvy were already known to some of the Africans with whom the English traded, this could have provided a solution. The question now to be considered is whether and how the construction of an MIC in a newly founded colony, destined to become a plantation society,9 might have differed from the contact situations mentioned above. My assump­ tion is that, initially, both situations would be very similar insofar as the devel­ opment of a basic MIC was as important to Europeans as it was to non-Europe­ ans. (Slave-owners had to be able to communicate with their slaves in order to get work done.) However, I suspect that the vocabulary of the MIC in a slave plantation society would be drawn far more heavily from the European language than would be the case in, for example, a Pacific island trading situa­ tion, for three main reasons. (1) European slave owners were less immediately dependent on the goodwill of their slaves than the latter were on the former, and would probably have been unwilling to go beyond offering morphologically reduced versions of their language in attempting to communicate with their slaves. (2) In contrast to indigenous peoples involved in trading with itinerant Europeans, slaves were exiles who lacked specialized vocabulary for their new

8) This might initially have been perceived on the coast of Africa as a mere variant of Portuguese não. 9) I consider any agricultural activity which involves European landowners using slave labour to be a plantation, regardless of the size of the operation.

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environment while most aspects of the work slaves were to carry out would have involved tools and techniques with which they were previously unfamiliar and so European terms for these would have been used. (3) Plantations were frequently linguistically heterogeneous from the start or became so very quickly, thus diminishing the utility for Europeans of acquiring words from any one of the languages represented there. Once a basic MIC existed, it might well have served somewhat different purposes for Europeans and non-Europeans. For Europeans, it would probably have been used only for addressing non-Europeans. For the slaves, its use would be related to the extent of their ethnolinguistic diversity. If all the first slave arrivals had shared a common African (or other) language, then they would have used the MIC only in their contacts with Europeans. But as and when slaves of differing linguistic backgrounds arrived, so the basic MIC could also serve as the starting point for communication among them (since everyone would be exposed to the MIC while working). The greater the degree of ethno­ linguistic diversity among the slaves, the greater the potential for the MIC to be used between slaves who lacked a common ancestral language. Furthermore, given that slaves spent far more time in each other's company than with Euro­ peans, and that they would have had far more to talk to each other about than work, it is to be expected a more elaborated MIC would develop among slaves. Such elaborations might be inspired by structures and features of their ancestral languages. A simple example concerns the second person pronouns. Both English you and French vous are ambiguously singular or plural yet every nonEuropean language involved in contact situations with English or French has contrasting singular and plural second person pronouns. And in every Englishand French lexicon pidgin and creole a similar contrast is found. In English Creoles, you is exclusively singular, the plural pronoun being either unu from an African source or all you. In almost all slave plantation societies for which there are early records of the origins of arriving slaves it appears that a plurality of linguistic groups were represented by the end of the second decade of settlement. During the same two decades, the first locally-born people — of European, non-European and mixed descent — were growing up. My belief is that, like other children everywhere, they would acquire those languages to which they had access and which seemed useful to them. Depending on the rate of settlement, these might well, in the early years, include both the European language and the MIC as well as, for some, a non-European language. Note that my suggestion that the European language and the MIC might be acquired as separate entities, potentially by all the locally-born population, is at odds with the position of many creolists who assume that the entire slave population was attempting to acquire (in some sense) the language of the Europeans, and that inadequate and diminishing access to the latter led to the formation of a creole language instead.

THEORIES OF CREOLIZATION

53

The likelihood that locally born slaves would acquire the European language in addition to the MIC would clearly be related to both the ratio of Europeans to slaves (but see my earlier remarks regarding the distribution of population within territories) and also the speed of settlement. In both these respects, the Indian Ocean islands of Reunion and Mauritius provide an inter­ esting contrast. Reunion has been continuously inhabited since 1663 but by 1713, 50 years later, its population had grown to only 1171 of whom 46% were slaves (Chaudenson 1974: xi, 458). This represents a net annual increase in the total population of just 23 per year. Settlement of Mauritius began only in 1721. Non-Europeans outnumbered Europeans by 1730 and the range of non-Euro­ pean languages represented already included Bambara, Bengali, Fon (or related Gbe languages), Malagasy, Tamil and Wolof. (The presence of speakers of Bantu languages, ultimately to form the largest group, is not attested until 1736.) By 1767, just 46 years from the start of settlement, the total population had grown to 18 777 of whom only one sixth were Europeans. This is a net annual increase of 408 per year, 18 times greater than the comparable figure for Reunion. An unusual feature of the settlement of Reunion is that the majority of the first French male settlers had Malagasy or Indian spouses. The census of 1686 gives a total population of 269 (82 Blancs, 70 Malgaches, 24 Portuguais ou Indiens, and 93 Métis), of whom well over half had been born locally and none were overtly identified as slaves.10 During this early period, it would appear that (most of) these people of diverse origins merged into a single community whereas, as indicated earlier, I regard the maintenance of at least two separate groups to be a prerequisite for the start of the construction of an MIC. In the unusual Reunion case, I assume that the emergent language of the new community would have been a dialectally-levelled variety of French with some influence from Malagasy and other languages represented during this period, and I will refer to this below by Chaudenson's term Bourbonnais. However, from at least the early 18th century, libres and esclaves were identified as sepa­ rate population categories, with the latter amounting to 538 (46% of the total population) in 1713. Even allowing for a high mortality rate, these figues suggest that fewer than 20 foreign-born slaves arrived per year on average. While an embryonic MIC might well have been used with and among new slave arrivals at this time, their offspring — already accounting for 40% of the slave population in 1709 — would also acquire Bourbonnais, the principal language of the settlement and would have little use for the MIC thereafter. Not until the rate of slave arrivals increased substantially would the MIC acquire a more important role. In sharp contrast, the rapid rate of settlement and the diversity of the linguistic groups represented in Mauritius would have meant that there was a 10) All figures in this paragraph are derived from Chaudenson (1974: 455-9).

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need for an MIC right from the start. Opportunities for locally-born slaves to acquire local French, in addition to the MIC and perhaps an ancestral language, would have fast declined and soon become largely limited to those in domestic service. Although of diverse ancestry, locally-born slaves would have far more in common with each other, due to their upbringing in the same territory, than with slaves born abroad. One particular thing shared by them all would be knowledge of the more elaborated form of the local MIC — and I think this would be the case regardless of the extent of their knowledge of local French. In fact, I believe that the speech of the locally-born slaves would have become not merely a more developed form of the MIC but also a medium for community solidarity (MCS), a form of speech closely related to the basic MIC but sufficiently different from the latter to serve as a badge of identity for locallyborn slaves enabling them to recognize each other as such on the basis of speech alone. This MCS would form the natural target of foreign-born slaves because it would be the passport to knowledge of how best to cope with island conditions. Furthermore, the extended period during which foreign-born slaves continued to arrive and sought to acquire the MCS would provide opportunities for features of their ancestral languages to be transferred to the MCS although it could be particularly those features which provided scope for further elaborating the MCS which would win acceptance by the locally-born (Baker 1994).11 During the 18th century when the MCS known today as Mauritian Creole was developing, there was also a very substantial increase in the rate of slave arrivals in Reunion. There would thus have been a greater role in Reunion as well for an MIC for use with and between foreign-born slaves; but there would also have been two very important differences from the Mauritian situation. First, the Reunion MIC would result largely from contacts between slaves and speakers of Bourbonnais (rather than varieties of metropolitan French). Second, by the 1730s, Bourbonnais would already have been the established language of locally-born slaves for several decades. This would have made it difficult for an elaborated MIC to replace Bourbonnais as the MCS of locally-born slaves, but it could well be that the more basilectal varieties of modern Reunion Creole were influenced by this elaborated MIC. An example of a rather different kind comes from the West Indies. Both the English and French began their colonizing exploits in the Caribbean on the small island of St. Kitts in the early 1620s.12 They found an unknown number of Caribs living there and initially got on well with them and with each other. It is known that one man arrived with 50 slaves to start a plantation in English St. 11) Examples given in that publication with respect to Mauritian Creole are the seemingly Malagasy inspired system of reduplication of verbs and adjectives, and the Bantu-related development of a diminutive prefix potentially attachable to all nouns (Baker 1994: 79-81). Both of these are important vocabulary-building devices. 12) Unless otherwise indicated, historical information relating to St. Kitts is derived from Baker (1999).

THEORIES OF CREOLIZATION

55

Kitts in 1625, and also that the French already had African slaves by then in their parts of the island. By 1626, the English and French had divided the island into four quarters, each occupying two of these. A further factor to be borne in mind in the following paragraphs is that a very large proportion of the "English" were in fact Irish bonded servants, and that Gaelic would have been the first language of some and perhaps many of the latter. A Spanish/Carib contact language is known to have existed in the Carib­ bean prior to the arrival of the English and the French. While this is not docu­ mented for St. Kitts itself, early examples are known from other French Carib­ bean islands where it was termed baragouin. In any case, the potential for baragouin influence in St. Kitts was soon curtailed by the Anglo-French massacre of the Caribs there in ca. 1629.13 What is clear, however, is that no English-lexicon contact language could have been brought from the coast of Africa at this time since the English did not establish their first trading post in West Africa until 1632 (Huber 1999: 89) and, while French seaborne trade with West Africa predates that of the English, their first foothold in Africa appears to postdate the latter. I thus assume that, apart from slight influence from baragouin, essentially original contact languages began to develop in the English and French parts of St. Kitts from the 1620s. While Europeans in St. Kitts far outnumbered Africans in the 1620s, the two groups still needed to be able to communicate with each other so I would expect an MIC to have begun to develop. If there had been no more African arrivals, locally-born slaves would probably have acquired both a European and an African language as well as the MIC, but would have used the latter only with older foreign-born slaves, with the result that the MIC might well have disappeared entirely by the time their own parents died. But in fact there were further African arrivals (Parkvall 1995, 1999) so, far from disappearing, my assumption is that Europeans would have used the MIC to address them too. And whenever slaves who had been in the territory for some time encountered newly-arrived slaves who did not share their own ancestral language, I assume that the MIC would also have been used. Thus the early situation would have been similar to that outlined above for Mauritius but with some important and growing differences due to disparities in the rates of settlement and the ratios between Europeans and non-Europeans. Although the early population figures for both English and French St. Kitts are very sketchy and somewhat contradictory, it seems clear that the total population in 1640 could not have been less than 20 000, an extraordinarily rapid rate of settlement — an average net annual increase of more than 1 000 — 13) One piece of evidence in support of this is the word rata or arata 'rat' found in St. Kitts and all other English Caribbean Creoles. Since the Spanish were responsible for introducing rats into the Caribbean, one would expect baragouin to have adopted a Spanish word for this. Carib terms for indigenous flora and fauna may also have reached English and French Caribbean Creoles through baragouin.

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which made the island then one of the most densely populated areas in the world (Parkvall 1995). The ratio between Europeans and non-Europeans is particularly hard to estimate. Parkvall's figures seem to suggest that non-Euro­ peans may have formed anything between one tenth and one third of the total population in 1640. Given the availability of bonded servants for the English at this time, the proportion of non-Europeans is generally assumed to have been greater in the French than in the English quarters. A further complication — and one which may help to explain some of the contradictory population figures — is that the island had also been exporting its population since the 1620s. St. Kitts was the place where both the English and the French learned how to run slave plantation colonies, and they took that knowledge elsewhere as they expanded their occupation of the Caribbean. Although the first English to reach Barbados came direct from Europe, two groups travelled from St. Kitts to Barbados between 1627 and 1629, forming about one third of the population on their arrival there. Islands settled directly from English St. Kitts include Nevis in 1628 and both Montserrat and Antigua in 1632.14 From French St. Kitts, colonists and slaves moved to Martinique in 1635, they joined the first settlers from France in Guadeloupe in 1639, and they occupied St. Barthélémy in 1648. Whatever patterns of language use developed, respectively, in the English and French parts of St. Kitts in the 1620s and 30s would have been transported to the other islands which these nations occupied, and would have continued to develop along the same lines in the latter unless or until there were significant differences in the subsequent peopling of those islands. Knowing how to com­ municate with newly arrived slaves was part of the expertise needed for running a plantation. At this point, it may be worth summarizing some differences between the English and French settlements: 1. The English had only minimal contact with Caribs after the St. Kitts massacre whereas there were substantial numbers of Caribs in some of the islands settled by the French. 2. The French depended on African labour to a significantly greater extent in the earliest years than did the English. 3. Samples of the speech of Caribs and slaves were written down in the French islands by Jesuits and others in the 17th century but no comparable data from the English Leeward Islands dating from earlier than the second half of the 18th century have yet come to light. Early data from the French islands leave me with the impression that the baragouin of the Caribs had some influence on the developing contact language that was used with and by slaves (Baker 1996: 97; cf. also Hazaël-Massieux 14) English St. Kitts also contributed subsequently to the settlement of Surinam, Jamaica and what was to become the Gullah-speaking area of the USA.

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1991), and that an MCS was already fast developing there by 1671 (but see note 5 above). The situation in the English islands in the 17th century is far more difficult to assess, partly because of the apparent lack of any written data, and partly because of the rapid turnover of population in St. Kitts. While I do not doubt than an MIC was established very early in English St. Kitts, I suspect that locally-born slaves who remained in that island into adulthood would have spoken both the MIC and English (as well as, perhaps, an African language), and that as and when the potential for an elaborated MIC to become an MCS arose later in the century, this would have been partly undermined by the existence of a locally-born black community which spoke both English and the MIC. However, this cannot be confirmed unless 17th century linguistic data are found. My claim that the basic MIC would co-exist with a more elaborated MIC used among slaves which potentially developed into an MCS has some impli­ cations for the evaluation of old creole texts. For example, most of the known data from English Creoles of the Caribbean islands up to 1800 or so were recorded by visitors from Britain and elsewhere. Such people were able to observe whites addressing both domestic and field slaves and that is what they recorded. But they were unlikely to witness conversations between blacks, con­ versations in which I would expect the MCS to be employed. The English Creole texts of the St. Kitts-born author Mathews (1793, 1805, 1822) are particulary important in that respect because they include examples of both a basic MIC (see Kihm 1999, and additional comment from Grant 1999: 127-8 and Baker and Winer 1999: 118-20) and a more elaborate MCS. Somewhat similarly, I take the conversations in Ducœurjoly (1802) to be a broadly accu­ rate representation of how many whites addressed blacks in Haiti at that time, i.e. in the basic MIC, rather than how blacks typically conversed with each other, i.e. in the MCS. There is also evidence that whites did not adopt certain features of the blacks' MCS in Mauritius until long after emancipation.15 Before concluding this section, the implications of the above for the con­ cept of (degrees of) restructuring need to be considered. The scenario I have outlined envisages an initial period in which everyone — Europeans as well as non-Europeans — participates in the development of the basis of an MIC by eliminating from their own languages features which they suspect (perhaps un­ consciously) may inhibit intercommuncation and with influence from such prior experience any participants may have of other contact situations. In other words, all parties would use morphologically reduced versions of their languages. Once a basic MIC had been constructed from this, the motivation for elaborating the MIC into an MCS would have been strongest among the locally15) See Come (1982: 64-78) with regard to the development of verbs with both short and long forms. Another example is the development of mo and to from French moi and toi as subject pronouns.

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born non-European population. All the languages in use in a particular territory — African, European, and others — were potentially resources on which those elaborating the basic MIC could draw.

4.

Restructuring and "typical" creole features

Totalling all the non-European features attested in a particular creole by the time there is access to a substantial body of data may provide an indication of how far removed that creole is from the language from which the bulk of its lexicon is drawn. However, if the ideas expressed in §3 are correct, the impres­ sion so gained could be misleading because, as I see it, creolization comprised both a brief initial period of constructing a basic MIC and a much longer period of elaborating this into an MCS. In other words, the mere totalling of nonEuropean features effectively assumes both that those not found in the available data for a particular creole were never part of it, and that European features found in the creole have always been part of it (whereas they may have been introduced during the elaboration period). Furthermore, some of the non-Euro­ pean features might date from the initial construction of an MIC while others might date from its subsequent elaboration. Nevertheless, I believe that a list of linguistic features such as that set out in Appendix 1 a of Parkvall (this volume) could serve a useful but different purpose: it could help clarify differences between the approaches to creolization discussed above by examining what they predict with regard to the kind of features to be found in creoles and their likely sources, and whether their predictions are borne out. The 45 features chosen by Parkvall (this volume) are those which have been considered typical of Atlantic Creoles by one or more authors of differing theoretical persuasions. These features could be divided into two categories: "losses" and "gains". "Losses" are features of the European language not found in the lexically-related creole while "gains" are features of a creole not found in the lexically-related European language. Examples of "losses" would be Parkvall's no. 4 "no or optional number marking on nouns" and no. 8 "no gender distinction of the 3sg. pronoun". Examples of "gains" are his no. 6 "bimorphemic interrogatives" and no. 20 "a verb meaning 'say' or 'talk' is used as a complementizer". For considerations of space, let it be assumed that all

16) Some examples of Malagasy and Bantu influence in Mauritian Creole which I attribute to its elaboration period were given in note 11 above. An example which may indicate that French-lexicon Creoles drew on French during the elaboration period, brought to my attention by Parkvall (p. c), is va which is not attested as a verb in any of these Creoles but which exists or formerly existed as a TMA marker in virtually all of them. In other words, va seems to have been adopted directly from French to fulfil the role of TMA marker rather than to represent the grammaticalization of a previously existing creole verb.

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Parkvall's features can conveniently be categorized as "losses" or "gains", and consider the implications of these for the different approaches to creolization. Bickerton's hypothesis has nothing to say about "losses" but predicts that the "gains" would include the 12 creole features identified in Bickerton (1981), and that all creoles should have all of these. However, since these features are held to derive from the bioprogram, the fact that they also occur in some non­ creole languages (including some pidgins) is not seen as counter-evidence. Somewhat similarly, the absence of any of the 12 from any creole which meets his definition of a plantation creole might be attributed to the absence of adequate early data, the implication being that they had formerly existed even if not found in any text yet known. Bickerton predicts nothing with respect to the other "gains". All-in-all, the list of "losses" and "gains" would seem to provide no basis for either validating or invalidating his hypothesis. Chaudenson's "gradual basilectalization" approach assumes that creoli­ zation took place without prior pidginization. However, it would probably be a very simple matter to demonstrate that all the features categorized as "losses" with respect to Atlantic English-lexicon creoles are also features of all known varieties of Pidgin English. The relative paucity of Pidgin French data might make it a little more difficult to show that the same was true with regard to the Atlantic French Creoles but I have no doubt that this is the case. Chaudenson's approach also predicts that the "gains" would be largely attributable to inherent evolutionary tendencies within the French language (in the widest sense) although influence from non-European languages is not entirely ruled out and would surely be required to account for e.g. verb serialization. From Lefebvre's standpoint, all "losses" and all "gains" in Haitian Creole should be attributable to Fon or other Gbe languages (although the possibility of some influence from other African sources is not excluded). It would be possible to test this although I shall not attempt to do so here. A more typical substratist stance would expect that most "losses" and "gains" could be attributed to one or more of the African languages represented in the territory during the period of slavery, with the expectation that the great­ est influence would come from those languages which were best represented in the early part of that period. This can be tested only where reliable information is available on the sources of slaves during the earliest decades of settlement. If I interpret Thomason (1993) correctly, she too would expect that most "losses" and "gains" could be attributed to one or more of the African languages represented in the territory but she points to the need to "consider the possibility of cross-language compromise among several substrate languages, or among substrate and lexifier languages" and cautions that "we should not expect any feature to be identical to its source in the language(s) of origin" (p. 289). It would thus be a complex task to test her position against a list of "losses" and "gains".

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My own position is that the "losses" are due to the morphological reduc­ tion strategies adopted by all participants in the initial contact situation, and that none of these features needs necessarily to exist in any of the languages represented at that time. Early pidgin data from around the world seem always to have a single invariable form of every noun and verb entirely regardless of the range of forms of each which may exist in any of the languages represented in the contact situation. I also strongly suspect that one could find pidgins with a zero copula even where zero copula was not a feature of any of the pre-existing languages in contact. As for "gains", I take these to be the result of the locallyborn slave population drawing on the range of available (and changing) resources to elaborate the MIC into an MCS. And I regard the language of the slave-owners as one of those resources. My prediction is that it would be those features of non-European languages which offered the prospect of elaborating the MIC/MCS as it then was which would most readily win acceptance (cf. the vocabulary-building devices of Malagasy and Bantu origin in Mauritian Creole mentioned earlier). However, in contrast to other approaches, I expect some of the "gains" to be innovations on the part of the locally-born slave population rather than being features adopted from some other languages. One clear-cut example, again from Mauritian Creole, is the dropping of the final vowel of verbs to indicate that the verb governs the following NP or adverbial phrase (Baker and Syea 1991). These last remarks lead me indirectly to question the very concept of using "typical" features as a basis for calculating degrees of restructuring in creoles, for two reasons. First there is the question of what "typical" means in this context. My own recent research on Atlantic English Creoles and Antillean French Creoles suggests that they may all stem to a greater or lesser extent from St. Kitts in the first half of the 17th century (Baker 1999). If so, then the fact that they share various non-European features is not evidence that these are "typically Creole" but instead evidence of their close genetic relationships. Secondly, the use of a list of predominantly Atlantic features, when applied to creoles spoken elsewhere, inevitably gives the impression that e.g. Mauritian Creole is closer to French than is Haitian Creole. Nevertheless, this could be relatively easily remedied by drawing up a list of all non-European features of creoles.

5.

Conclusions

The above examination of different approaches to creolization shows that there are fundamental differences among them with regard to what can be termed "restructuring", what it is that was restructured, and what were the reasons for such restructuring. These may seem rather negative observations but there are also positive aspects to them. The identification of such fundamental differences

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highlights a number of assumptions made by the authors of each of these approaches, and the validity of some of their assumptions could be tested. I have also suggested that, by using a more exhaustive list of features found in pidgins and creoles, and by sorting these into "losses" and "gains" as outlined above, not only would a far clearer picture emerge of the development of these languages but these features could also be used to test whether the ways in which the different authors assume that creolization progressed are consistent with the data.

References Anon. 1848. "Papietee harbour and Pitcairn island". The Nautical Magazine and Naval Chronicle 1848: 567-70. Baker, Philip. 1982. "The contribution of non-francophone immigrants to the lexicon of Mauritian Creole". Ph.D. thesis, University of London (School of Oriental and African Studies). —. 1987. "Combien y a-t-il eu de genèses créoles à base lexicale française?" Etudes Créoles 10: 60-76. —. 1990. "Off Target". Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 5: 107-19. —. 1993. "Assessing the African contribution to French-based Creoles". In Salikoko S. Mufwene,ed. 1993: 123-55. —. 1994. "Creativity in Creole genesis". In Dany Adone and Ingo Plag, eds. 1994. Creoliza­ tion and Language Change. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 65-84. —. 1996. "Pidginization, creolization, and français approximatif. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 11: 95-120. [Review article of Chaudenson (1992)]. —. 1999. "Investigating the origin and diffusion of shared features among the Atlantic English Creoles". In Philip Baker and Adrienne Bruyn, eds. 1999: 315-64. Baker, Philip and Adrienne Bruyn, eds. 1999. St. Kitts and the Atlantic Creoles. London: University of Westminster Press. Baker, Philip and Anand Syea. 1991. "On the copula in Mauritian Creole, past and present". In Francis Byrne and Thorn Huebner, eds. 1991. Development and Structures of Creole Languages. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins, 159-75. Baker, Philip and Lise Winer. 1999. "Separating the wheat from the chaff'. In Philip Baker and Adrienne Bruyn, eds. 1999: 103-22. Barassin, Jean. 1978. L'île Bourbon et Antoine Boucher (1679-1725) au début du XVLLIe siècle. Aix-en-Provence: Association des chercheurs de l'Océan Indien & Institut d'histoire des pays d'outre-mer. Bickerton, Derek. 1979. "Beginnings". In Kenneth . Hill, ed. 1979. The Genesis of Language. Ann Arbor: Karoma, 1-23. —. 1981. Roots of Language. Arm Arbor: Karoma. —. 1984. "The Language Bioprogram Hypothesis". The Behavioral and Brain Sciences 1: 173-221.

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Byrne, Francis. 1987. Grammatical Relations in a Radical Creole. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. Carden, Guy, Morris Goodman, Rebecca Posner and William A. Stewart. 1991. "A 1671 French Creole Text from Martinique". Paper presented at the Society for Pidgin and Creole Languages Conference, 5 January 1991. Chaudenson, Robert. 1974. Le lexique du parler créole de la Réunion. 2 vols. Paris: Champion. —. 1992. Des îles, des hommes, des langues. Essai sur la créolisation linguistique et culturelle. Paris: L'Harmattan. Clark, Ross. 1978. "The rise and fall of New Zealand Pidgin". Paper presented at the Second New Zealand Linguistics Conference, August 1978. [Data cited from this paper can also be found in Clark 1990]. —. 1990. "Pidgin English and Pidgin Maori in New Zealand". In Allan Bell and Janet Holmes, eds. New Zealand Ways of Speaking English. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 97-114. Corne, Chris. 1982. "A contrastive analysis of Reunion and Isle de France Creole French". In Philip Baker and Chris Corne, eds. 1982. Isle de France Creole. Ann Arbor: Karoma, 7-129. Cunningham, P. 1827. Two Years in New South Wales; (...). London: Henry Colburn. Dalby, David. 1998. The Linguasphere. Register of the World's Languages and Speech Communities. 5 vols. Hebron (Wales): Gwasg Bydiaith and Baroda: Bhasha Research and Publication Centre. (Preview edition). Ducœurjoly, S. J. 1802. Le manuel des habitans de Saint-Domingue (...). Paris: Lenoir. Graham, John, ed. 1863. Lawrence Struilby; or, Observations and Experiences during twenty-five Years of Bush-life in Australia. London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts and Green. Grant, Anthony P. 1999. "A note on ethnolectal variation in Mathews' texts". In Philip Baker and Adrienne Bruyn, eds. 1999: 123-8. Gunson, N. 1960-61. "The Nundah Missionaries". Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland 6: 511-39. Hazaël-Massieux, Guy. 1991. "L'expression de la détermination en créole de la Caraïbe (histoire et genèse)". In Jean Haudry, ed. 1991. Questions créoles. Questions linguistiques. Lyon: Université de Lyon, 63-83. [An English translation of this can be found in Philip Baker and Adrienne Bruyn, eds., 271-88]. Huber, Magnus. 1999. "Atlantic English Creoles and the Lower Guinea Coast: A case against Afrogenesis". In Magnus Huber and Mikael Parkvall, eds. 1999. Spreading the Word. London: University of Westminster Press, 81-110. Kihm, Alain. 1999. '"Mr Thompson'. With a grammatical commentary". In Philip Baker and Adrienne Bruyn, eds. 1999: 21-34. Lefebvre, Claire. 1993. "The role of relexification and syntactic reanalysis in Haitian Creole: Methodological aspects of a research program". In Salikoko S. Mufwene, ed. 1993: 254-79.

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—. 1999. Creole Genesis and the Acquisition of Grammar. The Case of Haitian Creole. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mathews, Samuel Augustus. 1793. The Lying Hero or an Answer to J.B. Moretón's Manners and Customs in the West Indies [sic]. St. Eustatius: Edward L. Lowe. —. 1805. [Lyrics of four songs]. In The Report of Saint Bartholomew, Saturday 18 May 1805.Gustavia. —. 1822. The Willshire Squeeze, a Ballad Founded upon Facts, to which are Added, Speci­ mens of the Negro Familiar Dialect and Proverbial Sayings, with Songs. Demerara: Guiana Chronicle Office. Melville, Herman. 1846. Narrative of a four Months' Residence among the Natives of a Valley of the Marquesas Islands. London: John Murray, [entitled Typee in later editions]. Mufwene, Salikoko S. 1996. "The founder principle in Creole genesis". Diachronica 13: 83134. —. ed. 1993. Africanisms in Afro-American Language Varieties. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. Parkvall, Mikael. 1995. "The role of St. Kitts in a new scenario of French Creole genesis". In Philip Baker, ed. 1995. From Contact to Creole and Beyond. London: University of Westminster Press, 41-62. —. 1999. "A short note on the peopling of English St. Kitts". In Philip Baker and Adrienne Bruyn, eds. 1999:63-74. Singler, John Victor. 1996. "Theories of creole genesis, sociohistorical considerations, and the evaluation of evidence: the case of Haitian Creole and the Relexification Hypothe­ sis". Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 11: 185-230. Sylvain, Suzanne. 1936. Le créole haïtien. Morphologie et syntaxe. Wetteren (Belgium): De Meester. Thomason, Sarah G. 1993. "On identifying the sources of creole structures". In Salikoko S. Mufwene, éd. 1993: 280-95. Thomason, Sarah G. and Terrence Kaufman. 1988. Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Philip Baker 137 Q Alexandra Mansions Bidborough St London WC1H 9DL UK battlebridge@talk21 .com

Creolization is a social, not a structural, process

Salikoko S. Mufwene University of Chicago

1.

Introduction

Like Mufwene (1986), Thomason (1997: 73) observes that identifying creóles by means of a laundry list of grammatical features has proved to be an elusive goal: there are no features that are exclusive to, nor universal in, languages generally thought to be creóles.

Indeed those putative "creole features", which these new vernaculars share with isolating languages such as Chinese, Thai, and the Kwa languages of West Africa (in which they are actually more consistent), are helpful only when they are related to the particular social history of their developments. Thomason is also in agreement with Mufwene (1991a) in stating that creóles vary among themselves in the way they share these features. In addition, Thomason states that as a group creóles form a prototype category rather than a classical one (in which all the members of a category putatively share all the features associated with it). In the latter respect, I take issue with her. I argue that the kind of variation that obtains among creóles does not support her claim that there are some which are more prototypical than others; rather, they differ among themselves on the Wittgensteinian family resemblance model (Mufwene 1986). Accidents of history have led us to know more about some creóles than about some others. However, we should be cautious about conflating this heuristic prototype qua first-specimen view (so far justified in our case only, and disputably, by which creóles linguists investi­ gated first and know the most about) with the best-exemplar conception of prototypes.1 My argument is primarily against the best-exemplar approach 1) In one of her seminal papers, Rosch (1977) reminds us of an ambiguity in the usage of prototype, which has been ignored in the cognitive sciences. Aside from the best-exemplar notion, there is an interpretation of prototype as first specimen, which, in cases of inventions, may lack several of the features associated with a best-exemplar notion that one develops

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which Thomason's discussion (1997: 78-80) suggests, although I also question the first-specimen interpretation, in the sense of which creoles developed first. I advocate this contra-prototype stand despite our practice in the literature to identify Saramaccan, for instance, as a prototypical or radical creole, i.e. one in which we are likely to find the greatest number of putative deviations from its lexifiers, and, perhaps in their best forms and combinations, structural features that we associate with creoles. I argue in Mufwene (1998) that there are no particular linguistic evolu­ tionary processes likely to yield (prototypical) creoles; these vernaculars are produced by the same restructuring processes that bring about change in any language, as stated by Hock and Joseph (1996: 15). Although we have identified particular ecological settings of language contact that have yielded very diver­ gent outputs from the restructuring of some colonial languages (most typically, English, French, or Portuguese), we are still far from knowing what a prototypi­ cal creole is, either in the sense of "the first specimen to have evolved" or in the sense of "the best exemplar". 2 Note that McWhorter's (1998) attempt to articuspecimen of creoles under whatever definition of what is or is not a creole. I will thus treat the proposed heuristic prototypes, viz. Atlantic and Indian Ocean creoles (lexifíed by western European languages) as the first specimens of our scholarship. This is useful because in the development of cognitive categories, recognition of additional members is typically based on comparisons with the first specimen or those close to it, which one knows already, not neces­ sarily the best exemplar. Likewise, those linguists interested in applying the term creole to languages other than those identified as such by nonlinguists under specific sociohistorical conditions, have proceeded the same way. This practice does not validate the assumption that there are always best exemplars out there that one can identify in the membership of a cate­ gory. For instance, there are none among the members of a family, as much as they differ among themselves while resembling each other in such diverse ways. 2) Given the intimate nature of social interactions in the early stages (15 to 50 years) of the contact communities during which creoles evolved in the New World and Indian Ocean, it has been rather illusive to determine which creole is the oldest and whether it, rather than any other, deviates the most from its lexifier. Even creoles such as Sranan, for which there seems to be the oldest textual evidence, are hard to document before the early 18th century. We cannot tell whether Sranan or Saramaccan, which is apparently among the most different structurally from English, started before Haitian Creole, which is likewise among the most structurally different from French. (Surinam and Haiti, where these vernaculars are spoken, are not among the oldest English and French colonies, respectively; and both are marked by departures of metropolitan speakers of the lexifier, quite early in the case of Surinam.) As often as Guinea Coast Creole English has been invoked as maybe the ultimate source of New World English creoles, the still scant, indirect, and disputable documentation of its wide­ spread existence dates only from the early 18th century (cf. Huber 1999, who does not claim that a creole existed at that time, however). Hancock (1986) presents no documentation of the varieties spoken in the mixed marriages of European lançados and African women, especially by their children. It is possible that aside from regular colonial varieties spoken in these households (the most likely scenario), pidgin varieties were spoken by the grumettoes, who need not have communicated with the other Africans in the European language. Besides, the nature of contacts between the lançados and the grumettoes does not make such an early

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late three structural features which taken together may identify creoles as a structural type of languages is defeated in part by exceptions that he points out for each of the features within the putatively prototypical creoles themselves. Aside from the fact that most creoles lack this combination of features, there is typically a "prototypical creole" which lacks one of them. His claim is also weakened by the presence of this combination of features in some non-creole languages which he cites.3 I also contend that linguists' self-licence to go around the world baptizing some vernaculars "creoles", when in some cases their speakers do not even know the word creole, let alone how it is used in linguistics, is questionable. This behavior is part of what I have described in Mufwene (1996a, 1997a, 1998, fc.) as the disfranchising act by which some vernaculars are marginalized from other normal, natural developments of their lexifiers. I argue that the main reason for this seemingly a-prioristic attitude to creoles is our reluctance to re­ examine whether those other new vernaculars that have been identified as dia­ lects of their lexifiers and have been kept within the "franchise" have not devel­ oped by the same processes that produced those identified as creoles.4

development of pidgins the only possibility. It must have taken several decades, if not more than a century since the establishment of trade forts on the Western coast of Africa, before the European languages were widely targeted as trade lingua francas and developed into pidgins. The evidence of Dillard's (1972: 142) West African Pidgin English, which he then claimed to be the ancestor of African-American English, is also from the early 18th century. 3) The irony of the exercise itself lies in the fact that no non-creole language, or group of languages, has ever been defined structurally. Even genetic classifications such as Germanic or Romance have not been defined on structural grounds; their classification was lexically motivated initially. Attempts to characterize, for instance, Bantu languages typologically have not excluded the inclusion of other languages in such structural classifications. Besides, within the Bantu group, such typological generalizations are often disjunctive, and they display a significant amount of family resemblance patterns. Since genetic connections between creoles lexified by different languages are likely to be very remote, if valid at all, one wonders what rewards are to be reaped from McWhorter's endeavor. Where creoles are related genetically, because they descend from the same lexifier, efforts to identify prototypes among them are worse than trying to determine which offspring in a family are more proto­ typical of it while there are apparently no combinations of genes or of morphological features that make an individual the best exemplar of that family, even if there are features shared by most members of the family. Note that typicality is different from, and more inclusive than, prototypicality. McWhorter's exercise is even more futile if his goal is to "vindicate a typo­ logical class" and all he can show is a disputable set of a handful of "prototypical creoles". I will leave alone the general problem with global, as opposed to parametric, typology. 4) This is simply an invitation to turn things around and ask ourselves whether contact has played no role at all in putatively "normal" cases of language change. If it has — at the level of varying and competing idiolects, as I argue below — how qualitatively different is the kind of contact overlooked in "normal" language change from that which has produced vernacu­ lars called creoles?

68 2.

SALIKOKO S. MUFWENE

Creoles as outcomes of natural and normal language evolution

A close examination of Thomason's (1997) position, which is consistent with Thomason and Kaufman (1988), reveals some disputable assumptions about what distinguishes creoles from other languages from the point of view of language evolution: 1) "Prototypical creoles develop in a contact situation involving more than two groups of speakers" (78). History suggests that this criterion applies equally well to the development of, for instance, North American varieties of English, in settings where the European founder populations, a large proportion of whom were indentured servants (Tate 1965; Kulikoff 1986), had diverse nationalities and spoke different languages. The main differences between the development of creoles and that of North American English vernaculars and the like lie, on the one hand, in the multitude of languages that came in contact with the lexifier and, on the other hand, in the structural differences among the languages in contact. I am purposely leaving alone here several factors, such as social integration in the community of native speakers, which had a greater im­ pact on the restructuring process and on the divergence of white and black vernaculars in North America than the often-invoked disproportion of native and non-native speakers in the contact setting (Mufwene 1999a). 2) "The grammars of creole languages may be accounted for in large part as cross-language compromises among the grammars of their creators' native languages" (1997: 78). Such an explanation has also been provided for the development of Romance languages, more recently by Posner (1996). If we dismiss the assumption of contact of multitude of languages (which we have typically floated when dealing, for instance, with Berbice Dutch), the same kind of explanation also applies to, for instance, the development of Irish English, which bears strong Celtic substrate influence. Such counter-evidence suggests that in the development of new language varieties the restructuring formula in­ volves the same general competition-and-selection process advocated in Mufwene (1996a, 1996b, and later publications), subject to relevant ethnolinguistic-ecological factors. What is especially significant in this observation which applies to both creole and non-creole vernaculars is the allowance it makes for substrate languages to influence the restructuring of a language.5 3) Creoles have developed "by some historical process other than normal transmission" (75). Thomason characterizes "normal transmission" as

5) In clarifying his position on the development of French créoles as similar to that of new French dialects in the New World, Chaudenson (1998) proposes a similar explanation, con­ sistent with his earlier work for that matter, viz. the substrate languages are the additional factor that made creoles structurally different from their colonial non-creole congeners such as Québécois French or St. Barths' French Patois. (I discuss the varying folk usage of the term patois below.)

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complete and successful transmissions, by native speakers to child or adult learners, of an entire language, i.e. a complex interlocking set of phonological, morphological, syntactic, semantic, and lexical systems. (74)

Unfortunately, she does not take into account the fact that language is a communal construct which no native or fluent speaker possesses entirely. Therefore no native speaker acquires his/her language completely. Nor does she take into account the fact that ecology determines what aspects of a language are transmitted to meet the relevant communicative needs of the next group or generation of speakers. Recall that unlike in the scholastic setting, nobody teaches others the system of their language; every learner acquires (some of) the vocabulary to which they have been exposed and infers a system that enables them to commu­ nicate like those speakers with whom they have interacted. Hagège (1993) reminds us that restructuring, however minimal, takes place in all cases of spontaneous language transmission, from one generation of speakers to another, even in communities to which a language variety is native. Lass (1997: 112) leads more or less to the same interpretation of language transmission, with his notion of "imperfect replication". According to him, systems with true histories develop them because errors creep into the replica­ tion process [...] In language transmission the errors are linguistic innovations [in the traditional sense of the term in historical linguistics], which may be selected [...] by the speech-community.

Imperfect replication is indeed one of the factors that bring about "internallymotivated language change", if there is any reason at all for sustaining the dis­ tinction between "internally" and "externally-motivated change". I argue that the history of the development of creoles provides no evidence of broken language transmission, only evidence of cases where feature replication was more imper­ fect and restructuring was more rapid and extensive than in other communities involving primarily inter-idiolectal contacts and little or no population contacts. Even in contact communities such as 17th- and 18th-century Surinam, language seems to have been transmitted normally from one group of speakers to another (Mufwene 1998), in conditions where the local vernacular was of course diffuse (in the sense of LePage and Tabouret-Keller 1985) and changing gradually (Arends 1989). Since the restructuring formula is apparently the same — and speed and extent of restructuring vary according to diverse ecological factors — it seems arbitrary to assume that creole vernaculars have developed by diachronic pro­ cesses different from normal language change. What we have been reluctant to deal with is the continua of outcomes of restructuring from those identified as creoles to those identified as new dialects of the same lexifiers. One may of course be tempted to think of such continua on the model of the color spectrum,

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in which subareas of hue saturation are normally broken into different catego­ ries articulated around some perceptual foci. That is, although such categories have fuzzy boundaries, they are phenomena justified by their respective per­ ceptual prototypes. The case of creoles is actually quite different, independently of the fact that we are dealing here not with a multitude of categories that fade into each other but with two basic categories we have wanted to have for reasons we have not explained satisfactorily, viz. creole vs. non-creole vernaculars, at most three if we allow the disputable category of semi-creoles (Mufwene 1997b). Aside from the fact that creoles have no structural prototypes, an important problem with distinguishing creoles from non-creoles on structural grounds lies in the fact that creoles do not share their features universally nor exclusively (Mufwene 1986; Thomason 1997). This is ironically the conclusion to which one is led by McWhorter's (1998) attempt to identify creole prototypes, which are claimed to have prototypical features that other creoles do not have. Research of the past decade or so has also made it more and more obvious that a lot of the features associated with creoles have been selected, though not pre­ served intact, from the nonstandard varieties of their lexifiers or from the sub­ strate languages that the latter came in contact with. Thus, creoles are structur­ ally related both to their lexifiers and to their substrate languages, an observa­ tion that has led us to characterize them quite correctly as "mixed languages" but incorrectly as lacking genetic parentage (Thomason and Kaufman 1988; disputed in Mufwene 1998). Unfortunately, this characterization has also disfranchised creoles, because we have typically also ignored Hjelmslev's (1938) observation that all languages are mixed to some extent, that the Romance languages started as mixed languages too, that English itself has mixed language characteristics.6 We have ignored that there is a continuum of structural mixedness and non-monolithicity which may be identified in any language, regardless of its develop­ mental history (Mufwene 1992). In the absence of creole prototypes (pace Thomason 1997; McWhorter 1998), we have not made it clear where the boundary, however fuzzy, lies in degree of mixedness, nor whether the nature of mixedness changes necessarily depending on whether the varieties in contact are considered dialects of the same language (which may be typologically dis6) As argued in Mufwene (1998), this is no reason for jumping to the mistaken conclusion that the Romance languages and English developed by a putative structural process of creolization. The point here is simply that there are similar evolutionary processes that have resulted in the varieties identified as creoles in some cases and as non-creoles in others, on the basis of sociohistorical factors. We should not overlook those similarities if we stick to the position that creoles have developed by processes different from normal language change, while we must articulate more satisfactorily what these different processes are. The term creolization is too global, including too many processes, whose combination is far from being unique to creoles, to be of any use.

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similar) or separate languages (which may be typologically similar). Even if we ignore the ideological, rather than structural, foundation of the language/dialect distinction, the following question remains: Do the competition and selection which lead to restructuring operate differently in dialect contact than in language contact? Trudgill (1986) suggests just the opposite, invoking for dialect contact the same kinds of markedness considerations as Mufwene (1996b) does for the development of creoles. Contrary to Thomason's assumption that some typological options are universally marked relative to others, note that no speaker has access to all options available on any parameter around the world; one's choices are usually constrained by what one has access to. Hence, we can also argue non-trivially that all speakers select options unmarked to them, and what may be marked in one setting of language transmission may be unmarked in another.7 The trick, as expressed in Mufwene (1991a, 1996b), is to identify which factors determine markedness values and what role they play in the evolution of any language under specific ecological conditions. Our adherence to the distinction between creole and non-creole vernacu­ lars as if it were structurally based has been fostered also by the above-disputed assumption that creoles are byproducts of language contact but other language varieties are not. A correlate of this in historical linguistics is the distinction between internally and externally-motivated changes to which I also alluded above. Thomason (1997: 86) states that "a considerable amount of contactinduced language change can occur without disrupting normal transmission of a language". However, she does not show — not any more than Thomason and Kaufman do (1988) — what distinguishes normal, internally-motivated language change structurally from externally-motivated language change, nor what light this long-standing distinction in linguistics sheds on language evolu­ tion, i.e. the long-term change that the structural and/or pragmatic systems of a language may undergo (Mufwene 1999b), which I hope we seek to understand even in studying creoles. As expressed in Mufwene (1996b, 1998, 1999b), internal variation within a language qua species has a lot to do with what has been identified as inter­ nally-motivated language change. If one believes in accommodation theory and in the role of "linguistic missionaries" in spreading features from one network of communication to another and thereby causing change, then the basic expla­ nation is that contact among idiolects is the fundamental cause of language change. It is at this level of interaction that competition and selection of features take place in the system of a language qua species. Where contact among 7) The assumption of a universal, ecology-independent scale of markedness leads to the following question: why would some speakers prefer marked options instead of following the natural principle of least effort? The model of markedness I have advocated accounts for reversals of markedness values, as suggested by choices made by speakers, by highlighting changes in the ecology.

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languages is also involved, the pool of features in competition becomes larger, but the mechanisms of competition and selection remain the same, operating still at the level of interacting individuals before impacting the speech or language community. Once the distinction between "internally-motivated" and "externally-motivated" language change is dropped, grounds for distinguishing between creole and non-creole vernaculars on criteria other than sociohistorical should also vanish.

3.

The developers of creoles had target systems

The option of investigating the development of creole vernaculars with the goal of learning more about language evolution seems evaded by statements such as the following by Baker (1997: 96): in most contact situations which resulted in the emergence of pidgins or creoles, the real if unconscious aim of most of the participants was the crea­ tion of a medium for interethnic communication (MIC). By that I mean, with specific reference to slave plantation societies, that slaves did not aspire to acquire the language of the plantation owner as such. Their aim was to com­ municate, particularly with their fellow workers. The most readily available lexical source for the MIC among a multilingual workforce was that of the language to which they were all exposed in the workplace, that of the planta­ tion owner. (It is no accident that the lexical items from languages of slaves which became established in creoles relate overwhelmingly to activities asso­ ciated with slaves' free time.) If one abandons the concept of T[arget]L[anguage], one can begin to see that they might have created the MIC they needed, not only by drawing on the range of available resources but also by innovating [...]

With words such as aim, create, and aspire, the above quotation suggests surprisingly that, unlike in other cases of language evolution, the slaves who developed creoles could have deliberately been engaged in this process. While Thomason and Kaufman (1988), whose position Baker adopts, claim that there simply was no target for the slaves to aim at — which is incorrect in the first place (see below) — this passage claims that the slaves were more interested in developing an MIC than in learning anything that was already in place or promised to be useful under the circumstances of multi-ethnolinguistic contact. This characterization of the situation is more mistaken than that claimed by Thomason and Kaufman. Note that the notion of target in settings where creoles developed need not have a different interpretation from its meaning in other language acquisi­ tion settings, where a language is assumed to have been transmitted and

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acquired "normally" and "perfectly" from one group to another. In all such settings, one must deal with interindividual variation and some heterogeneity of input, a state of affairs from which generative grammar derives evidence for innateness and creativity with respect to child language development. Regarding the suggestion that creoles were deliberately created by the slaves, let us note non-trivially that in natural, non-scholastic cases of language transmission, the development of any communicative competence is not a planned activity; it is a byproduct of efforts to communicate. Things will not have been different in settings where creoles developed, as the populations were under pragmatic pressures to establish communication and had a vague idea who spoke the lexifier, the target language that was selected by the contact ecology as an MIC, fluently and who did not, especially among the Europeans themselves. One must also remember that as rapidly as the plantation colonies were peopled, the whole process was still gradual, with the early homestead communities, characterized by intimate interactions and regular attempts to communicate between speakers and learners of the lexifier. Even by the time the plantation communities developed and non-Europe­ ans became the majorities, language was still transmitted normally from one group to another, from the creole or seasoned slaves to the bozal slaves, regardless of the structural variation in the target. The difference between those settings identified misguidedly in the literature as involving no contact versus those identified as involving contact really lies in how many systems competed with the lexifier and how they differed structurally from each other (Mufwene 1998). One may also observe that the contact setting made language boundaries less rigid and the lexifier more osmotic, allowing more influence from the sub­ strate systems than in other settings of language transmission where there is more interaction with a majority of fluent speakers of a less diffuse target language.9 One needs only check the literature on code-mixing to notice why this is a plausible explanation. (I return to these observations below.) There is no doubt that the lingua francas, if not the vernaculars, spoken by the founder populations (i.e. those who arrived earlier) were less focused (in the sense of LePage and Tabouret-Keller 1985) than may be expected in those settings involving no contact of populations and minimal restructuring of the kind described by Hagège (1993). However, should we equate lack of focusing with absence of a target? Is this not just a matter of degree, like almost anything 8) Note that if language transmission in settings assumed to involve no language contact were "normally" perfect, then there would be no explanation for internally-motivated change in the first place. 9) I speak of "majority" tongue in cheek here. Cases involving the development of AfricanAmerican vernacular English and foreign workers' language varieties in Europe show clearly that integration within the native-speaking community is a more critical factor than the demographic disproportion, on which the literature on the development of creoles has capi­ talized (Mufwene 1999a).

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else? Is the Chomskyan creationist view on language acquisition not also predi­ cated partly on chaotic input? Isn't this a correlate of the notion of idiolect in linguistics, viz. that different speakers have internalized (slightly) different grammars and therefore present different kinds of inputs to whoever is acquir­ ing language from interacting with them? Isn't it the Chomskyan position which led Hagège (1993) to observe correctly that the transmission of a language from one generation to the next is in part inheritance and in part creation, which explains "internally-motivated" change in the first place?10 Arguing, as Baker does, that those who developed creoles "did not aspire to acquire the language of the plantation owner as such" because they wanted to communicate among themselves raises interesting questions about similar situations, such as in Europe, where foreign workers speaking the same vernaculars and living together wound up developing language varieties which have been claimed to share some structural features with creoles. Is the forma­ tion of foreign workers' varieties deliberate, too? Does it reflect some sort of defiance or lack of interest in speaking like native speakers? Effects of the post'critical period' in language development set aside, don't such varieties reflect the complicity of ecological factors in not providing learners of the target with optimal interactive settings for language acquisition? Is there any particular reason why we should think that the economically or politically dominant language on a plantation could not be a target for the slaves and thereby func­ tion as an MIC? Is the notion of a target in plantation contact settings really in conflict with a scenario where the African languages would have disappeared not quickly but gradually? Did the extended coexistence of some substrate languages with the lexifier really preclude targeting the lexifier as an MIC? Why have similar situations not prevented the entrenchment of European languages as lingua francas in former European colonies? As a matter of fact, these varieties have generally indigenized, reflecting both substrate influence during usage of these lingua francas (Mufwene, fc.) and the fact that languages are normally adapted to the communicative needs of those who adopt them. Interestingly in this case, the association of these colonial languages with domi­ nation and/or oppression did not prevent its adoption by the dominated popula­ tions. Baker would have probably been better off arguing that in the settings in which creóles developed, language boundaries were less rigid than they may be in other "non-contact" communities and there was thus more of what Chaudenson (1992) describes as "osmosis", which, as noted above, allows mixing of systems and therefore substrate influence in the lexifier. Research on 10) My comments are not meant to deny that a language variety may be formed deliberately. One such language variety is described by Childs (1997), namely Isicamtho in South Africa. Note, however, that in this case the speakers had another vernacular in commonfromwhich they wanted to distinguish their speech patterns.

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code-mixing is powerful proof of osmosis, although, pace Myers-Scotton (1997), I doubt that code-mixing or code-switching itself, as a phenomenon associated with bilingualism, sheds significant light on the development of creoles other than in demonstrating that structures of languages can indeed be mixed in all sorts of ways. Rather, imperfect replication as a principle applica­ ble to all cases of language acquisition and substrate influence accounts well for their development.11 As explained in Mufwene (1991b), cognitive maturation set aside, the main difference between child language acquisition and second language acqui­ sition lies in the addition of features from languages previously spoken by the learners to the pool of competing features. One need not invoke code-mixing or switching (in the sense of typically associated with these terms in the bilin­ gualism literature) in order to develop a new language variety in the communi­ cation process. Otherwise, the same principles invoked in the competition-andselection approach (Mufwene 1996b), drawing from the best of universalist, substratist, and superstratist hypotheses, complement Thomason and Kaufman's basic "imperfect learning" explanation, extended here to all cases of language acquisition.

11) The kind of bilingual ecology presupposed by Myers-Scotton's unhistorical approach did not obtain as a general rule in settings where creoles have developed, although there were unavoidably cases in the New World and the Indian Ocean in which Africans speaking a common language were on the same plantation. However, during the development of creoles, the earlier slaves who "seasoned" the newcomers and therefore served as their linguistic models did not necessarily share a language with the latter. Therefore their verbal interactions did not encourage codeswitching. Given strong pressures on the newcomers to communicate with the locals before they had full command of the local vernaculars, interlanguage stages, rather than full-scale bilingualism and code-switching in individual speakers, are responsible for the restructuring that produced creoles. The more frequently speakers of interlanguages communicated with each other, the more likely some features of such interactions were to normalize in the community, albeit as variants of other features closer to the lexifier's, hence the development of basilects. Myers-Scotton's approach suggests also that a substrate language functions as the "matrix language". A charitable interpretation of this is that, by the least effort principle, learners first try structures familiar to them, until they are proved wrong. This may be true. On the other hand, one can be sure that when there is a constant native model (which was not the case during the basilectalization stage of creoles), even the most inept learner can recognize when constituents are structured differently in the target language. Being (fully) successful in attempts to master the target language is another story, which makes imperfect-learning or approximation accounts plausible, especially because they make allowance for interference from previously known systems. Like the relexification hypothesis, Myers-Scotton's approach makes no, or little, allowance for structural features of the lexifier to prevail even in modified ways. After all, creoles do share several features with their lexifiers, which, we must recall, were nonstandard vernaculars. There are indeed cases involving no decreolization, such as in Réunion, where a putative creole has remained close enough to structures of its lexifier.

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The literature on the development of creoles has focused on language contact more from the perspective of communities being in contact with each other, than from the point of view of interacting individuals, at whose level actual contact takes place. It is really the tacit negotiations and innovations at the inter-idiolectal level of interaction which ultimately produce the phenomena that have concerned us at the language level, more or less like biological selec­ tion which, operating at the level of individual organisms first, ultimately affects a species. In settings where large proportions of speakers do not have normal monolingual fluency in the language they intend to speak, language boundaries become less and less rigid and the degree of osmosis is accordingly increased, an ecological factor that favors interference, which is so central in Thomason and Kaufman's (1988) account of the development of creoles. This leads to innovations in its traditional sense in historical linguistics, viz. new patterns or structures not attested previously in the relevant language (variety). Chaudenson (1998) captures the above idea by speaking of relaxation of metropolitan norms in colonial communities both among Europeans and among non-Europeans. Like in other settings, children born to a contact community select and reproduce with minor modifications systems used by others, per Hagège's account of language acquisition and change, and thereby contribute to the development of the new vernaculars. Thus, the following other questions arise about Baker's statement: Where does the difference lie between what Thomason characterizes as "ordinary" language change and his observation that the slaves created the MICs "not only by drawing on the range of available resources but also by innovating"? Isn't this all part of the traditional language change as discussed in historical linguis­ tics? Also, is there any fundamental difference between targeting a European colonial lexifier and taking most of a Creole's lexicon from the same language? Can such a massive selection of the lexicon from a particular language be dis­ tinguished from identifying the same as a target system? Would the vocabulary have been learned alone without the concurrent structural and pragmatic con­ straints on their usage, regardless of the ensuing restructuring? Were Thomason and Kaufman (1988) so wrong in invoking imperfect language learning, except in making it peculiar to the development of "contact varieties"?

4.

Creoles as disfranchised dialects of their lexifiers

To be sure, most of us have disputed earlier Bickertonian UG-based innovations in the sense of new creations ex-nihilo (Mufwene 1996b). Much of the valid efforts of superstratists and substratists have indeed consisted in showing that many of the so-called innovations stemmed from models available in either the lexifier (typically a set-theory union of nonstandard varieties) or some of the substrate languages. Consistent with Lass's (1997) "imperfect replication",

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Boretzky (1993) shows clearly why substrate influence need not have been pre­ served unmodified in creoles any more than in other languages, just as Chaudenson (especially 1989, 1992) shows that creoles often pushed to their logical conclusions evolutionary tendencies already observable in the lexifier itself. This is one of the thrusts of his notion of "français zéro" as a set-theory union of varieties of French, from which structural variants were selected into creoles and often adapted to new communicative functions, under specific sub­ strate influences. I cannot help thinking that the development of creoles was a byproduct of acquiring a diffuse but nonetheless targeted system with relatively greater ecology-prompted restructuring than in less heterogeneous and more focused settings of language transmission. Thus, as also observed by Hagege (1993), the difference between the development of creole and non-creole languages lies not in the structural processes that produced them but in the out­ comes of the same processes. Mufwene (1996c) tries to account for this varia­ tion in outcomes in terms of ecological factors affecting restructuring.12 Several things in the history of the development of creoles, including much of the above discussion, lead to the conclusion that these vernaculars are socially disfranchised dialects of their lexifiers, especially since dialects of the same language need not be mutually intelligible. As also recognized by Thomason(1997:86), the dividing lines between ordinary languages and contact languages [if they are non-ordinary] [...] are as hard tofindas the dividing lines between dialects and languages. We know well that the latter distinction serves no structural purpose, because we do not need different ways, nor techniques, to discuss characteristics of dialects than to describe features of languages, nor to explain the development of dialects than to account for the formation of languages. As some recent studies have shown (Mufwene 1996c included), grammaticization processes that have taken place in the development of creoles are not different in kind from those that have taken place in non-creole languages.13 The morphemes or constructions which have been idiomatized for specific grammatical functions start from models available in some source, typically in the lexifier. Influences that bear on the grammaticization process may come from within the lexifier or 12) His explanation seems also to be the gist of Chaudenson (1998) as he speaks of relaxation of metropolitan norms and makes allowance for influence of substrate languages on the restructuring of the lexifier. 13) It has been argued recently that the development of creoles involves no processes of grammaticization. This is a mistaken conclusion based on the gratuitous assumption that creoles did not develop by ordinary or normal language change, not on the unproven absence of developmental paths similar to those of grammaticization in the development of non-creole vernaculars. See my discussion of this topic in Mufwene (1996c).

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from outside the lexifier, while the whole process is constrained by other grammatical conventions in place in the system. For instance, the chances of going to becoming a full syntactic auxiliary verb for FUTURE depends in part on whether the variety in which it is used allows copula-less predicates and/or on whether or not going is still identified as a progressive form in the relevant variety. This accounts for why going to in Standard English will have different syntactic distributional properties from gon in AAVE and a go in Jamaican Creole. Likewise, the use of self in compound pronominal forms depends largely on how possessive constructions behave in the relevant varieties of English. Thus, there is no requirement to combine it with a possessive pronoun in Gullah and most English creoles because they have no possessive pronouns and the same invariant personal pronouns are typi­ cally preposed to the possessive noun. Thus one finds mi/yu buk 'my/your book', mi/yu own 'my/your own, mine/yours', and misef/yusef 'myself/youxself'. Understanding much of the position I present here depends on rejecting the common assumption that a language is an organism, and starting thinking of it as a species, which is internally variable, and a complex adaptive system (Mufwene 1996b, 1999b). Such a change of perspective gives more sense to the competition-and-selection approach which I advocate and to such ethnographic notions as mutual accommodation, uneven language change in a population, or decreolization for that matter (wrongly or justifiably). Space limitations prevent getting into all that here.

5.

Is there justification for specializing on creoles?

After all the above arguments against treating the development of creole vernaculars as non-ordinary linguistic evolutions, I should perhaps explain why I consider myself a creolist and continue to distinguish between creole and non­ creole vernaculars. My position does not contradict this professional specializa­ tion of mine. Chaudenson (1989, 1992) justifies the identification of creoles quite adequately as a group of vernaculars whose developments are similar especially in their temporal and geographical positions, viz. in tropical colonies settled by Europeans practicing slave-based economy from the 17th to the 19th centuries.14 The lexifiers are typically nonstandard varieties of European languages. 14) There are perhaps others like McWhorter (1998) who assume that denying that creoles can be defined structurally amounts to claiming that there is no empirical justification for singling them out as an interesting group of vernaculars. I never argued for such an extreme position. I have maintained since Mufwene (1986) that as a group of language varieties, creoles can be defined sociohistorically by the similarities of the socio-economic settings that produced them. Sociohistorical justification is as empirical as alternative justifications for singling creoles out as a group worth investigating, especially regarding the relation between

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As explained in Mufwene (1997b), in several of these colonies there are parts of the populations which have been identified as creoles, and creole vernaculars have typically been associated with parts of these creole popula­ tions, viz. those who do not descend entirely from European ancestors. Thomason (1997) joins me in acknowledging that these languages are not typologically unique, nor do they share universally even some of the features associated with them. If we had to interpret history faithfully, some of the languages that have retained our attention would not probably fit in this cate­ gory, because their speakers, or those who disfranchised them, have not called them creoles, for instance Gullah. This could have been the case for Jamaican Creole, typically identified as Patois, although I am sure it falls in the subset that Thomason identifies questionably as "prototypical".15 However, there is nothing wrong with delineating a group of languages on sociohistorical grounds and making them the subject matter of one's research, just as one may be interested in postcolonial discourse or in precolonial communication. This position does not presuppose that creoles, as identi­ fied in the social histories of some polities, share any more structural features than, say, the Germanic languages do among themselves. One thing worth remembering for creoles is that as a group they are not genetically related among themselves (although those with the same lexifier certainly are). If they happen to share some features, grouping them together arouses more academic interest, as it has justifiably for the past century and a half, especially over the past three decades. We would like to learn what the shared features reflect from the different sociohistorical ecologies of their developments. There is plenty to learn from them about language universals, Universal Grammar qua biological endowment for language, and about language evolution in the direction of more, or less, complexity, of diversification into other varieties, etc. On the other hand, we need not assume more than is justified by the facts. Creoles vary among themselves; and the nature of both their cross-systemic variation and their structural similarities does not warrant lumping them in a prototype kind of category. So far we have identified neither the best exemplar of the sociohistorical conditions nor of the few creoles that possess exclusively the combination of structural features associated with the category, pace ecological factors and language evolution. However, one justification need not entail another, and this has been the point of my arguments all along against defining creoles structurally. 15) It is sociologically interesting that in the anglophone Caribbean the prevalent folk term for creole vernaculars is the French word Patois (often represented as Patwa in the relevant creolistic literature), a term which is not used for the same kind of vernacular in the Francophone Antilles. Here the term créole is used, whereas on St. Barths, for instance, patois applies to the nonstandard vernaculars spoken by the white descendants of French settlers. Calvet (1999) reports that White Creoles in Louisiana will not refer to their French varieties as créole, although they are structurally similar to the varieties spoken by Black Creoles. They would rather use the terms cajun ox patois in reference to their own varieties.

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McWhorter (1998). All there is so far is family resemblance, typical of any grouping of languages, even those that are genetically related and/or typologically related, for which we have sought to identify no prototypes.16 The problem arises when one starts claiming some structural features to be peculiarly creole, pretending that there is a yet-to-be-articulated optimal combination of such features that produces a creole, otherwise one has a semi­ creole or something else. Until good evidence is adduced, we must simply recognize that some of our working assumptions are social but have not yet been validated structurally. While there are sociohistorical reasons for isolating creoles in a separate category — undoubtedly because we hope to learn some­ thing new or special about language (as when we study any other language, for that matter) — we still have not produced that particular battery of structural features that justify treating them as a particular structural type of languages. We do not even know what features are the most critical for a vernacular to be a creole, which makes it more difficult to determine, for whatever purpose, when a variety qualifies as a semi-creole or as a dialect of its lexifier, a position for which I can draw support from Thomason (1997), too.

6.

In conclusion

One thing I cannot help noticing is that we have often evaded the question of what the study of creoles contributes to understanding Language. For instance, what does the study of the development of creoles contribute to research on language evolution? What does the study of creoles' structural features, espe­ cially how they tend to cluster, tell us about language typology and universals? What does the study of the particular features which they seldom do without reveal about Universal Grammar, for instance, in regard to that core of features that a language cannot do without, regardless of how extensively it is restruc­ tured? What are the parameters or paths of restructuring that they validate or question in respect to grammaticization? Many of the tough questions that we 16) Perhaps it will help to note that not all natural categories may be organized on the proto­ type model. There are good reasons why such an organization applies to color and kinship categories: their members (though not so discrete in the case of color categories) have per­ ceptual and behavioral correlates that justify it. In the few cases where the model has been applied to membership in grammatical categories (e.g. McCawley 1988, ch. 7), it seems more realistic to invoke family resemblance instead. It is practically impossible to identify the best exemplars for categories such as Noun and Verb, though it is possible to structure them into several subcategories, which still have fuzzy boundaries. Not even child language acquisition data support such a prototype model to grammatical categories. Although one can argue that peripheral category members are acquired later, there is no convincing evidence that the best exemplars of particular categories are acquired first. However, see Givón (1986) for a some­ what different perspective, which assumes that prototype categories may be the compromise between Platonic categories and the family resemblance model.

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face in the practice of our profession should prompt us not only to ask ourselves what we creolists have done wrong but sometimes also what may have been misunderstood in the received doctrine, simply because those who built it were not confronted with the questions we now face (Mufwene 1996c). The above discussion suggests that the verb creolize and its normaliza­ tion creolization mean no particular kind of structural diachronic process, no special kind of restructuring. They identify globally various combinations of the normal kinds of evolutionary processes observable in diverse languages. They also happen to have been branded with special social values, showing a terrible bias toward descendants of non-Europeans in the colonial settings where creoles developed (Mufwene 1997a). In the spirit of Mufwene (1997b) these terms could also be dispensed with, unless we assign them interpretations that are consistent with the sociohistorical characterization presented above (Mufwene 1986; Chaudenson 1989, 1992, 1998). We could thus focus more on the kinds of questions formulated above and contribute more adequately to the endeavor to understand Language, how it works and how it evolves over time. I maintain that creoles could also be treated as dialects of their lexifiers, at least where their native speakers think so. However, whether they are treated as dialects of their lexifiers or as separate languages should not really concern us that much, because this distinction changes nothing to the nature of structural questions we address, certainly not about the kind of restructuring that produced them nor about their undeniable genetic ties with their lexifiers.

References Arends, Jacques. 1989. "Syntactic developments in Sranan". Ph.D. dissertation, University of Nijmegen. Baker, Philip. 1997. "Directionality in pidginization and creolization". In Arthur K. Spears and Donald Winford, eds. 1997: 91-109. Boretzky, Norbert. 1993. "The concept of rule, rule borrowing, and substrate influence in creole languages". In Salikoko S. Mufwene, ed. Africanisms in Afro-American Language Varieties. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 74-92. Calvet, Louis-Jean. 1999. Mei you tiao cha jiu: Pour une Ecologie des Langues du Monde. Paris: Plon. Chaudenson, Robert. 1989. Créoles et enseignement du français. Paris: L'Harmattan. —. 1992. Des îles, des hommes, des langues: Essai sur la créolisation linguistique et culturelle. Paris: L'Harmattan. —. 1998. "Variation, koinèisation, créolisation: Français d'Amérique et créoles". In Patrice Brasseur, ed. Français d'Amérique: Variation, Créolisation, Normalisation. Avignon: CEAV, Université d'Avignon, 163-179. Childs, Tucker. 1997. "The status of Isicamtho, a Nguni-based urban variety of Soweto". In Arthur K. Spears and Donald Winford, eds. 1997: 341-67.

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Dillard, Joey L. 1972. Black English: Its History and Usage in the United States. New York: Vintage Books. Givón, Talmy 1986. "Prototypes: Between Plato and Wittgenstein". In Collette Craig, ed. Noun Classes and Categorization. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins, 77-102. Hagège, Claude. 1993. The Language Builder: An Essay on the Human Signature in Linguis­ tic Morphogenesis. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. Hancock, Ian. 1986. "The domestic hypothesis, diffusion and componentiality: An account of Atlantic Anglophone creole origins". In Pieter Muysken and Norval Smith, eds. Sub­ strate Versus Universals in Creole Genesis. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins, 71102. Hjelmslev, Louis. 1938. "Etudes sur la Notion de Parenté Linguistique". Revue des Etudes Indo-Européennes 1: 271-86. Hock, Hans Henrich and Brian D. Joseph. 1996. Language History, Language Change, and Language Relationship. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Huber, Magnus. 1999. "Atlantic English creóles and the Lower Guinea Coast: A case a gainst Afrogenesis". In Magnus Huber and Mikael Parkvall, eds. Spreading the Word. The Issue of Diffusion among the Atlantic Creoles. London: University of Westminster Press, 81-110. Kulikoff, Allan. 1986. Tobacco and Slaves: The Development of Southern Cultures in the Chesapeake, 1680-1800. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Lass, Roger. 1997. Historical Linguistics and Language Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Le Page, Robert B. and Andrée Tabouret-Keller. 1985. Acts of Identity: Creole-based Approaches to Language and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McCawley, James D. 1988. The Syntactic Phenomena of English. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. McWhorter, John H. 1998. "Identifying the creole prototype: Vindicating a typological class". Language 74: 788-818. Mufwene, Salikoko S. 1986. "Les langues créoles peuvent-elles être définies sans allusion à leur histoire?" Etudes Créoles 9: 135-50. —. 1991a. "Pidgins, creoles, typology, and markedness". In Francis Byrne and Thorn Huebner, eds. Development and Structures of Creole Languages: Essays in Honor of Derek Bickerton. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins, 123-43. —. 1991b. "Review of Pidgins and Creoles, vols. 1 and 2, by John Holm". Language 67: 380-87. —. 1992. "Why grammars are not monolithic". In Gary Larson and Lynn A. Mac Leod, eds. The Joy of Grammar: A Festschrift in Honor of James D. McCawley. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins, 225-50. —. 1996a. "The development of American Englishes: Some questions from a creole genesis perspective". In Edgar W. Schneider, ed. Focus on the USA. (Varieties of English Around the World. Gl6.) Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins, 231-64. —. 1996b. "The Founder Principle in creole genesis". Diachronica 13: 83-134.

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—. 1996c. "Creolization and grammaticization: What creolistics could contribute to research on grammaticization". In Philip Baker and Anand Syea, eds. Changing Meanings, Changing Functions. University of Westminster Press, 5-28. —. 1997a. "The legitimate and illegitimate offspring of English". In Larry E. Smith and Michael L. Forman, eds. World Englishes 2000. College of Languages, Linguistics, and Literature, University of Hawai'i and the East-West Center, 182-203. —. 1997b. "Jargons, pidgins, creoles, and koines: What are they?". In Arthur K. Spears and Donald Winford, eds. 1997: 35-70. —. 1998. "What research on creole genesis can contribute to historical linguistics". In Monika S. Schmid, Jennifer R. Austin and Dieter Stein, eds. Historical Linguistics 1997. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins, 315-38. —. 1999a. "Accountability in descriptions of creoles". In John Rickford and Suzanne Romaine, eds. Creole Genesis, Attitudes, and Discourse: Studies Celebrating Charlene J. Sato. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins, 157-85. —. 1999b. "Language contact, evolution, and death: How ecology rolls the dice". In Gloria E. Kindell and M. Paul Lewis, eds. Assessing Ethnolinguistic Vitality. Dallas, TX: Summer Institute of Linguistics. —. fc. "Contact and speciation in English: Some dialects of English are creole". In Anne Pakir, Vincent Ooi and Ismail Talib, eds. English Globalized. Vol. 1: Perspectives and Prospects. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. Myers-Scotton, Carol. 1997. " 'Matrix language recognition' and 'morpheme sorting' as possi­ ble structural strategies in pidgin/creole formation". In Arthur K. Spears and Donald Winford, eds. 1997: 151-74. Posner, Rebecca. 1996. The Romance Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rosch, Eleanor. 1977. "Classification of real-world objects: Origins and representations in cognition". In P. N. Johnson-Laird and P. C. Wason, eds. Thinking: Readings in Cog­ nitive Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 212-22. Spears, Arthur K. and Donald Winford, eds. 1997. The Structure and Status of Pidgins and Creoles. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. Tate, Thad W. 1965. The Negro in Eighteenth-century Williamsburg. Williamsburg, VA: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Thomason, Sarah G. 1997. "A typology of contact languages". In Arthur K. Spears and Donald Winford, eds. 1997: 71-88. — and Terrence Kaufman. 1988. Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics. Berkeley: University of California Press. Trudgill, Peter. 1986. Dialects in Contact. Oxford: Blackwell.

84 Salikoko S. Mufwene Department of Linguistics University of Chicago 1010 East 59th Street Chicago, IL 60637 USA [email protected]

SALIKOKO S. MUFWENE

Defining "creole" as a synchronic term

John H. McWhorter University of California, Berkeley

1. Introduction It has often been claimed that there are no synchronic features distinguishing creole languages from other ones, such that the term creole is in the strict sense solely a sociohistorical one, referring to certain languages born as lingua francas amidst heavy contact between two or more languages (Kihm 1980: 212; Mufwene 1986; Chaudenson 1992: 135; Corne 1995: 121). This idea, however, has rarely been subjected to close scrutiny from a typological perspective, and in McWhorter (1998), I presented a thesis that in fact, creole languages can be distinguished on a purely synchronic basis. That paper presented the idea in broad outline. In this paper, I will explore the hypothesis of what I have called the Creole Prototype more closely.

2.

Epistemology of the Creole Prototype

Markey (1982) proposed a definition of creole based on a list of features such as lack of gender distinctions, SVO word order, lack of overtly marked passive, tense-aspect markers indicating the three basic distinctions anterior, nonpunctual, and irrealis, and "semantic repartitions" of lexifier features, such as the use of a locative copula as a nonpunctual marker. This approach has been found insufficient, partly because many creole languages lack a few or even many of these features, and partly because there are non-creole languages which combine many of them. Indeed, Markey's checklist can be considered in large part a typology of analytic languages in general rather than creole ones. Yet logically, the inadequacy of Markey's approach does not rule out the possibility that creoles may be synchronically defined in another way, espe­ cially since Markey was concerned more with evaluating whether Afrikaans is a creole language than developing a theoretically self-standing definition of creole itself. In fact, since creoles are indisputably new languages, we are faced

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with a crucial question: since grammars are dynamic rather than static systems, why would we not expect there to be definable signs of youth in the structure of a new grammar? It would seem logical, in fact, that if a grammar is new, then it might be distinguishable from older grammars in terms of particular grammati­ cal features which are known to arise only over time. Three such features include: 1. Inflectional affixation. Over time, one possible fate of a free morpheme is to become a piece of bound inflectional morphology, having been gradu­ ally reanalyzed as grammatical rather than lexical. The development in Vulgar Latin, for example, of forms of the verb habēre into future and conditional-marking inflections in many Romance languages is wellknown. (It must be clear that we refer not to inflection as an abstract feature of Universal Grammar (UG), but to inflectional affixation.) 2. Tone. Over time, one result of ongoing phonetic erosion is the develop­ ment of tonal contrasts beyond the phonological level, such as distin­ guishing monosyllabic lexical items as in the Chinese varieties, or encoding morphosyntactic distinctions as in Bantu. (This is not the only source of tonogenesis, but it is one possible one.) 3. Derivational noncompositionality. Over time, semantic drift leads some combinations of a derivational particle or affix with a root to become idiosyncratically noncompositional. For example, the Russian directional prefix na- signifies, compositionally, direction towards, as in dvigat'sja 'to move' versus nadvigat'sja, 'to move towards'. However, there are many combinations of na- and a verb in which this semantic contribution is abstract to the point of lexicalization: idti 'to go' versus najti, which compositionally would be 'to go at' but in fact means 'to find', or kazat' 'to show' versus nakazat' 'to punish'. The pathway of reasoning from here to a proposed synchronic Creole Prototype begins with the very reason that these three particular features appear only over time. For example, whether or not it has tone, each language spoken by human beings is an expression of natural language generated via the princi­ ples of Universal Grammar. Because of this, we can assume that tone is not a sine qua non of natural language, but merely a possible manifestation thereof. More specifically, because tonal contrasts beyond the phonological level usually arise via phonetic change and suprasegmental reinterpretations of stress-based systems, we can specify that the tone traceable to this kind of change is ulti­ mately but a by-product of the operations of such change, quite unconnected to any functional necessity inherent to UG. Similarly, inflectional affixation and noncompositional derivation are demonstrably unnecessary to natural language itself; they are frequently-encountered permutations of natural language, which arise only because of the erosional processes that continually shape syntax and semantics.

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The fact that these traits are epiphenomenal to effective communication is important, because there is a communication strategy typically used between groups speaking different languages but seeking transitory, perfunctory exchange; namely the creation of a makeshift speech variety encoding only those concepts fundamental to basic communication. This strategy is the pidgin. For example, while the Native American languages spoken by their creators are highly inflectional, inflectional affixation is completely absent in Eskimo Pidgin (Van der Voort 1995: 145-7) and Delaware Jargon (Goddard 1997: 57); Chinook Jargon had none except for a tendency for some latter-day speakers to borrow English plural -s for a few nouns (Thomason and Kaufman 1988: 30); Mobilian Jargon had only a negator inflection (Drechsel 1997: 103-4). Fanakalo Pidgin Zulu has no tone despite Zulu's complex tonal system, while Chinese Pidgin Russian has no tone despite Chinese's (Neumann 1966; Nichols 1980). Derivational morphemes (free and bound) can be found to a small degree in pidgins, but what is important is that their usages are compositional: for exam­ ple, there are no examples of the use of -man in the Russenorsk corpus which stray beyond indicating nationality or group, such as russman 'Russian' (Broch and Jahr 1984: 156-66), and this author is aware of no description of a pidgin mentioning noncompositional uses of derivational apparatus. Pidgins, serving as useful, but merely utilitarian, vehicles of communication, certainly require e.g. nouns, verbs, predication, and interrogative lexemes, but inflection, tone, and derivational noncompositionality, features marginal even to nuanced communi­ cation (witness the myriad natural languages which lack them), tend naturally to be severely reduced or eliminated entirely by pidgin creators. Few would disagree with my statements thus far; however, there are implications to be drawn from them which are, at this writing, a departure from common creolist consensus. To wit, in reference to a thesis that creole is a synchronic concept, it is important that pidgins tend strongly to have few or no such features, because creoles often stem from pidgins. Specifically, the birth of many creoles as pidgins leads us to a hypothesis: that the natural languages of the world (which does not include pidgins) displaying the three particular traits above will be creole languages, and that conversely, no older natural languages will display them. Significantly, it is indeed the case that these three traits are combined not only in pidgins, but in several of the languages traditionally called creoles — i.e. documented to have been born in the middle of the second millennium amidst displaced multiethnic populations and their descendants, with limited opportunity or motivation to acquire a dominant language fully. Moreover, as of this writing, this author has encountered no older language which combines these three traits. It is my claim that the combination of these three traits is an indication that creoles are new grammars, and as such constitute a predictable synchronic delineation of creoles from older languages.

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It is important to realize that there is no claim that such features cannot be found individually, or even in a pair, in older languages. Because creoles are natural languages, we would not expect them to harbor any individual features unknown in older languages. The claim is that creoles are unique in combining these three particular traits. It is indeed plausible that natural languages differ according to this combination of features: some natural languages are new while most are ancient, and correspondingly, this particular combination is predictable in a grammar without a lengthy diachrony, as we will see below.

3.

Specifying the three traits of the Creole Prototype

3.1.

Inflectional affixation

Diachronically, inflectional affixes usually arise via the reanalysis of free lexi­ cal morphemes, which become bound grammatical ones via gradual phonetic erosion and semantic bleaching, with cliticization often being an intermittent stage in this process (Hopper and Traugott 1993: 6-10). As noted above, pidgins tend strongly to have few or no inflectional affixes, because the functions they serve tend to be incidental to the utilitarian level of communication that pidgins typically serve (cf. Mühlhäusler 1997: 142-4). Therefore, we would predict that if a language fulfilled the following two criteria: 1. decending directly from a pidgin; and 2. having existed for a relatively short time, it would have developed few or no inflectional affixes. This is indeed what was found in Mc Whorter (1998) in a sample of eight languages traditionally called creoles, this term here taken sociohistorically to avoid circularity of argumentation — i.e. all were developed via rapid adoption of a target language as a lingua franca by multiethnic populations in contexts discouraging the full acquisition of that target. Ndjuka English Creole, Saramaccan English Creole, Mauritian French Creole, St. Lucian French Creole, Angolar Portuguese Creole, Haitian French Creole (DeGraff 1999a)1 and Negerhollands Dutch Creole2 have no inflectional affixes. Tok Pisin 1) On DeGraff s (1999a) claim that Haitian has gender inflection, see 5.1. 2) On the cline from free lexical item to affix, Negerhollands Dutch Creole plural marker sini, a reflex of the Creole's third person plural pronoun, was at most a clitic according to the criteria suggested by Zwicky and Pullum (1983: 503); for example, it was of optional occur­ rence and had no phonological effect upon the noun it followed (cf. Stolz 1986: 121-3). Note also that my observations on Negerhollands pertain only to the laagkreols ("low creole") variety indigenous to slaves, rather than the hoogkreols variety used with whites and often in communications with the outside world. Hesseling (1905: 93-4) observed that the latter variety, strongly influenced by the "high" language Dutch, made great use of the Dutch plural -s, while sini (and allomorphs such as sender) was used in the basilectal variety.

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English Creole has one, the adjectival marker -pela (the transitive marker -im is derivational).3 3.2.

Tone

The use of tone to contrast monosyllables, like inflectional affixation, arises as the result of long-term change, often via consonantal erosion leaving formerly allophonic tonal contrasts to encode meaning contrast once indicated by the consonants themselves. Haudricourt (1954, cited in Matisoff 1973a) recon­ structs, for example, the origin of three of the six tones in Vietnamese: Vietnamese (beginning of Christian era) pa pah pa'

Vietnamese (sixth century) pa pà pá

Similarly, the use of tone to encode morphosyntactic distinctions (a more useful and felicitous wording than simply syntactic, as I phrase it in McWhorter 1998) is a diachronic development, generally resulting from the erosion of a vowel, leaving behind its tone as the sole marker of a function (termed "Cheshirization" by Matisoff (1991: 443), in reference to the disappearance of the body of the eponymous cat leaving behind only its smile). Pidgins developed by speakers of tonal languages tend strongly to reduce or eliminate tone in these particular uses. Kituba, for instance, was developed by West Africans and speakers of varieties of Kikongo, with the latter playing the dominant role in its stabilization and conventionalization. Despite the fact that Kikongo varieties are tonal, Mufwene (1997: 176) notes that "Kituba has a predominantly phonological tone or accent system, instead of the lexical and/or grammatical tone system attested in ethnic Kikongo and in most Bantu languages", and that "moreover, unlike in ethnic Kikongo, tone alone may not be used for tense/mood/aspect distinctions". When a smaller proportion of a 3) In the absence of specific citations, sources are: Ndjuka: Hurtar and Hurtar 1994, George Hurtar, p.c.; Saramaccan: study by the author; Tok Pisin: Verhaar 1995, Peter Mühlhäusler, p.c.; Mauritian: Baker 1972, Philip Baker, p.c.; St. Lucian: Carrington 1984; Negerhollands: Stolz 1986, Cefas van Rossem, p.c.; Angolar: Maurer 1995, Philippe Maurer, p.c.. There exists no grammar of Haitian Creole comprehensive enough for these purposes, and thus data on it is derived from the sources specified throughout the paper. I have substituted Angolar for its closely related sister creole Fa D'Ambu (Annobonese), which I used as a test case in McWhorter (1998), because of the availability of a detailed grammar of Angolar (Maurer 1995) which will better serve the purposes of the discussion in this paper.

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pidgin's originators speak tonal languages, tone can disappear altogether, as it has in the pidginized Zulu adopted by many South African Indians and whites, Fanakalo. Thus we predict that if a language is descended from a pidgin and is young, then it will make little or no use of tone to distinguish monosyllabic lexical items or to encode morphosyntactic distinctions. Again, this is the case: of all eight of our sample creoles, only Saramaccan makes marginal use of tone in these functions (and on this, see 4.2.). The claim here is certainly not that "creoles have no tone", because tone plays a role in a great many creole grammars; however, the roles it plays tend to be phonological ones, which there is no reason to suppose would be eschewed even in a makeshift, reduced variety like a pidgin. For example, Atlantic English creoles like Guyanese Creole English and West African Pidgin English use tone in various suprasegmental functions, but native phonology, being the aspect of language most difficult to shed in second-language acquisition, often influences individual speakers' rendition of a pidgin. For example, Hiri Motu phonology differs according to speakers' native language (Dutton 1997: 26-7), and similar effects have been observed in Tok Pisin (Romaine 1992: 178-9; Mühlhäusler 1997: 139-40). Some creoles' originators have also substituted tone for a lexifier's stress, a fundamentally phonological process leading epiphenomenally to some lexical pairs distinguished by tone: Papiamentu papá 'father' vs. pápa 'The Pope' (Munteanu 1996: 185), Saramaccan kái 'call' from English call, haí 'to fall' from Portuguese cair. Thus an originator of a pidgin can easily carry native phonological tone to even the most phonologically, not to mention grammatically, reduced pidgin, and in the case of segmentally identical bisyllabic words, this can extend to some lexical contrasts. However, to transfer tonal contrasts of monosyllabic lexical items would be formally impossible, given that the target language will either have polysyllabic words, or monosyllabic ones distinguishable by segmental contrasts. Even if the target did have monosyllabic words distin­ guished by tone, the correspondence between tone and meaning is so languagespecific that the chances that any one syllable in the target would encode the particular range of tonally-distinguished meanings that it did in the speaker's native language would be negligible. Meanwhile, transfer of tonally marked morphosyntactic contrasts would be blocked by the strong tendencies for pidgins to eschew inflectional affixation, and to the extent to which a speaker might be inclined to transfer a tonally marked derivational contrast, the opacity of the given contrast to the speakers of other languages in the context would discourage this just as it does the transfer of individual native language inflec­ tions. Therefore a creole can reveal itself as young even with tone playing a vital role in its phonology: it is the absence or marginality of monosyllabic lexi-

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cal and morphosyntactic tonal functions in creole grammars which is significant in the delineation of a creole prototype. 3.3.

Noncompositional derivation

3.3.1. Metaphorical inference versus semantic drift Preliminary responses to my observations on derivation have often been founded upon a confusion between institutionalization and lexicalization (Matthews 1974: 193-4). Metaphorical and metonymic extensions, fundamental to human mental capacity, quite commonly distort the interpretation of deriva­ tion-root combinations from purely isomorphic interpretation. Unlike the longterm gradual process of drift yielding Russian's najti 'to find', these extensions are easily created spontaneously by individuals, often on the basis of culturally contingent conceptions, without requiring long periods to develop. Aronoff (1976: 19) notes, for example, the use of transmission to refer to the engine component rather than the action: an engineer hardly required eons to apply the word transmission to the mechanism. Because institutionalizations like these stem not from gradual, impercep­ tible drift but from synchronic human conceptual capacities, there is no motiva­ tion to hypothesize that they would be absent or even rare in creoles. For instance, the Saramaccan word for 'supporter' is baka-ma, from "behind-man", based on the expression waka a wan ssmbs baka 'to walk behind a person' (Norval Smith, p.c.). While one certainly could only derive the meaning of bakama via explanation or context, as in transmission, the denotational relation­ ship between the word's morphemes and its meaning is readily processible via the very powers of metaphorical inference that created the usage. The type of noncompositional derivation-root combinations important in identifying a language as old are not these kinds of creative, culturally-rooted institutionalizations, of the sort which are rife in all natural languages, creoles as well as non-creoles. Our diagnostic is derivation-root combinations whose meanings are not only unpredictable from their parts by the first-time hearer, but where the semantic connection between the morphemes and their referent remains obscure even when the meaning of the word is known. In other words, our interest is in cases in which the metaphorical connection between the synchronic interpretation and the original compositional one has become either completely unrecoverable, or only gleanable to the etymologist or historical semanticist. Thus the Creole Prototype hypothesis does not entail a claim that creoles lack idioms and culturally embedded semantic extensions, for the simple reason that no natural language spoken by human beings does. As such, lists of such institutionalizations and idioms in a creole I have cited as fitting the Prototype cannot constitute refutations of my hypothesis, which was constructed in full

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awareness of such cases. Transmission and Saramaccan bakama contrast with a case like Russian's najti 'to find' and nakazat', 'to punish'. The use of'go at' as 'to find', or 'show at' as 'to punish', find elucidation neither in cultural context nor in metaphorical inference except of the most highly tenuous nature. These are cases not of dynamic idiomatization, but of opacification due to inexorable semantic drift. 3.3.2. Productivity versus noncompositionality Contrary to some responses to McWhorter (1998), the issue of importance regarding the role of derivation in the Creole Prototype is not the productivity of a language's derivational morphemes, but the extent to which combinations of a given derivational morpheme and a following item are predictable or not, or, in the terms of Aronoff (1976: 38), display "semantic coherence". Productivity is a misleading focus for our purposes first because its equa­ tion with compositionality is quite partial. The prefix re- in English is quite pro­ ductive, and yet there are many uses of it which have drifted semantically into noncompositionality (having actually done so within the European languages they were borrowed from), such as represent and repose. On the other hand, -ity is only fitfully productive (credulous - credulity but spurious - *spuriosity), and the nominalizer -th is not productive (warmth - *coolth), and yet their combina­ tions with adjectives are generally compositional. Productivity is also inappropriate as a diagnostic for these purposes because productive processes are, properly speaking, but a subset of the deriva­ tion in a language. The criterion for treatment as morphology in the Creole Prototype hypothesis is not productivity but analyzability (cf. Bauer 1988: 61): whether or not the item is processed as morphology by speakers. Because pro­ ductive derivation is naturally of central interest in the study of the rules gener­ ating grammars synchronically, theoretical morphologists often discuss deriva­ tion under a shorthand assumption that for the purposes at hand, derivation refers to productive derivation. This is natural and unexceptionable; however, the Creole Prototype hypothesis examines not synchronic generation but the results of semantic drift. As such, its proper domain is not just productive morphology, but this plus all diachronic layers of morphology still synchronic­ ally perceptible as morphology regardless of semantic drift or loss of productiv­ ity — i.e. analyzable morphology. Thus here we are concerned not with the productivity of a derivational morpheme, but with the combinations of such a morpheme with a root which have semantically drifted from compositionality to the point that they must now be stored in the lexicon rather than generated. Despite its cruciality to my thesis, noncompositional derivation only occasionally requires sustained attention in the context of linguistic research.

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Thus it will be useful to examine the phenomenon across various languages in the next section. 3.3.3. Noncompositional derivation in older languages In Tok Pisin, there are no noncompositional derivation-root combinations (Mühlhäusler, p.c.). For example, the abstract nominalizer -pasin is composi­ tional in all of its uses (from Mühlhäusler 1985: 625): gut isi prout pait

'good' 'slow' 'proud' 'fight'

gutpasin isipasin proutpasin paitpasin

'virtue' 'slowness' 'pride' 'warfare'

By contrast, in an older language like German, the semantic contribution of the prefix ver- is often quite obscure. One usage conveys the notion of 'away': jagen 'to hunt', verjagen 'to chase away'. There are several extended meanings from this one: error ('away' from the right path) as in führen 'to lead', verführen 'to lead astray'; consumption or waste as in hungern 'to be hungry', verhungern 'to starve'; and antonymy as in lernen 'to learn', verlernen 'to forget'. Furthermore, there are usages unconnected (synchronically) with these, such as union {schmelzen 'to melt', verschmelzen 'to fuse') and as a simple verbalizer of other parts of speech {Gott 'God', vergöttern 'to deify'). All of these usages occur in several cases in the lexicon, and it is significant that there is no derivational affix or particle in the eight creoles in question with this extended range of connotations. Most importantly, however, there are a great many uses of verunattributable to any of these meanings: nehmen 'to take', vernehmen 'to perceive'; schaffen 'to manage to do, pull off, verschaffen 'to obtain'; mögen 'may, to like', vermögen 'to enable' (tr.), 'to be able to' (intr.). This prefix bedevils the second-language learner because its usages throughout the lexicon are so varied and unpredictable. A similar case is the Russian prefix ras/z. The prefix has three basic and productive meanings: separation (kuporit' 'to cork', razkuporit' 'to uncork'), dis­ semination {razbegat'sja 'to run off in various directions') and of inception {smejat'sja 'to laugh', rassmejat'sja 'to burst out laughing'). These core meanings are easily perceived by the Russian speaker. However, with many verbs, the combination of its meaning with the noun or verb is no longer, in Aronoff s terminology, 'semantically coherent', and must be stored in the lexicon: pisat' 'to write', raspisat' 'to paint'; plata 'pay', rasplata 'retribution', vedenje 'leading', razvedene 'animal breeding'. We see similar examples in Mande varieties such as Mandinka and Bambara. In the latter, the prefix la- often encodes causativity: bo 'to leave', labò 'to make leave' (Bazin 1965: 351). However, quite often, roots affixed with

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la have become compositionally opaque (Bailleul 1981; orthography follows that source in these and above examples): 'to fall' 'to hit' 'to respect' 'to get, receive'

bin gosi bato sòrò

labjn lagosi lobato lasòrò

'to help' 'to criticize' 'to effect a law' 'to have time for'

Importantly, noncompositional derivation is also quite common in languages of Southeast Asia, particularly important given that some of these languages have neither inflectional affixation nor tone, such that the derivation is the pivotal feature distinguishing them from younger languages. An example is the deriva­ tional affixes in Chrau, a Mon-Khmer language of Vietnam, which clearly show the effects of semantic drift over time (comments on the noncompositionality of derivational morphemes in languages of this region are particularly common in their grammars ). The core meaning of the affix ta- is causative (chuq 'to wear', tachuq 'to dress'), extended into passive meaning (ănh rung daq 'I pour water', daq tarung 'the water got spilled') and unintentionality (tapăng 'to close unin­ tentionally'). However, there are also opaque lexicalizations with ta-: dâp 'to dam up', tadâp 'to fold or hem a shirt'; chĕq 'to put, set', tachĕq 'to slam down'; troh 'drop', tatrŏh 'jump down' (Thomas 1969: 102). Meanwhile, the prefix pahas drifted so far from its original meaning that no synchronic meaning is per­ ceivable (Thomas 1969: 103; Thomas 1971: 153): găn le lôm lăm jöq

'go across' 'dodge' 'lure' 'set, point' 'long'

pagan pale palôm palăm pajŏq

'crosswise' 'roll over' 'mislead' 'roll' 'how long?'

There is also a prefix n- whose meaning is similarly uncoverable (ibid.): hao ta-um pajwăch

'to ascend' n'hao 'to make bathe' ta-n-um 'to crumple something light' pa-n-jwach

'up' 'to make bathe' 'to crumple something stiff

4) Two examples: Khmer: "The meaning conveyed by these prefixes is in many instances not clearcut [...] either the partner word or the prefixed form, or both, may therefore have undergone a change of meaning" (Jacob 1968: 178). Garo (Tibeto-Burman): "In some [adverbial affixes] the meaning is quite eccentric, depend­ ing on the particular base to which it is attached" (Burling 1961: 13). Statements like this are not found in the sections on derivation in creole grammars.

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Importantly, these derivational affixes are perceived as affixes by speakers (Thomas 1969: 90-1): in other words, while no longer productive, they are analyzable. In the preface to the most extensive dictionary of the Mon-Khmer language Khasi, Singh (1983: iii) specifies that examples with derivational pre­ fixes will not be given "excepting the case where the derivatives so formed bear a special meaning from that of the radicals". In modern terms, Singh meant that only institutionalizations and lexicalizations would be listed, and Khasi has many examples of both. For instance, ia- is an associative or reciprocal prefix, used compositionally in cases like lekhai 'to play', ia-lekhai 'to play together'. There are some conventionalized institutionalizations like ia-mai 'to quarrel' from mai 'to scold'. Quite common, however, are uses where no associative or reciprocal connotation holds any longer (ia-lam 'to lead'). In many cases such as the previous one, the prefixed version co-exists with a bare reflex of the verb with the same meaning. In others, however, there no longer exists any readily perceivable relationship between the root and the derived reflex: poi 'to reach, arrive', iapoi 'to cohabit'.5 Noncompositional derivation is also found in Oceanic languages, many of which also have low or absent inflectional affixation and no tone. For exam­ ple, in Fijian, the most productive use of the prefix va'a is as a causative prefix, as in vuli-ca 'to learn' and va'a-vuli-ca 'to teach' (Dixon 1988: 50). However, with intransitive verbs, its contribution becomes more idiosyncratic: taro-ga 'to ask', va'a-taro-ga 'to ask many times', but muri-a 'to follow', va'a-muri-a 'to follow where there is difficulty' {ibid. 51). Va'a can also be affixed to nouns, but in these cases the meanings not only depart from any conceivable metaphorical extension of causativity, but are quite difficult to characterize as representing any single unified meaning: mavoa 'wound', va'a-mavoa 'harmful' (ibid. 182), gauna 'time', va'a-gauna 'occasionally', mata'a 'morning', va'a-mata'a 'breakfast' (ibid. 184). Indeed, cognates of the Fijian va'a in its close relatives, among the Poly­ nesian languages, have typically drifted into noncompositional uses, a phenomenon characterized by Neffgen (1918: 35) on Samoan: "In a great many cases these words formed with fa 'a have lost their original signification, and in others they have come to bear quite a different one". In Samoan the prefix, besides its causative use, creates denominal verbs as in ta'ita'i 'guide', fa'ata'ita'i 'to convey'); however, there are also examples like tau 'wages', fa'atau 'trade, buy, sell' (ibid. 35-6). In Rapanui we find examples like roŋo 'message', hakaroŋo 'to obey' (Du Feu 1996: 179). 5) DeGraff (1999a), for example, addresses my treatment of the Mon-Khmer language Chrau by characterizing it as having "at most two affixes", but this refers only to the productive ones; there are several others which are no longer productive but readily perceived as morphology by speakers (Thomas 1969; Thomas 1971).

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Finally, there are other noncompositional derivation-root combinations in Polynesian languages. In Rapanui, the abstract nominalizing suffix -Vga is used compositionally in cases like mate 'death', mateiŋa 'dying', but also in cases like papaku 'corpse' versus papakuiŋa 'low tide' (ibid). In Tokelauan, the reciprocal circumfix is fe- -il-aki, as in hogi 'to kiss', feahogi 'to kiss each other'; the com­ positional uses occur alongside cases like ilo 'to perceive', feiloaki 'to meet' and olo 'to rub, file', feoloolo 'to be better' (reduplication signifies iteration or diminutivization) (Hovdhaugen et al. 1989: 108). Noncompositionality is, like productivity, a gradient rather than binary phenomenon, which arises via the accreted effect of small steps in reinterpretation over centuries. Aronoff and Anshen (1998: 242) note, for example, slight departures from predictability like immeasurable, whose composition encodes 'unable to be measured' but whose core meaning in practice is 'very large'. As such, the compositionality of words with Russian raslz- manifests itself not according to the binary degree of contrast represented by the compositionally transparent razkuporit' and the opaque rasplata, but in intermediate cases such as vraschat' 'to turn' versus razvraschat', whose literal meaning of 'to turn away' has an obvious metaphorical connection to its actual meaning 'to corrupt'. Another example would be the ambara fasa 'to toughen, thicken' versus lafasa 'to encourage'. As such, only a subset of the uses of German ver-, Russian raz, Bambara la-, or the Polynesian causative marker are completely noncomposi­ tional, a typical situation with derivational morphemes in old grammars. What is important to the hypothesis proposed is whether or not there is a strong tendency for creoles' derivational morphemes to not include a subset of completely noncompositional, lexicalized usages. Finally, it must be clear that I refer not solely to derivational affixes, but derivational morphemes in general, including free forms as well as bound: affixation is not a necessary condition for lexicalization of derivation-root com­ binations. For example, the Lahu verb te 'to do' has grammaticalized into a causativizer, but there are concatenations which have lost compositionality, such as its use with tâ? 'to carry', in which case it means 'to carry along' (Matisoff 1991: 432). There are also institutionalized uses such as with câ 'to cook', where compositionality has not been lost altogether, but the meaning is not 'to make cook' or even 'to feed' but 'to make it so that people can eat' (Matisoff 1973b: 246). As reported in McWhorter (1998), derivation is regularly compositional (with allowance made for the institutionalizations inherent to any natural language) in Ndjuka, Saramaccan, Tok Pisin, Angolar and Negerhollands (con­ firmed for all five via reference to grammars, available glossaries and diction­ aries, and personal communication with experienced researchers on each). While at that writing, based on published sources and personal communications this was to my knowledge true of Haitian, Mauritian and St. Lucian, recently presented data indicate that there is a degree of noncompositional derivation in

DEFINING "CREOLE" AS A SYNCHRONIC TERM

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these creoles. As we will see in section 5, however, these findings are easily accountable for under my hypothesis, and in fact provide a useful illustration of certain aspects of it. It is perhaps tempting to interpret these three features as an arbitrary set, the validity of my approach invalidated by a possibility that the conjunction of features is either accidental, or epiphenomenal to a broader factor which could also be shown to operate on various subsets of older languages. For this reason, I must reiterate that these three features share something uniquely pertinent to my thesis: they are all symptoms of the aging of a natural language, in syntax, phonology, and semantics respectively. In other words, my hypothesis is that these three traits will not be found to apply to any subset of older languages. Linguistic argumentation does not typically occasion that three topics as particular and seemingly unconnected as inflectional affixation, monosyllabic lexical and morphosyntactic tone, and noncompositional derivation be treated as the central components of a unified thesis. Yet what is of concern to synchronic analysis can sometimes contrast strikingly with that which is of concern to a diachronic one. The three features of the Creole Prototype, in this light, are analogous to proportions of decayed radioactive atoms in rocks: of no interest to the petroleum geologist, but all-important to the paleontologists interested in dating the rocks.

4.

The gradience of the Prototype

The hypothesis that creole is a synchronic concept is not based upon an attempt to draw a binary distinction between creoles and older languages. Creole gene­ sis was constrained by ratios of speaker to learner, how quickly the latter out­ numbered the former, degree of homogeneity of the languages spoken by the learners, and how long source languages continued to be spoken. All of these are inherently gradient processes, and as such, it is the task of any language contact theorist to approach gradience as an unremarkable yet vital factor. A theory about language contact must be neither created nor evaluated upon the misleading notion that the binary contrasts typical of quantum physics are appropriate to the subject matter. As such, I propose not that every creole language has the abovementioned three traits. This claim would be false. Rather, I propose that as products of gra­ dient language contact phenomena, creoles conform to the hypothesized proto­ type in degrees: some hone to it while others fall away from it to varying extents. To be sure, used inappropriately, an appeal to gradience can serve as a mere fig-leaf for sweeping unruly data under the rug. As such, in reference to a hypothesis that there is a creole prototype, gradience can only be appropriately appealed to in an empirically falsifiable manner.

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In this vein, there are precisely four factors which determine how closely a given creole will conform to the prototype. 4.1.

Typological similarity of source languages

Most creoles were developed by people speaking typologically disparate languages, the usual situation being Romance or Germanic Indo-European speakers encountering speakers of various Niger-Congo and Austronesian languages. This, however, was in the strict sense a by-product of the fact that so many creoles were born during a period when a few Western European powers were drawn to fertile subequatorial regions in pursuit of profit and subjugated the peoples who happened to live there. There have arisen some creoles whose lexifier and substrates were all closely related languages. The similarity of the languages involved allowed speakers to retain structural idiosyncracies particu­ lar to that language group which, in a more ethnically heterogenous setting, would have impeded communication and thus not have entered the contact language. Our hypothesis proposes that the three prototypical traits in question are due to the roots of a creole in a pidgin, the crucial traits of the pidgin being its virtual or complete lack of affixation or monosyllabic lexical and morphosyntactic tone. As such, this would lead us to predict that creoles descended from lingua francas with ample affixation and/or lexical and morphosyntactic tone would not conform to the Creole Prototype, and this is indeed the case. Sango, for example, was developed and stabilized largely by speakers of a dialect continuum of Ubangian Niger-Congo languages. Although it is much more analytic than any of these languages, Sango nevertheless retains some inflectional affixes and lexical and morphosyntactic tonal contrasts, unlike creoles like Ndjuka or Angolar (Pasch 1997: 223-30, passim). In these sentences we see two inflections, and in addition, they happen to be distin­ guished by tone (CONN = connective, SM = subject marker): (1)

(a)

(b)

Lò fá á-kongba tí yá tí dà kíríkìrì. he cut PL-good CONN interior CONN house messily He destroyed the things in the house left and right. (Samarin 1967: 80) Zò kirikìrì à-Hngbì tí mú yɔrɔ pepe. person any SM-can CONN take medicine NEG Not just anybody can take the medicine, (ibid. 81)

Lingala and Kituba, both largely developed by speakers of Bantu languages, fall quite far from the Prototype as well, the written variety of the former being morphologically elaborated to the point that many are surprised that it is even classified as a pidgin or creole language.

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4.2. Diachronic drift The Creole Prototype hypothesis stipulates that creoles tend to have the three traits in question because not enough time has passed for the diachronic pro­ cesses in question to have had significant effect. However, since most creoles have already existed for several centuries, we would predict that at least some of them would already show signs of such processes having taken place to some small extent. This is indeed what we find, and as such, some creoles depart slightly from the Prototype. However, such cases do not speak against the hypothesis itself when it can be firmly reconstructed that at its genesis, the creole lacked the non-prototypical traits in question. (There can thus be no valid appeal to diachronic drift based merely on unconstrained speculation.) For example, Tok Pisin is arguably developing a habitual inflection from the erstwhile free marker save: mi save kaikai banana 'I eat bananas' is pronounced [mi sakaikai banana] in rapid speech (Mühlhäusler 1985: 338-9). Meanwhile, Saramaccan has a few uses of tone to encode morphosyntactic contrasts, but they are relatively recent innovations, empirically traceable to diachronic evolution of original constructions in which tone was of no con­ trastive import (i.e. these features are absent in earliest documentation of the language). For example, a is the third person pronoun while á, with high tone, is the predicate negator (Kofi á wáka 'Kofi does not walk'). However, historical analysis reveals that in the original grammar, the negator was ná; with no hightone á contrasting with the low-tone pronoun a. The negator á resulted from the fusion of a preceding pronoun a and a following negator ná in topic-comment constructions (McWhorter 1996): Stage 1 Kófi, a ná wáka 'Kofi, he doesn't walk' a wáka 'he walks'

Stage 2 Kófi, ã waka 'Kofi, he doesn't walk' a wáka 'he walks'

Stage 3 Kófi á wáka. 'Kofi doesn't walk'. a wáka 'he walks'

Thus the modern tonal contrast between the pronoun a and the negator á is a recent development, in a grammar within which monosyllabic lexical and morphosyntactic tone is distinctly marginal — there are no such contrasts which are not readily analyzable as internal developments rather than original endow­ ments. This is demonstrable not only through historical documentation and internal reconstruction, but in synchronic fact. Saramaccan is one of several closely related Surinam creoles, and in its sister Ndjuka, the more conservative distinction between pronominal a and the negator ná survives (although á is also optional as a negator): A ná abi mati 'He didn't have any friends' (Shanks 1994: 136).

100 4.3.

JOHN H. McWHORTER

Heavy substrate contact

Another factor which can draw a creole away from the prototype is strong influ­ ence upon its development by an older language, with all of its historical accre­ tions. For example, there are creoles whose current form was considerably shaped by contact with one or more of the languages spoken natively in its genesis context. This phenomenon can have effect either 1) at the time of genesis or 2) over the course of the Creole's subsequent existence. 4.3.1. Substrate influence at genesis: Berbice Dutch Creole Historical reconstruction suggests that speakers of the Nigerian language Ijo predominated on the early plantations in the Berbice colony of present-day Guyana, and indeed this is the only possible explanation for the singularly heavy influence of the Eastern variety of Ijo on Berbice Dutch Creole's struc­ ture. It contains some inflectional affixes (as well as grammatical items) from the language, such as the plural marker -apu and a perfective marker -te.6 4.3.2. Substrate influence after genesis: Sri Lankan Portuguese Creole Sri Lanka Portuguese Creole was one creolization of a makeshift pidgin that the Portuguese used in their interracial contacts in Southern Asia (cf. Ferraz 1979), others including various Portuguese-lexicon creoles in India, Malaysia, and (formerly) Indonesia and Macao. The Sri Lankan variety has been spoken alongside Tamil and Sinhala since its birth in the sixteenth century. As a result, it has recruited Portuguese items to create many nominal and verbal inflections functionally modelled on these two substrate languages (Sinhala, though geneti­ cally Indo-Aryan, has converged structurally with the Dravidian Tamil to a considerable degree) (Smith 1984): (2)

"E:wte:n dizey ta:l pesa:m-p3 -kәz:", fәla:-tu. I have desire such person-ACC INF-marry QUOTE-PERF 'I want to marry such-and-such a person'. (Smith p.c., cited in Holm 1989: 290)

6) Dutch has a past inflectional suffix —te, but this merely reinforced a process for which Eastern Ijo was the driving influence. For one, while the Eastern Ijo equivalent is -tee, the Dutch affix is realized as [da] except after voiceless consonants (Smith, Robertson and Williamson 1987: 62). Furthermore, most creoles do not incorporate a past-marking affix from the superstrate language, and thus there is no general tendency which would explain Dutch contributing one in the Berbice case. Moreover, the fact that Ijo contributed another affix and a clitic (the negator -ka[ne]) demonstrates that its influence was strong enough to contribute the past affix as well.

DEFINING "CREOLE" AS A SYNCHRONIC TERM

4.4.

101

Heavy superstrate contact

Many creoles have arisen and survived in contexts where the lexifier language has continued to be spoken, the usual result being that the lexifier and the creole co-exist in a diglossic relationship. Diglossic relationships are inherently porous, with varieties intermediate between the two speech varieties often occurring, such as the Greek mixti between the 'high' katharévousa and the 'low' dhimotikí, and the Arabic al-lugah al-wusta (Ferguson 1972 [1959]: 240). As such, contexts like these tend to pull a creole away from the prototype I propose. Even though in many cases only a minority of the creolophone population speaks the lexifier itself, low levels of bilingualism are well-known for having a disproportionate effect even upon casual spoken language. Only a minority of English speakers were at any point bilingual in French during the Norman occupation of England, and yet the well-known predominance of Frenchderived words even in casual English speech traces directly to that bilingualism; the effect of Chinese on Japanese is a similar case among many (Miller 1967: 245). Again, this lexifier influence can occur either at genesis or afterwards. 4.4.1. Superstrate contact at genesis: Réunionnais Réunionnais French is often termed a semi-creole, being closer in structure to French itself than creoles like Haitian or Mauritian. Baker and Corne (1982) show that this is because in Réunion there was a long period of several decades when the French co-existed with Malagasies and Indo-Portoguese (the initial servant class) in small-scale, intimate social contexts in relatively equal numbers. These settings conditioned less distance between the contact language and French than was the case in many other French plantation colonies. For example, Réunionnais retains feminine gender inflection on some nouns, plural inflection in some (Corne 1999: 78), and various inflected forms of the verb 'to be' (ibid. 81). In some varieties, such inflections are retained on verbs in general: mi i manze 'I am eating', mi i manze 'I ate', mi i manzre 'I would eat', mi i manzra pa 'I will not eat' (the latter inflection used only with negation) (ibid. 80-3). Only the variety closest to French has verbal inflection to this extent, while the others restrict this to et 'to be', awar 'to have' and fo 'to be necessary' (ibid. 81), but even this contrasts significantly with the markedly lower degree of verbal inflection even in acrolectal varieties of other continuum creoles like Cape Verdean Portuguese Creole or, more pointedly, the French creole of Louisiana (Neumann 1985: 52-68, and see 4.4.2. below). The following passage demonstrates the relative closeness of Réunionnais to French, including its inflectional affixation:

102

(3)

JOHN H. McWHORTER

Li voudré bien qu'elle y rogarde in pé band' firn' dokimentaire ... he want-COND well that-she VM look at a little PL film documentary Elle y poura kiltive a elle in pé. she VM can-FUT cultivate to she a little 'He would like [for her] to be able to watch some of the documentaries ... she could improve her mind a bit'. (Corne 1999: 77) (orthography based on French; VM = verb marker)

4.4.2. Superstrate contact after genesis: Louisiana French Creole The French creole of Louisiana has co-existed alongside Cajun French for over 250 years, with contact increasing especially after the end of slavery. As a result, this creole is unique among French plantation creoles in having devel­ oped a "mesolect" variety which includes some inflection from (Cajun) French. This includes gender marking, albeit highly variable in occurrence, of indefinite and possessive determiners and adjectives (e gro sje 'a big dog', en gros sar 'a big car' [Neumann 1985: 138]), and an alternation in verbs between a short form (using the finite Cajun forms) expressing habiruality and a long form (using the Cajun infinitive form) expressing accomplished aspect: (4)

(a)

Mo res isi ondo la mezö mo tu sel. I stay here inside the house me all alone 'I live alone in this house'. (Neumann 1985: 195)

(b)

Mo reste a Teksas trwaz-o. I stay LOC Texas three-year 'I have lived in Texas for three years', (ibid.)

The evidence that this creole has moved towards French over time, rather than having originated as a mesolectal variety as Réunionnais did, includes documentary evidence (cf. Neumann 1985: 44-70) and distributional facts such as that the variety of the creole which has been most isolated from Cajun French (the St. Tammany Parish variety) lacks the long-stem verbs described above (Marshall 1997: 344-5).

4.5.

Implications for the Creole Prototype Hypothes is

Because of the operations of these sociohistorical and diachronic factors, it would plainly be false to state that all creole languages display these three states in their purest form. This, however, signifies not that there is no synchronic result unique to creole genesis, but instead that this synchronic result will be a gradient one, more evident in some creoles than others. Specifically, we predict

DEFINING "CREOLE" AS A SYNCHRONIC TERM

103

that 1) to all creoles departing from the Prototype, one of the aforementioned four factors will apply, and 2) that none of those four factors will apply to a creole conforming to the Prototype. Thus our claim will not be all creoles have these three features but rather a bipartite claim which appears to account for the typological facts: a) b)

A subset of creole languages will display the three prototypical features; Any natural language that displays the three prototypical features is a new language which emerged as a pidgin spoken by adults and was trans­ formed into a natural language: namely, a creole.

5.

Situating gradience within the model: Demonstration case — Haitian Creole

DeGraff (1999a) observes that Haitian Creole has some nominal inflection and a degree of semantically opaque derivation. This data is important to creole studies for myriad reasons, but contrary to DeGraff s implication that it consti­ tutes a contradiction to the Creole Prototype hypothesis, the data is in fact useful in lending a closer view to how this model accounts in a falsifiable fashion for gradience, thus designed to explain a language contact phenomenon as it has manifested itself in the real world, rather than a schematic abstraction thereof. 5.1.

Haitian "inflection"?

It must first be noted that DeGraff s claim that Haitian has gender inflection is mistaken. DeGraff usefully points out that Haitian has feminine allomorphs for various derivational suffixes denoting origin, occupation, role, or quality, such as Ameriken/Amerikèn, radoté/'radotez (< Fr. radoteur/radoteuse) 'person who talks nonsense'. Yet this is not grammatical gender but natural gender, which, in changing the denotation of the root and applying to only a subset of the nominal and adjectival classes, is traditionally treated not as inflection but as derivation (Matthews 1974: 47-8; Beard 1998: 57-8). In this light, our claim is not that creóles lack derivation, but that its applications be compositional, and all of the examples DeGraff presents quite clearly denote a male/female gender distinc­ tion (which must be contrasted with noncompositional occurrences of natural gender marking in older languages, such as the masculine marking of the word for 'daughter-in-law' in Latin nurus, traceable to a similarly marked Proto-IndoEuropean form *snusos [Watkins 1985: xiii-xiv]).7 7) Scattered natural gender marking is not unheard of in other French-based plantation creóles, such as in St. Lucian, in which Carrington (1984: 46) describes it as "neither predict­ able nor having any syntactic repercussions".

104 5.2.

JOHN H. McWHORTER

Noncompos itional derivation

The data DeGraff presents which is pertinent to the Creole Prototype hypothesis is noncompositional derived roots. Again, the data of interest in evaluating this hypothesis constitute a smaller set than DeGraff presents. For one, since McWhorter (1998) does not claim that creoles lack derivational affixes, DeGraff s ample listing of various Haitian derivational affixes and words containing them serves as a response to previous broader claims that creoles lack affixation as a whole (e.g. Seuren and Wekker 1986: 61), but not my own.8 In the meantime, the use of the derivational prefix de- in Haitian is much less semantically irregular than DeGraff implies. In my brief mention of the item in McWhorter (1998: 797), I characterize its function as inversive, based on pairs like grese 'to gain weight'/degrese 'to lose weight', following Brousseau, Filipovich and Lefebvre (1989: 9). However, there is a second reflex of de- closely related semantically to the inversive one, which can be character­ ized as encoding 'away from'. This is its function in a great many of the exam­ ples that DeGraff lists, by virtue of not instantiating my particular 'inversive' designation, as 'noncompositional': koupe tire vire vide

'to cut' 'to pull' 'to stroll, drive' 'to empty'

dekoupe detire devire devide

'to cut off 'to stretch' 'to detour, go on an errand' 'to empty out'

Importantly, this usage has a semantic relationship to the inversive one so inti­ mate and readily perceived as to readily suggest a single semantic space rather than two separate ones. It is likely that this secondary usage evolved from the inversive one via intermediate cases like mare 'to tie' and demare 'to untie', which encodes not only the undoing of a knot but the freeing of the person or object tied 'away from' what it was bound to; dekoupe would be a similar case. The Russian prefix raz- is again useful to us for two reasons. The first is that the semantic range of the 'separative' use of this prefix covers that of both reflexes of Haitian's de-, demonstrating the essential unity of the two semantic uses of the latter:

8) DeGraff (1999a) reads McWhorter (1998) as claiming this, based on an isolated statement in that paper noting that pidgins are characterized by "virtual or complete elimination" of both derivational and inflectional affixes {ibid. 793). This statement is, first, true: some pidgins have no derivational affixes at all (complete elimination), while some have one or two (which, compared to a source language with many, is virtual elimination). Meanwhile, however, the context of the sentence, as well as the ample discussion in the paper of the deri­ vational affixes present in creoles, makes it clear that the statement referred to pidgins rather than creoles.

DEFINING "CREOLE" AS A SYNCHRONIC TERM

Haitian Russian

de-1

'to tie' mare vjazat'

'to untie' demare razvjazat'

de-2

'to pull' tire tjanut'

105 'to stretch' detire rastjanut'

Second, as we have seen, the polysemy of raz- beyond this usage is of a degree quite foreign to any Haitian affix, also incorporating dispersal and inceptivity (see 3.3.1.). Meanwhile, some of the words DeGraff presents as "noncompositional" are actually institutionalizations of the sort discussed in 3.3.2.: one cannot predict that debabouye means 'to wash one's face or clean one's self up' based on the meaning of babouye 'to smear'. However, the semantic connection between 'to unsmear' and the actual meaning is easily processible via metaphorical infer­ ence. Debarase 'to straighten out', from barase 'clumsy' is a similar case. In other examples, de- has been extended redundantly to verb roots whose meanings inherently include the notion of separation: grennen kale libere pase

'to shell, scatter' 'to peel, scrape' 'to free' 'to pass'

degrennen dekale delibere depase

'to 'to 'to 'to

shell, separate one by one' chip off, to peel off free' exceed, overtake'

Yet even in these cases, although we have clearly passed the boundaries of strict compositionality, the connection between the morphemes in these combinations and the meaning of the word is clear, including the semantic motivation for the affixation of de-, despite its redundancy. The cases that DeGraff presents of truly opaquely noncompositional uses of de where the semantic contribution of the prefix is unrecoverable — are few, including deperi 'to perish' (peri 'to perish'), demefyan 'mistrustful, skepti­ cal' (mefyan 'mistrustful, suspicious'), and demegri 'to lose weight' (megri 'to lose weight' [emphatic]). DeGraff also judges various uses of the prefix en- (desan 'decent'/ endesan 'indecent') as "noncompositional" based on the fact that their roots are no longer used alone, such as enkyè 'anxious' (*kyé) and enkòmòde 'to disturb' (*kòmòde). However, the motivation for classifying a morpheme as opaque simply because the root it is combined with does not occur alone is unclear. There are certainly cases in which derivational morphemes lose compositional­ ity in combination with roots which no longer occur alone, such as the notorious case of derived words based on -ceive and -mit in which sometimes the meaning of the prefix is no longer apparent (receive, permit) (Aronoff 1976: 12). But Haitian's en- is not this kind of case: every example DeGraff gives clearly has a negative or inversive meaning in which the core semantics of the prefix is quite salient, with the exception of entatad 'senile' and enbesil 'imbecile', in the latter of which cases it is questionable that en- is actually perceived as a prefix.

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DeGraff presents a more substantial body of indisputably noncompositional derivation in the case of re-, which usually encodes repetition, but makes an opaque contribution in a number of combinations such as these and others: jete konpanse pare poze tire

5.3.

'to throw away' 'to compensate' 'to prepare' 'to pause, ask' 'to pull'

rejeté rekonpanse repare repoze retire

'to 'to 'to 'to 'to

reject' reward' repair' rest' remove'

Haitian within the Creole Prototype model: Still in the middle

Thus the subset of the material in DeGraff (1999a) pertinent to evaluating the Creole Prototype hypothesis is not the lists of derivational affixes (since my hypothesis does not predict that creoles will lack derivational morphemes), nor the claim that Haitian has gender inflection (because what it has is composi­ tional natural gender derivation, again, incidental to my model). The pertinent issue is the body of noncompositional words derived by the prefixes de- and re-, much smaller than DeGraff (1999a) claims but important nonetheless. 5.3.1. Import of Haitian derivation As those familar with French will note, the compositional and noncompositional uses of re- and de- in Haitian are derived from French items themselves. I have stipulated that the lexifier pulled creoles significantly away from the Prototype only in situations in which speakers of the creole had high levels of contact with lexifier speakers, as they did in Réunion. However, DeGraff observes that the rich derivational inheritance from French in Haitian speaks against the Proto­ type model in that, unlike in Réunion, in colonial Haiti slaves vastly outnum­ bered whites and had mostly distant social relations with them. He thus inter­ prets the co-existence of French-derived opaque derivation and radical demo­ graphic disproportion as counterevidence to my claim that Haitian, and by extension other creoles, emerged as radically reduced pidgins. Since the Creole Prototype is proposed as a direct descendant of a pidgin grammar, it follows that if pidgin ancestry for creoles is disproven, then there is no motivation for creoles to display a synchronic prototype. At the same time, however, DeGraffs counteranalysis requires that Haitian Creole emerged with this noncompositional derivation, as opposed to having adopted these words as Gallicisms over the centuries from contact with French. As it happens, his thesis founders upon this point: Goyette (2000) demonstrates through painstaking historical linguistic analysis that the deriva­ tional markers in modern Haitian Creole (including the natural gender markers) cannot have been incorporated into the creole at its birth, and in fact were

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borrowed from French in later periods. What this signifies is that Haitian Creole fits quite neatly into the Creole Prototype model as a case of the sort discussed in 4.4.2., in which contact with the lexifier over the centuries pulled the creole away from the Prototype to which it honed at its genesis; there is not a single point on Haitian Creole in DeGraff (1999a) which this finding does not readily account for. 5.3.2. Accounting for gradience: Predictions from other perspectives Even though Haitian Creole did conform to the Creole Prototype at its genesis, the very fashion in which contact with French has pulled it away from the Prototype usefully demonstrates that this model accounts for gradience in a constrained fashion commensurate with findings in other subfields. Specifically, the fact that Haitian would have borrowed French derivation but not its inflec­ tion is predictable from a variety of linguistic perspectives: Language contact. For example, on their scale charting typical effects of borrowing at five levels of intensity, Thomason and Kaufman (1988: 745) note that cross-linguistically, derivational affixes are borrowed at their Stage Three, with the borrowing of inflection typical of the next stage of contact intensity, Stage Four. The authors illustrate this with examples of the influence of Spanish on dialects of Nahuatl, Slavic languages on Yiddish, and Sanskrit on high registers of Dravidian languages like Kannada {ibid 79-82). Theoretical morphology. Lexicon is, obviously, the first level of language to be acquired in second-language acquisition and borrowing. In this light, it is significant that many theoretical treatments of derivation have located the process as a lexical one (Selkirk 1982; Scalise 1984), with inflection located in the syntactic module. Given that borrowing of inflection occurs at a higher intensity of contact than borrowing of lexicon, then theories accounting for derivation in the lexicon would lead us to predict that one possible stage of a Creole's borrowing from a lexifier would be to have borrowed its derivation (as a component of borrowing its lexicon) but not its inflection. This is what we see in Haitian Creole, which contrasts with the result of more intense contact in Louisiana, where the creole contains not only French derivation but also some reflections of its inflections. Cross-creole comparison. If the borrowing of derivation before inflection is predictable, then we would expect that no creole would exist which had incorporated its lexifiers' inflection without its derivation. This is exactly what we find. Papiamentu Spanish Creole has inherited several deriva­ tional markers from Ibero-Romance, such as the adverbializer -mentu, agentive -dó (< -dor), a past participial from Iberian -ado (duna 'to give', duná 'given' [accent = stress]), and a gerundive -ando (Maurer 1998: 169,

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181-2). Inflectional affixation, however, is absent. (Interestingly, like Haitian, Papiamentu has some natural gender derivation: kolombiano /kolombiana [ibid. 155]). Jamaican Patois has some derivational markers from English (derived from comparative and agentive -er, diminutive -y, nominalizer -ness, Bailey 1966: 16-7); English inflection, however, is typically absent, a marker of acrolectal varieties (Sebba 1997: 209).9 This author is not aware of any creole language which has inherited inflection from its lexifier without its derivation. 5.3.3. Accounting for gradience: Specifying sociohistorical conditions for the Prototype The Haitian derivational inheritance is finally illuminating in that all of the other French plantation creoles in the world have similarly incorporated French derived roots including the lexicalized ones. Opaquely noncompositional verbs with de- and re- of the sort discussed in 5.2. are found not only in Louisiana (cf. the dictionary by Valdman et al 1998), where the intensity of borrowing would lead us to expect it, but also in French Guyanais (cf. Barthelemi 1995), Mauritian (cf. Baker and Hookoomsing 1987), Guadeloupean (cf. Poullet, Telchid and Montbriand 1984), St. Lucian (cf. examples in Garrett 2000), Seychellois (Susanne Michaelis, p.c.) and others. This corresponds with a general observation that there exists no French plantation creole as removed from French as there exist creoles removed from English or Portuguese (Muysken 1994; Alleyne this volume; Parkvall 1999; McWhorter and Parkvall fc). Compared to basilectal creoles like Ndjuka, Angolar, or Tok Pisin, French creoles stand out in that: 1. They lack a tendency towards CV phonotactics.10 2. There is relatively little reanalysis of superstrate lexical items as gram­ matical (along the lines of the reanalysis of there as an imperfective marker in Sranan and Ndjuka). 3. Verb serialization is possible with fewer verbs and is less grammaticalized. 4. There is less substratal transfer in general on all levels. At first glance, this situation appears to suggest something anomalous: that diglossic situations in French colonies for some reason pulled the creole away from the Prototype and towards the lexifier while the same situation did 9) There are a few -s plurals in the examples in Bailey (1966), an indication of the fluid nature of the creole-lexifier continuum that English Caribbean creoles, among others, tend to manifest themselves along. 10) It is significant that Thomason and Kaufman (1988: 75) link Level Three of borrowing with the incorporation of "the addition of syllable-final consonants"; although they specify that this occurs at this level only in loanwords, the fact that a Creole's lexifier was the very source of its lexicon would appear to blur this distinction in creolophone contexts.

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not do so elsewhere. Yet in truth, the lexifier influence is not the only factor distinguishing the French creoles. What distinguishes the creoles which remain most basilectal today is that they are spoken in contexts where speakers of the lexifier either withdrew after a short period from the genesis context and did not return in significant numbers, or in which lexifier speakers were never a significant presence at all during the stabilization of the language. In Surinam, the English occupied the colony for only sixteen years, from 1651 to 1667; the Dutch ran it from then until Surinam's independence in 1975. After establishing plantations on the islands in the Gulf of Guinea in the early 1500s, the Portuguese began departing at the end of that century and never returned (Ferraz 1979). Portuguese has remained the official language of most of these islands, but there has existed no class of Portuguese-dominant "colonials" with a prestigious diglossie compe­ tence exerting an acrolectal pull on the creole over time. Tok Pisin expanded and stabilized in use between people indigenous to New Guinea, many of whom until recently lived in remote areas in pre-literate cultural contexts, rarely encountering English itself in any form. Crucially, there happen to have arisen no French creolophone contexts of this type. In most of them, French has been usually the official, and in any case always the sociologically dominant, language continuously since the birth of the creole (even in cases such as Haiti, where the French relinquished official control for a period in the 1800s, French remained the prestige language). In the cases where French Creole has survived in contexts in which English is now the politically and sociologically dominant European language, this latter situation arose only after the French creole had co-existed with French for an extended period (St. Lucia, St. Barthélémy, Trinidad). There exists no case of a French plantation creole which stabilized in a colony run by speakers of a European language other than French, or in one which the French abandoned shortly after the creole emerged. The French colonies indicate, then, that even when a large percentage of a creolophone population does not control the lexifier language, the impact of the bilingual elite (as little as 10% in Haiti) on the creole is massive, particularly in the area of the lexicon. As noted previously, this is not an ad hoc proposition, but one founded upon long-observed and well-documented diglossic contexts, as well as cases of borrowing, world-wide.11 As the historical work on Haitian by Goyette (2000) helps to indicate, even in French colonies, plantation colonization tended strongly to produce

11) Dejean (1983) questions the application of the term diglossia to Haiti given that only a minority of the population speak French. Although it is true that the term technically applies only to this small elite in Haiti (and some other French creolophone countries), the effects of this diglossia — the focus of this paper — have spread throughout the population, as they regularly do in borrowing contexts in which only a minority is bilingual.

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creoles close to the Prototype at genesis. However, in terms of diachronic development, the uniformity of the lexifier influence among the various French creoles suggests that in the present day, creoles closest to the Prototype will be found in particular conditions. This means that there were two possible diachronic fates for a creole that emerged honing to the Prototype. 5.3.3.1. Isolation/preservation A creole honing to the Prototype today is most likely to be found in situations offering two crucial conditions. The first is that the initial social context limited learners' ability or desire to acquire the lexifier to such a degree that a pidgin variety of that lexifier developed (unlike, for example, Réunion). The second condition is that the lexifier was withdrawn, such that the expansion of the pidgin into a natural language did not include borrowing from the lexifier, but instead occurred mostly or entirely via the recruitment of language-internal resources. This second condition was vital to the development and preservation of a creole conforming to the Prototype because it allowed a creole to develop with­ out "interference" from the lexifier. By definition, pidgin languages tend to have (among other features of less pertinence here) small lexicons and little or no inflectional or derivational affixation. One component of the transformation of a pidgin into a natural language is expansion of the lexicon (Mühlhäusler 1980). Because a pidgin lexicon is small, the pidgin which expands into a natural language removed from lexifier influence necessarily expands its lexicon not via borrowing, but via new uses of the lexical resources it has. One aspect of this expansion is the development of derivational mechanisms. As we have seen, it is natural to language change in general that derivational morphemes develop gradually via the grammaticalization of lexical items. As such, a creole which began as a pidgin with little or no derivation, and subsequently changes system-internally, will recruit derivational morphemes from its stock of free lexical items, askPisin has done with -pasin (< fashion) as an abstract nominalizer (see 3.3.1). But since the opacification via lexicalization of derived roots is a very gradual process, we would predict that after a mere few hundred years little such opacification would have had a chance to occur. Similarly, if a creole changing system-internally develops inflection, this will not be via borrowing from the lexifier as in Louisiana, but via (among occasional other processes) grammaticalization of lexical items, a gradual process which we would expect to have rarely proceeded very far in a language born as a pidgin (significantly, in creoles we do find ample cliticization, a phase often intermediate between free lexical item and affix). A similar argument applies to monosyllabic lexical and morphosyntactic (but not phonological) tone. This conception is well demonstrated in Surinam. The English were in Surinam for but sixteen years, and there are only roughly 600 English words in

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the Sranan lexicon (Koefoed and Tarenskeen 1996: 120), and of these, many are compounds such as fes'ede 'forehead' from face-head, lowering the number of actual borrowings from English even more. Thus the transformation into a full language of the material slaves had available to them after the English departed required system-internal expansion rather than borrowing from the lexifier. As a result, the creole has yet to develop inflectional affixes internally because this takes time; it is not a tonal language; and it has developed a few derivational affixes from lexical items but, predictably, these have yet to drift with the words they affix to into noncompositionality. 5.3.3.2. Diglossia/borrowing On the other hand, in those colonies in which the speakers of the lexifier stayed on site and imposed their language as the top pole in a diglossie continuum, as they did in the French colonies, we can expect that the creole will have been drawn away from the Prototype to a degree, even if conditions at genesis produced a more prototypical creole. This is the case, for example, with the Caribbean English-based contin­ uum creoles. Jamaican patois, for instance, has some English-derived deriva­ tional morphology. Evidence suggests, however, that this creole originated as a variety much further from English, specifically as Sranan in Surinam. Sranan shares with Jamaican and other Atlantic English-based creoles idiosyncratic correspondences in the etymology of grammatical items which reveal their common ancestry in one original contact language (McWhorter 1995). Various lines of evidence indicate that this ancestor was early Sranan, the most indica­ tive being that Jamaican maroons (descendants of slaves who escaped planta­ tions and founded communities in the mountains) speak a ceremonial variety which parallels Sranan closely enough to reveal a direct historical relationship (McWhorter 1997a: 63-4). This historical relationship is not only linguistically but historically confirmed: when the Dutch took over Surinam from the English in 1667, English planters brought about 900 slaves to the new colony Jamaica (Bilby 1983: 60). Significantly, Sranan lacks all of the English-derived derivational morphology of Jamaican with the exception of agentive -man; even here, however, while Jamaican also has the agentive -er, Sranan does not. Jamaican has the comparative -er; Sranan uses moro or a serial construction with pass; Jamaican has the diminutive -y (-i), Sranan encodes the diminutive with redu­ plication; Jamaican has -ness (-nis), Sranan largely makes use of zero-derivation 12) This figure is composed of the 550 roots Koefoed and Tarensken (1996) attribute to English, plus half of the 130 which could be derived as plausibly from Dutch as from English (65), the actual figure 615 rounded back to 600 in observance of the unavoidable uncertainty regarding the actual English proportion of the 130 roots of ambiguous origin.

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to nominalize (Adamson and Smith 1995: 222-3); etc. In general, Sranan indeed conforms to the Creole Prototype, with no inflectional affixes, no tone, and no noncompositional derivation. This, then, was the nature of Jamaican patois at its origin in Surinam. In Jamaica the creole was in constant contact with English, and thus moved closer to it on all levels, including the borrowing of English morphology. From the perspective of Jamaica alone, it is plausible to suppose that this morphology was in the language at its origins: but the roots of the creole in Sranan indicate that there was an initial stage in the development of Jamaican patois' grammar when this English derivation did not exist. This classifies Jamaican patois, then, as another example of the phenomenon described in 4.4.2., in which a creole beginning at the prototype is brought away from it over time by lexifier contact. The creoles that have both emerged as prototypical creoles and remained so (except for slight and empirically documented movement away over the past few centuries in a few cases) include Sranan, Saramaccan, Ndjuka, Sao Tómense, Principense, Fa D'Ambu, Angolar, Tok Pisin, Bislama, Solomon Islands Pijin, Torres Strait Broken, Aboriginal English Kriol, Baba Malay, and Negerhollands (the latter now extinct). 5.3.3.3. Pidgin, approximation, and second language acquisition: Different paths to the same mountaintop Though this might seem surprising to those outside of creole studies, the claim that creoles arise from pidgins arouses discomfort from some creolists, particu­ larly those of the Francophone school. Reconstructing creoles as having devel­ oped "top-down" via successive approximations of a lexifier by adult non-native speakers, authors such as Chaudenson (1992) see no break in transmission of the lexifier as having occurred at any particular point. They instead classify creoles as essentially varieties of their lexifiers, their development mediated by a leaning towards analyticity by second-language learners. Yet Chaudenson does not consider the modern creoles to have been the immediate result of this approximation process. He considers the initial stage to have been a utilitarian, non-native reduction of French he terms "français zéro" (150-6), referring to a variable body of incompletely acquired varieties of French offering a range of French-derived materials from which slaves selected features to "autonomize" into new functions in constructing a natural language (136). While I have reservations about the extent of Chaudenson's scepticism regarding substrate influence in creoles (MeWhorter and Parkvall fc), it is un­ clear that his "français zéro" differs significantly from the general definition of pidgin in linguistic terms. His emphasis on elimination of inflection, omission of overt copula morphemes, and generalization of tonic pronouns parallels innumerable characterizations of the pidgin (e.g. Foley 1988: 165; Romaine 1988: 25-31; Sebba 1997: 39-47), and one's assessment of the degree of

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substrate influence on such a variety is largely immaterial to this particular issue since substratal contributions to creoles are reduced just as superstratal ones are (Keesing 1988: 89-104; McWhorter 1997b: 155-9). The French creolist tradi­ tion tends to restrict the term pidgin to varieties used by adults for utilitarian communication while retaining their native languages, and refrain from extending this term to the initial stage in the birth of plantation creoles. This, however, is essentially an issue of terminology and differing scholarly tradi­ tions: for all intents and purposes, what most creolists refer to as pidgin while Chaudenson and his followers refer to it as "français zéro" is the same type of language variety in the linguistic sense. Meanwhile, DeGraff (1999a) urges that the essence of creole genesis be sought in second-language acquisition. Again, however, the issue is one of overlapping terminologies. The observation that pidginization — acquisition of a language by adult learners — is a form of second-language acquisition has been made often, having even inspired a volume of articles (Andersen 1983). Regarding the thesis of this paper, it is significant that second-language acquisi­ tion is well-known to entail reduction or elimination of affixes; DeGraff himself makes this observation (1999b: 517, 525), citing, for example, Zobl and Liceras (1994). While DeGraff emphasizes the elimination only of inflectional morphology (perhaps in view of the ample derivational morphology on view in modern Haitian), derivational morphology is also often reduced or eliminated in second-language acquisition (Dittmar 1984: 262; Broeder et al. 1993: 56). The essential isomorphy of pidginization, second-language acquisition, and the French creolist school's "approximation" conception is finally underlined by the fact that Chaudenson (1992) makes frequent reference to second-language acquisition as an analogue to the "approximated" French on colonial plantations. The phenomena designated second-language acquisition and pidginiza­ tion do not overlap perfectly, of course; more properly, pidgins are qualitatively equivalent to an early stage of second-language acquisition. Yet the fact of this very equivalence is indicative: it would be difficult to argue that the nativelanguage influenced, structurally minimal, inflection-free Hawaiian Pidgin English described by Bickerton (1984) and Roberts (1998) differs in any theo­ retically significant way from the Guest Worker's German (Gastarbeiterdeutsch) often cited as a case of second-language acquisition. Hawaiian Pidgin English: (5) Gud, dis wan. Kaukau enikain dis wan. Pilipin ailaen no gud. No mo mani. "It's better here than in the Philippines — here you can get all kinds of food — but over there isn't any money". (Bickerton 1984: 175) Gastarbeiterdeutsch : (6) Un dan E. täläfoniiә kliinik, klinik haidälbärk. Ambulants un dan foat in kliinik. and then E. call clinic clinic Heidelberg ambulance and then off in clinic

114

JOHN H. McWHORTER "And then E. called the clinic, the Heidelberg clinic. An ambulance came and then they took him away to the clinic". (Heidelberger Forschungsprojekt "Pidgin Deutsch" 1975:141)

Second-language acquisition, to be sure, manifests itself along a cline, upon which the Gastarbeiterdeutsch passage falls quite far from full German. Yet pidginization expresses itself along the same cline depending on access to the target, motivation to acquire it, and typological closeness of lexifier and substrates. The Nagas who developed Naga Pidgin Assamese had enough access to Assamese and Bengali to incorporate some markers of case and tense (Bhattachariya 1994), and Sango, developed by people speaking closely related Ubangian languages, has retained enough inflections and tonal distinctions that some analysts prefer to classify it as a koiné rather than as a pidgin or creole (Morrill 1997). Thus the pidgin source which I refer to as crucial to the development of a creole displaying the three features in question is formally homologous to what in other frameworks is referred to as "approximation" or second-language acquisition. Some scholars have questioned whether creoles were preceded by pidgins given the lack of clear attestation of the pidgin stage of the plantation creoles (e.g. Alleyne 1980: 126); indeed, this perspective informs much of the prefer­ ence of many creolists over the last twenty years to focus on "approximations of approximations" and second-language acquisition as the essence of creole gene­ sis. In this light, it is important to realize that in addition to the vastly unclear difference between pidginization and second-language acquisition, there are clear signs in plantation creoles' grammars of pidgin ancestry (McWhorter 1998: 805, McWhorter 2000, McWhorter and Parkvall fc.), of a sort which, if "approximation" is expanded to encompass them, render "approximation" and pidginization — once again — synonymous. In the meantime, it must also be clear that while documentation of the pidgin stages of plantation creoles is lost to us, there are indeed several documented cases of pidgins developing into natural languages (i.e. creoles) more recently, such as Hawaiian Pidgin English (Bickerton 1981; Roberts 1999), Sango (Samarin 1980), Chinook Jargon (Grant 1996), k Pisin (Mühlhäusler 1980, 1997; Romaine 1992), and Solomon Islands Pijin (Jourdan and Keesing 1997). Few would argue that anything significantly distinguishes Hawaiian Creole English, Sango, or creolized Tok Pisin qualitatively from other creoles; on the contrary all three of these creoles have been discussed alongside all of the others with no objection for forty years. Those deriving creoles from pidgins, then, are hypothesizing based not only on synchronic traces of pidginization, but on the fact that multiethnic contact languages of like grammatical and sociohistorical profile are concretely docu­ mented to have developed from pidgins.

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6.

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Older languages conforming to the Prototype?

A final possible refutation would be the identification of an older language, with no history of radical reduction by non-natives followed by reconstitution into a natural language, which combines the three features I have cited. One might expect that such a language would be an impossibility, given how readily inflection, monosyllabic lexical and morphosyntactic tone, and semantic drift of derivation-root combinations emerge in grammars. However, since inflectional affixes and tonally-marked contrasts also wear away to be replaced by analytic constructions, myriad languages have replaced tone with stress, and derivational affixes can gradually lose phonetic form and be replaced cyclically by new ones, there is also nothing ruling out a priori that a given grammar might reach a stage at which all inflectional affixation had been lost, there now was or never had been any tone, and all derivational affixation was new and thus consistently compositional. Indeed, when I first began investigating the Creole Prototype question, my intention was to identify just such a language, in order to give concrete support to the claim that creole is solely a sociohistorical term. The Creole Prototype hypothesis resulted from my not encountering such a language. Obviously, most of the world's languages are disqualified from the Prototype either by being inflected or using tone to encode monosyllabic lexical and morphosyntactic contrasts. Most linguists draw a blank on identifying an older language with neither of these features unless they happen to be specialists in languages of Southeast Asia or Austronesia. Yet the languages of these groups that I have examined nevertheless have ample noncompositional deriva­ tion. Eric Pederson (p.c.) has suggested to me that this suggests that the deri­ vation feature alone could serve as the diagnostic of creolization. Yet there exist older languages whose derivation-root combinations are consistently transparent — but then those which have come to my attention contain inflectional affixa­ tion and lexical and/or morphosyntactic tone. A useful example is Soninke, of the Mande subgroup of Niger-Congo. Judging from available sources, the deri­ vation-root combinations in this language, while predictably displaying institu­ tionalizations and idiomaticizations (see 3.3.2.), present no opacities of the Russian najti at-go 'to find' type. Yet Soninke displays signs of its age with several inflectional affixes: a. Three plural affixes13 13) It is clear that the plural markers in Soninke are affixes, not clitics. Zwicky and Pullum (1983: 503) propose that affixes are more selective of their host than clitics, that morphophonological idiosyncrasies are more typical of affixes than clitics, and that semantic idiosyncrasies are also more typical of affixes. Crucially, (a) there are three allomorphs of the Soninke plural marker, and the application of a given allomorph to a given lexical item is generally arbitrary (Diagana 1995: 58-9; Girier 1996: 66-7); (b) the plural affixes often exert

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b. 

Two singular nominal inflections (Diagana 1995: 48-9) A marker -nV of unrealization (inaccompli): à ró 'he came in', à róonó 'he will come in' (ibid. 254) d. A marker of unrealization via gemination: nà wùtú 'to take', à w[á] à wùttú 'he will take it' (ibid. 256) Soninke also has some lexical and morphosyntactic uses of tone: a. There are a few tonally-distinguished monosyllables: ro 'to enter' or 'to put', ña 'to become' or 'to make', te 'field' or 'oil' (Girier 1996: 127-8) b. The definite marker -n with low tone can in some contexts be omitted, leaving behind only low tone on the preceding syllable as a marker of defmiteness (Diagana 1995: 45-6)  Third person pronouns à (sing.) and ì (pl.) are rendered possessive by the addition of a high tone (ibid. 180-1).14 If older languages conforming to the Creole Prototype do not exist, then while this may be accidental, it is also possible that it is ruled out by laws of probabil­ ity. Specifically, it is already clear on typological grounds that the chance that one grammar might at any time display neither inflections or lexical / morpho­ syntactic tone is relatively small. It also appears to be the marked case that an old grammar has no noncompositional derivation. Grammars in which most derivation has become affixed and begun to erode away, thus receding from analyzability by speakers, tend to have maintained at least a derivational affix or two, since there is no reason that all affixes would erode at the same rate, nor that all of their semantic functions would be equally susceptible to bleaching and ambiguation. Furthermore, even if a grammar has shed all of its derivational affixes, then given the centrality of derivation to natural language, it develops new derivational morphemes (e.g. Lahu formerly had a bound causative affix *s- which now exists only as phonetic remnants and has been replaced by the grammaticalized use of the verb te 'to do' (Matisoff 1973b: 243). This means that finding an older language with no noncompositional derivation involves first the small chance that all of the derivational morphemes in the grammar will have either worn away or been bleached of all regular meaning, combined with the equally small chance that we encounter the gram­ mar at a stage when the new derivational morphemes are still so young that noncompositional uses have yet to arise. As such, while it is certainly possible that an older language may have no inflection and no tone (Chrau), or that an older language may have these but no noncompositional derivation (Soninke),

morphophonological changes upon the root; and (c) used with body parts, plural marking signifies a disease as well as plurality (Diagana 1995: 62-4). 14) Soninke's use of lexical and morphosyntactic tone is in fact of an extent paralleled in Saramaccan. However, the existence and number of the inflectional affixes in addition to this is quite unparalleled in Saramaccan or any other creole known to this author, and most importantly, Saramaccan is documented to have lacked its uses of tone when it emerged.

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the chance that these two states coincide in an older language may be rendered unlikely or perhaps impossible by sheer probability.

7.

Conclusion

I have argued that creole languages cluster around a prototype comprising three features symptomatic of a language having emerged recently from a pidgin, and that we would predict that this confluence of features would not occur in an older language, thus rendering creole a synchronic as well as sociohistorical term. The weak version of the hypothesis appears well-supported on empirical grounds: that older languages exhibiting these three traits are extremely rare (given that none have come to the attention of this author at this writing), and that therefore creoles quite often display a confluence of features which older languages display only rarely and fortuitously. The strong version of this hypothesis remains at this writing a speculation which will hopefully inspire further research: that no older language exists which combines these three features. If proven valid, this hypothesis will contribute usefully to the develop­ ment of useful typologies of language contact, as our insights into phenomena such as code-switching, language "intertwining", clines of contact-induced interference, as well as pidginization and creolization continue to deepen. Furthermore, in calling attention to the crucial role of the semantic drift of deri­ vation in determining whether or not a language has a creole history, the Creole Prototype hypothesis complements various studies which have appeared in the 1990s suggesting that the essence of creolization lies in the grammar-wide syntactic results of the loss of inflectional morphology (cf. Veenstra 1996; Roberts 1999). This idea is both ingenious and highly promising, but the deri­ vational evidence I have presented suggests that there is a significant body of data distinguishing creole grammars from older ones which are unlikely to yield to an analysis based on parameters of Universal Grammar, and lend themselves instead to explanations based on predictable results of the pidgin ancestry of most creole languages combined with their short lifespans since their origin. I will explore this issue further in two subsequent papers. Those papers, in combination with this one and McWhorter (1998), are intended to redress the increasingly awkward fact that after three decades of institutionalized creole studies, there remains a gaping lack of consensus in the subfield as to what a creole even is. For various reasons, in creole studies today this topic is generally felt to be a "touchy" issue best left alone, and in general of little importance. I cannot disagree that the issue is volatile, as is clear from the title of DeGraff (1999a) ("Morphology in creole genesis: a 20-minute prole­ gomenon"). However, unimportant it is not. If there is truly no linguistic differ-

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ence between creoles and other languages, and creoles are distinct only in terms of the social history of their speakers, then it follows that creole studies ought be the exclusive province of anthropologists, historians and sociologists, with a grammatical study of Papiamentu tense and aspect no more pertinent to the field than an equivalent one on Hungarian. This scenario is one which I highly suspect that few creolists, regardless of their perspectives on the Prototype issue, could sincerely countenance, and this demonstrates a fundamental sense animating most people studying these languages that creole is indeed on some level a linguistically valid term. The Creole Prototype hypothesis is simply an attempt to render this guiding intuition more precise.

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John McWhorter Department of Linguistics University of California, Berkeley Berkeley, CA 94720 USA [email protected]

Opposite processes in "creolization"

Mervyn C. Alleyne University of the West Indies Mona, Jamaica I have been working on two major groups of Caribbean languages: the Englishbased creole languages and the French-based (see Alleyne 1980 and Alleyne 1996), and basically I have tried to employ well-known and well-tried principles and methods of historical comparative linguistics to these languages in order to understand the historical processes which lie behind the contemporary structures. One of the major goals of such studies was to throw light on the genesis of these languages, which was, and I believe remains even now, the central issue in what has come to be known as "Creole Linguistics". This interest in genesis is part of a long tradition which has been estab­ lished and which views so-called creole languages of the Caribbean as members of a single and unique species which emerged by some special common process generally referred to as "creolization". We are still not all sure what is or was the nature of this single common process. Was it a "once-and-for-all" event which took place in the age of European colonial expansion? Are we able to observe now, or will we be able to observe in the future, a replay of this process, as we are able to observe now the constant replay of other kinds of linguistic evolutionary processes which took place in the past? One must admit that there has been of late a waning in what was a relentless search for a single hypothesis to account for the genesis of "creole" languages. There has been a growing awareness that these languages, at least those of the Caribbean, demonstrate well-known, "normal" processes of language change, both internal non-motivated change and externally motivated change; rather than, or at least in addition to, the special exclusive process or processes that traditionally have been assumed to have been involved. For example, as far as internal change is concerned, syntactic reanalysis now seems to have played a major role in the formation of these Caribbean languages. As far as externally motivated change is concerned, various first language transfers have been identified. Change in creole language is becoming a very hot topic, and work on the Suriname languages is leading the way (see Arends 1995). This work is suggesting some modification in the old ways of interpreting these languages.

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These languages were thought to be so special that it was assumed that they were born and simply remained that way, except for cases of "decreolization". As ridiculous as it may seem now, the contemporary forms of these languages were assumed to be the same as those which were generated at birth, and these contemporary forms were used to construct hypotheses of genesis. At least, the studies of change have reinforced a new view that so-called creolization is not a sudden once-and-for-all event, but is drawn out. The structures that we witness in the contemporary forms were not generated in one bang but evolved over time until they stabilised. Except of course that they have not really stabilised. Syntactic reanalysis is an on-going process. Haitian is still undergoing change in that area. A whole series of verbs are developing variants which are losing (or have lost) their lexical meaning, are becoming unstressed and are being reduced phonologically, with these variants appearing exclusively in pre-verbal position, taking on the character of TMA markers (e.g. fin, vin, met, gen, kapab, sot). In Jamaican, soon is moving from the lexical category of sentence adverbial and is becoming fixed in pre-verbal position as a marker of proximate futurity. A new imperfective category may only now be emerging in Jamaican (and maybe in Haitian), much later than in the Lesser Antillean (French-based) and the Suriname (English-based) languages. Whereas Jamaican (and Haitian) separates/separated progressive aspect from habitual aspect (the former marked by (d)a, the latter unmarked), there is a growing tendency to mark both aspects by a. Note that the older, archaic variant da is never used in this way. In Jamaican, don ('to finish') is moving away from the category of serial verb and is in the process of becoming fixed in pre-verbal position as a marker (optional) of perfective. In Guyanese, the reanalysis of don may have gone even further, as it begins to show the characteristic unstressing associated with this process. However, in spite of the work on change, the major tenet of creole linguistics has not been shaken: that there was (is) a single, very special, process called creolization which produced a number of special languages all over the globe and which, as a result of this common special process, now constitute a special class or species of language (requiring, in addition, a single hypothesis to account for their genesis). Having had the experience of the English-based languages, and assuming that the French-based languages belonged to the same species, I expected to find the same basic process occurring in both groups. As the title of the paper suggests, I did not find what my presuppositions and my working hypothesis had led me to believe I would find. What I had found in the study of the English-based languages (Alleyne 1980) is that they can be ranked on an evolutionary scale which looks like a macro-continuum paralleling the micro-continuum existing in any one territory such as Jamaica or Guyana or Antigua. In the micro-continuum, the basilect is the point of departure, both for the actual dynamic process itself and for the

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analytical construction, i.e. the model by which we represent it. An illustrative example is the attributive copula. Where it occurs on the continuum it is best interpreted as an insertion, starting out with a copula-free basilect. This analysis in terms of an insertion of a copula better represents the historical process and is psychologically more accurate as it represents the acquisition process which speakers undergo. It is also more elegant synchronically as it accounts not only for the appearance of is but also for other "aberrant" forms of the copula that emerge especially in African American Vernacular English. This analysis is opposed to, and appears superior to, the one which begins with the overt copula of English as the underlying form and derives the creole "absence of copula" by the "deletion" of a feature. For the macro-continuum, it is generally agreed that Saramaccan repre­ sents the earliest or primitive layer of English-based creole in the Caribbean. At least, this is virtually the only point of agreement between the different hypotheses of genesis (e.g. the Language Bioprogram Hypothesis and the Afri­ can Substratum Hypothesis). Many examples show that Saramaccan has a very general feature which became less general in Sranan and even less so in Jamai­ can. This shows up more clearly in phonology than in other levels of language structure. We can cite, for example, vowel final syllabic structure, neutralisation of /1/ and /r/, /b/ as a reflex of English /v/, lexical tone. In all of these features, Jamaican represents a change vis-à-vis Saramaccan, rather than the reverse. In syntax, the picture is really the same, except that, as we would expect, the examples do not abound as much as in phonology. Saramaccan has the serial verb "finish", in the form kaba, in post-verbal position. Jamaican still has it (in the form don) in that position, but the ecology of its use indicates an old form which is archaic and becoming obsolete. Syntactic reanalysis is underway in Jamaican and don is in the process of being reinterpreted as an aspect marker. At the present time, it occurs both preceding and following the verb (don + VB + don), and preferably in a preverbal position (don + VB). Note that this is not a case of "decreolization". Jamaican has lost (and is still losing) part of the range of the "give" (dative/benefactive) and the "take" (instrumental) serial verbs. In Saramaccan, the serial verb da 'give' is both dative and benefactive, while in Jamaican the serial verb gi 'give' is basically only dative, and tends to be used only where the meaning of the sentence is compatible with the core meaning of lexical "give" (i.e. 'hand over'). Saramaccan has taki da... ('talk to...'), lai da... ('lie to...'), where da = 'to give'. Jamaican shows taak to..., lai to..., but pap tuori gi... 'tell stories to...', 'lie to...', where gi = 'to give'. With regard to the instrumental, Saramaccan has an expanded range which includes manner and comitative. But Jamaican tends to use the serial verb "take" only where the meaning of the sentence is compatible with the idea of using an object as an instrument to perform the verb:

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im tek naif kot di bred 'he cut the bread with a knife' Jamaican however retains fossilised relics of the manner serial: tek taim du it 'do it with care'. Im tek faas brok mi sliet 'he, in a meddling fashion, broke my slate' And speakers are not in agreement as to whether im tek im gyal go shuo can mean 'he went to the show with his girl friend'. The internal and comparative reconstruction of Jamaican and old texts in the language all point to an older form closer to the Saramaccan model than is the contemporary form. Then there is the "spirit language" of the Maroons of Jamaica (see Bilby 1981) which is a preservation of a form of language used in the island in the 18th century. It is quite closer to Krio and Sranan than it is to modern Jamaican. For example, it has the "give" serial with taki 'to talk' and with arik 'to hark', 'to listen'. The case of the French-based languages is different. They do constitute some sort of a macro-continuum but without the range and historical depth of the English-based macro-continuum. As for the micro-continuum, it is inter­ esting to observe that whereas there has been some suggestion that a continuum exists in Haiti, Martinique, Réunion, etc., it certainly does not have the range of variation that is to be found in the case of the Jamaican creole continuum. The point of departure for the French-based macro-continuum is not analogous to Saramaccan. One will look in vain for a French-based language that parallels the place of Saramaccan on the English-based macro-continuum. Haitian suggests itself a priori as a candidate. But there is evidence to show that the contemporary form of Haitian is an evolved form, in relatively recent times. It is not a conservative form that would represent the earliest primitive level of French-based languages. The conservative languages lying on the periphery of the French-based creole zone (le guyanais, le louisianais) show forms that are not analogous to Saramaccan forms. To put it simply, old Haitian was closer to le réunionnais and to français populaire than modern Haitian is. Modern Haitian carries to the furthest point a number of divergent changes which occurred in popular French. Stated other­ wise, Haitian has restructured popular French more than the other French-based creole languages have. Whereas the kind of maximum restructuring of English represented by Saramaccan is the beginning of a historical process in the case of the English-based languages, the maximum restructuring of French represented by Haitian is the end of that historical process. I wish to show, at this point, how there is a principled way in which the pivot of the Verb Phrase of the French-based languages — the zero perfective (completive) form — may be accounted for in terms of an evolution of French, rather than as an immediate massive restructuring. This will enable us to see the

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evolution of the Verb Phrase and the maximum point of divergence that this evolution has reached, as represented by Haitian. To begin, it is often said that the creole verb theme is invariable; and so it is in the English-based languages. In Saramaccan, there is a morphological pro­ cess of reduplication affecting these verbal themes; but this is not, properly speaking, a case of verb morphology but a process which derives adjectives from verbs. It is part of the massive restructuring that took place to produce the early form of English-based creole languages. The so-called invariability of the verbal theme does not apply at all to the French-based languages. Indeed, I would venture to say that there is no Frenchbased creole language in which the verb is invariable. First of all, there was an earlier morphosyntactical distinction between a long and a short form, which has remained in le réunionnais (and le louisianais). Le réunionnais has inherited virtually all the forms of the morphosyntax of the French verb, from all the different dialectal levels of French, but apparently it has not restructured these or systematised them in a new semantactic system, as the other French-based languages have done. The long form goes back to the French past participle and infinitival forms of-er and -ir verbs which were the most frequent in popular French given the frequency of periphrastic expressions in which these forms occurred: il est après fermer la porte il va fermer la porte il finit de fermer la porte il est pour fermer la porte il a fermé la porte la porte est fermée

In addition, other forms such as the imperfect and 2nd person plural, Present Tense, and the polite imperative of -er verbs were homophonous with the above forms (/fεrme/). The short form goes back to the Present Tense forms (/fεrm/ from, je ferme, tu fermes, il ferme, on ferme, ils ferment). Le réunionnais preserves the two forms and assigns to them basically the same syntax which they have in French. But already in this language, we also find, at some levels of the continuum, the loss of syntactic function and the beginnings of a new stylistic exploitation of the long vs. short form based before pause and the short form used if the verb is followed by another constituent of the Verb Phrase. Le réunionnais thus gives glimpses of the direction that the other languages will take. Le mauricien (Indian Ocean) and le louis ianais (North America) retain in some contrastive sentences the syntactic functions whereby the short form going back to the French present tense represents an active voice, and the long form going back to the French past participle represents basically a passive voice or a stative/resultative:

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MERVYN . ALLEYNE

Mauricien

Louisianais

labutik i ferm siz er 'la boutique se ferme à six heures' ('the store closes at six o'clock') chop-la frem a sizer

labutik i ferme ozordi 'la boutique est fermée aujourd'hui' ('the store is closed today') chop-la freme jodi

(Note that the use of the short form here also raises questions about the rela­ tionship between actives, reflexives and middle voice which we cannot deal with here). Other usages in le mauricien show that the above syntactic functions are becoming or have become a relic of the past and that the distinction between long and short form has become or is becoming phonotactic. It has virtually disappeared in the Caribbean where Lesser Antillean and Haitian have completely abandoned any vestige of the syntactical distinction. In Haitian, many verbs have two forms, but the situation is much freer, i.e. much less phonotactically rule governed than in the Indian Ocean, although there may be a slight statistical favouring of the long form before pause (which may show up more clearly in a quantitative variation study). The dominant process in Haitian is the reanalysis, at different stages and degrees of completion, of a whole series of verbs (from French connaître, gagner, rester, sortir, venir, finir, capable, etc) by which they are being grammaticalised as verbal auxiliaries or as TMA markers. In this process, they undergo quite drastic phonological reduction and these reduced forms only occur in a pre-verbal position. The long form became the pivot of the TMA system. At first a stative derived from the past participle of French, it came to express a resultative linked to the completion of an action or process. The major principle underlying the development of this form is the epistemological relationship between the completion of an event/process on the one hand and the resultant state on the other. This relationship is marked in human language by different means, including the absence of any overt marker. In some languages, resultative con­ structions take the same form as the perfective, although there is some evidence in languages for an increasing tendency to make an overt distinction (cf. English he is gone > he has gone, Christ is risen > Christ has risen). In other languages resultative constructions continue to be marked formally by the perfective (cf. Chinese). The logical links are obvious. It is simply a matter of perspective. The resultative focusses on the state that is the result of a previous but completed event or process, while the perfective emphasizes the event or process itself. In French-based creole languages, with the loss of the auxiliary of French (la boutique (est) fermée), the participle becomes main verb. The event that precedes and produces the state of closure becomes fused with the resultant state: /labutik fεrme/ means both la boutique est fermée and la boutique a été fermée. The state and the completed event carry the same marker, in this case zero marking.

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The next motive force in the evolutionary process is the link existing between event or action and active voice, and between state and passive voice. The event which, on completion, results in /labutik fεrme/ comes to be expressed actively by /yo fεrme labutik/, thus spreading the zero marking to the perfective aspect of active voice. Incidentally, this suggests that the verbal theme is historically more closely related to the French past participle than to the infinitive and explains why there are so many creole verbs derived from "irregular" French past participles: kuvè, uvè, mò, pedi, asiz. It also explains why a form of French être rather than a form of avoir triumphs as the marker of "past tenses". It starts out with statives (where it expresses a simple past), and then spreads to action/event verbs in these languages (where it expresses, quite naturally, an anterior category, i.e. the action/event which took place prior and leading to the state which was produced in the past). Le réunionnais does, as we can predict, preserve a form of "avoir", but the other languages have only te, ti (from été or était). There are in many languages evolutionary processes analogous to the one described above: Latin Vulgar Latin French French

Caesar castrum occupavit Caesar habet castrum occupatum César a occupé le camp César a couru (but cf. still César est allé)

English

They have the door shut They have shut the door They have gone (but cf. still They are gone)

This link between completed events and resultant states also affects so-called adjectives or statives. Adjectives in French only express states and do not imply in any way the events or processes which produced them. In French-based creole languages, a development got underway by which stativity is not a semantic trait inherent in certain lexemes (adjectives), as it may be in French, but rather is a feature which is realised syntactically or pragmatically. In this development, adjectives are not statives, but can have stative interpretation in certain phrases, but completed event or process in others, in cases where, prag­ matically, the lexemes are compatible with the notion of event or process. These languages of the Indian Ocean seek to maintain/establish a distinction which the French language observes between events/processes and statives, by using (f)in as an obligatory marker of perfectivity: sinemaplen 'the cinema is full' (stative) sinema fin plen 'the cinema has become full' (event)

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In the languages of the Caribbean, there is no such obligatory marker of perfectivity which would distinguish events from statives. Sinema plen thus refers both to the process and to the resultant state. Haitian carries this development further than the other languages of the Caribbean. Not only "adjectives", but also "nouns" can express events syntacti­ cally or pragmatically:

but

yo bef li 'they made him into a cow'  jak li 'they did to him what they did to Jacques' Jean bos 'Jean has become a boss' Jean se bos 'Jean is a boss'

From another perspective, Haitian carries creole multifunctionality to its furthest point. To complete the TMA system, all the languages show a series of syntactic reanalyses involving French après, aller, été/était, savoir, serais, etc. The Caribbean languages show further innovations such as the replacement of serais by a new form combining past tense + prospective (sre still exists in le martiniquais and is archaic in other languages). But again Haitian goes furthest by pursuing the reanalysis of a series of lexemes such as capable, connaître, rester, venir, sortir, mettre. The earlier form of French-based creole languages had a case system for pronouns. The Indian Ocean languages, le guyanais and le louisianais, preserve this. The Caribbean moves this to a caseless system. But Haitian also innovates further by introducing nu for 2nd person plural. Haitian also innovates with a system of morphophonemic alternation that leaves the other languages behind. Haitian innovation in morphophonemics also manifests itself in the form of the determiner. Another development in the Caribbean languages (vis-à-vis the Indian Ocean languages) is the post-position of the possessive determiner. Valdman (1978) had noted that ante-position was a feature of the earlier forms of the Caribbean languages as well. Haitian again is the most innovative in post­ positions: not only the definite article and possessive, but also plural and demonstrative. As far as the system of determination is concerned, Haitian is in the process of developing a greater particularisation of nominals by using a double marking: diri-la-a 'the rice' rat-la-a 'the rat'

It seems therefore that the French-based languages took an evolutionary path which is the reverse of the path taken by the English-based languages. Maxi­ mum restructuring takes place, for the French-based languages, at the end of the historical process through cumulative divergent changes in the course of time.

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On the other hand, the English-based languages had their maximum restructur­ ing at the beginning of the process, and thereafter they underwent a process of progressive rapprochement (convergence), in a general but not a categorical sort of a way, towards English. The process which yields the French-based languages therefore has the character of the evolution of a language (popular French). This view is compatible with the position held and articulated for many years by the French "school" at the University of Provence (see Chaudenson 1992). On the other hand, the process which leads to the English-based languages appears rather like the acquisition of a foreign language characterised by approximate systems and in terms of which speakers bring their linguistic outputs closer and closer to the target. This is not to say that these were the only processes involved in each case. Apart from the restructuring followed by convergent development, English-based languages also show a considerable amount of divergent change, as I hinted when I touched on continuing "instability" in Jamaican. Similarly, French-based languages do show convergent change as well.

References Alleyne, Mervyn C. 1980. Comparative Afro-American. Ann Arbor: Karoma. —. 1996. Syntaxe historique créole. Paris: Karthala. Arends, Jacques, ed. 1995. The Early Stages of Creolization. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins. (Creole Language Library, vol. 13.) Bilby, Kenneth. 1981. "The Kromanti dance of the Windward maroons of Jamaica". Nieuwe Westindische Gids 55: 52-101. Chaudenson, Robert. 1992. Des îles, des hommes, des langues. Essai sur la créolisation linguistique et culturelle. Paris: L'Harmattan. Valdman, Albert. 1978. Le créole: Structure, statut et origine. Paris: Klincksieck.

Mervyn Alleyne Department of Languages and Linguistics University of the West Indies, Mona Kingston 7 Jamaica [email protected]

Two types of restructuring in French creoles: A cognitive approach to the genesis of tense markers

Ulrich Detges University of Tübingen According to an opinion which was dominant in the 1970s and 1980s, pidgin and creole languages provide a "window on the essence of language" (Sankoff 1990: 295). Proponents of this position argued that a look at the rise of gram­ matical markers in the course of creolization allows a privileged view on polygenetic universals in grammaticalization (cf. Slobin 1983: 250). More recent work on creolization, however, shows a tendency to minimise the linguistic peculiarities of creoles. According to this opinion, creolization is an instance of normal grammatical restructuring (Mufwene 1996: 5). Like the older position outlined above, the latter opinion views creolization and grammaticalization as basically identical processes (Mufwene 1996: 25). In this paper, I want to show that both positions are problematic: instances of universal grammaticalization do occur in creole languages, especially in later stages of their development, but grammaticalization and the particular kind of grammatical restructuring which is typical of creolization are two fundamentally different types of processes.1

1.

Grammaticalization: a cognitive-pragmatic approach

1.1.

The initial stages of grammaticalization

According to a relatively recent viewpoint, grammaticalization is closely linked to subjectifícation, defined as "the development of a grammatically identifiable expression of speaker belief or attitude to what is said" (Traugott 1995: 32). According to this view, grammaticalization is the unintended result of certain rhetorical discourse strategies on the part of speakers. A particular strategy 1) This view is not entirely new. Givón (1982) distinguishes between what he considers to be "the" creole grammatical-semantic-pragmatic system on the one hand (which, according to him, is linked to a universal human linguistic prototype, p. 116), and post-creole develop­ ments on the other hand, which he characterises as "the very same universal diachronic pro­ cesses that are found in human language elsewhere" (154). The first part of this characteriza­ tion is substantially different from the explanation that I am going to suggest in this paper.

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which engenders tense markers can be seen in the rise of the Romance perfect from the Latin resultative construction factum habeo 'I have something (which is) done'.2 The shift in meaning from resultative to perfect is brought about by speakers who present the RESULT of some PAST ACTION in order to make their listeners believe that they (the speakers) have really done what they claim to have done by producing some visible evidence for this claim. The cognitive basis of this rhetoric operation is metonymy: since the conceptual link between RESULT and preceding (PAST) EVENT is part of our shared world knowledge, the concept of PAST EVENT is associated as a contiguous background-concept with the concept of PRESENT RESULT originally expressed by factum habeo. So, the hearer can expectably infer from the result of some past event the reality of the past event itself. Temporal meaning arises when, in the discourse strategy described above, the former background-concept PAST EVENT is shifted into the figure (because the reality of the past event is the "thing meant" and therefore focused by the speakers) and becomes conventionalised as a new meaning of factum habeo. Table 1: From resultative to perfect factum habeo rhetorical means ("thing said" ) "thing meant"

'(Here) I have s.th. which is done' 'I (really) have done s.th.'

present

past

RESULT

EVENT

figure

> ground

> ground > figure

Tense markers like factum habeo 'I have done it' emerge in direct oral commu­ nication. In direct communication, it is important to distinguish between two types of states of affairs, (a) those which are visible to speaker and listener or over which they have immediate control, i.e. events present in the situation, and (b) those which are not visible to speaker and listener and over which they have no immediate control, namely past events and future events. According to the theory presented here, tense markers arise when speakers make use of some element visible in the present situation (e.g. the visible, present result of some past action) to "prove" to the listener the reality of some non-present, invisible event (e.g. a past action they claim to have performed). The speakers' aim is not simply to refer to past or future time or to provide a salient conceptual structure for time, but to confer credibility to non-present events. Their goal is to speak

2) For a more detailed description of the following model, see Detges (1999). 3) The view of metonymy as a foreground (= "figure")/background (= "ground") effect between contiguous concepts and its origin in discourse are pointed out in Koch (1999). The graphic representation in Table 1 is adapted from this paper.

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convincingly. In the theory outlined here, tense is the unintended result of such certificational strategies. This line of reasoning explains the empirical finding that forms which are about to give rise to grammaticalized temporal meaning are preferably used in the 1st person singular of the indicative present:4 grammaticalization processes are initiated by speakers who try to confer credibility to their own actions.5 The universal character of such speaker strategies is the "invisible hand" (Keller 1990) behind the polygenetic conceptual developments underlying the evolution of future markers: Table 2: Polygenetic development of future markers

i)

I COME/GO TO DO IT

ii)

I WANT TO DO IT

)

I HAVE TO DO IT

iv)

I AM TO DO IT/IT IS MY DESTINATION TO DO IT

v)

I (ALREADY) DO IT/I AM (ALREADY) DOING IT _

I'LL DO IT

i) Fr je vais le faire, Engl I'm going to do it, Sp voy a hacerlo, Rom (jeu) vegnel a cantar, RéuFrCr moi s'en va lass ii) East Fr je veux le faire, Rum voi(u) cìnta, OSp el sol quiere rayar, Tok Pisin halus i laik go  iii) VLt habeo cantare, Engl I shall do it, Sard deppo cantar iv) Fr je suis pour le faire, Sp soy/ estoy para hacerlo, SeyFrCr ô  vin ris v) Germ ich tue es morgen, HaiFrCr lapli ap tonbe

Typical speech acts that are oriented towards the future are commissives (promises, threats). In these speech acts, the speaker's intentions play a crucial role. Reports of past events can be true or false, but threats or promises clearly cannot be analysed in these terms. The speaker can however, while uttering a commissive, be sincere or insincere. The basic condition of sincerity in commissives is that the speaker really intends to do what he promises or threat­ ens to do. Assuming the responsibility that he really intends to do what he says he will do is thus part of the felicity conditions which a speaker must fulfil if he

4) For Middle French (s'en) aller faire qc, cf. Gougenheim (1971 [1929]: 99, 103), Werner (1980), Wilmet (1970); for Spanish ir a hacer see Söll (1968: 247); for Haitian French Creole ap, cf. Damoiseau (1987); for the Early Middle English perfect, cf. Zimmermann (1968: 117). For a general explanation, cf. Traugott (1995: 36). 5) In later stages of grammaticalization, such forms move down the animacy hierarchy from human to non-human and from animate to inanimate. Cf. Tagliamonte (1998).

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wants his commissive to be successful (Searle 1969: 54ff.).6 Not surprisingly, the source concepts listed in Table 2 have in common that, uttered in the lsg. pres., they serve to certify the speaker's sincerity by giving the hearer reasons to believe that he really intends to do the things he promises or threatens to do. A widespread rhetorical technique which gives rise to future markers is the use of verbs of MOVEMENT represented by line i) in Table 2. With utterances like I'm already on my way/coming to help you!, speakers stage a condensed rhetorical argument that could be translated into the following explicit form: "At this very moment I am performing a movement which will eventually lead me to some place where I shall carry out the future action that you (the listener) are interested in. From the fact that I am performing the movement at this very moment, you may infer that I really intend to carry out the action in question. So, there is reason for you to believe that it will take place with a very high degree of probability". It makes, of course, a big difference if someone is really already doing what he claims to be doing or if he just says he is doing so. The first case amounts to a simple description of a state of affairs, the second case represents a discourse technique that may eventually give rise to a convention­ alised construction which in turn may result in semantic change and in grammaticalization of the linguistic form involved. Instances of the above-mentioned rhetorical strategy are familiar to all of us from everyday life: When we sit in a café and signal to the waiter that we want to pay, he will normally reply (I'm) coming!, even though it may take a couple of minutes (or even longer) before he moves in our direction. In this case, we may already speak of a conventionalised construction, since the expression (I'm) coming! is normally used by waiters who want to express their INTENTION to serve their clients in the IMMEDIATE FUTURE. The grammaticalization of modals expressing VOLITION (Table 2, line ii) is triggered by speakers who invoke the sincerity of their intention to carry out some action in the future. By referring to their own OBLIGATION or DESTINATION (Table 2, lines iii and iv), speakers invoke external pressure as an implicit argument which confers probability to their future actions: If your sales figures are low again next month, I must/am obliged to/cannot but fire you! The strategy represented by line v in Table 2 is similar to the one which underlies the use of verbs of MOVEMENT: in order to make his listener believe that some event will really take place in the future, the speaker pretends that it is ALREADY HAPPENING.

6) Cf. Arnovick (1990: 96ff.), who discusses the pragmatic dimension of the grammaticaliza­ tion of future markers in the sense outlined here. Cf. also Koch and Oesterreicher (1996: 84).

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139

Polygenetic meaning change and grammaticalization: French Creole fini

On the basis of the model sketched in the previous paragraphs, it is possible to explain instances of grammaticalization in creole languages. In this section, I want to examine the evolution of an anterior going back to French fini(r) : fin(i)(r)/fin(e) in French Creole of La Réunion (henceforward referred to as RéuFrCr), ((f)i)n in Mauritian and Seychelles French Creole (MauFrCr and SeyFrCr), fin(i)/fin(e) in Haitian French Creole (HaiFrCr) and fin(i) in Guyanese French Creole (GuyFrCr). At first sight, it may appear that French finir 'to finish' is already inherently temporal, so that no particular meaning change was necessary to bring about its function as an anterior marker. Such a view would, however, not be appropriate. Just as its English counterpart to finish, French finir does not only mean 'to stop'7 but also 'to bring some process to its natural end', 'to get something done'. The following example taken from classical 17th'  French could be paraphrased as 'Let's stop for today — we finish another time': (1)

[...] c'est assez pour aujourd'hui, nous finirons une autre fois. (Molière, Le Sicilien, 12., cf. Robert). 'It's enough for today, we'll finish another time'.

A lexical item fini meaning 'to bring something to its end' (which goes back to French finir) is attested for all the French Creoles.8 Here is just one example: (2)

HaiFrCr:

M fini travay-la. (cf. Valdman 1970:218) 'I finished the job'

If a speaker utters 'I FINISHED the job' or 'I BROUGHT the job TO ITS END', an obvious inference is that, as a RESULT of his action, at the present moment he IS FINISHED WITH the job, 9 because the job IS DONE now. Fin(i) (or, as in example (4), its allomorphic variant n) thus comes to express the RESULTANT STATE of some PRECEDING EVENT. This usage is attested for all FrCr's.

7) Note that French finir as well as FrCr fini may be used with this meaning. 8) In some FrCr's, it also has the meaning 'to die' (for HaiFrCr cf. Faine 1981 [1936]: 146, for StLuFrCr cf. Mondésir 1992: Fini), 'to kill' (for RéuFrCr cf. Baggioni 1990: Fini(r)). 9) Unfortunately, in British English there is no unambiguous expression for the present STATE which RESULTS from a preceding PROCESS of FINISHING STH. This concept has to be translated

by the verb finish in the present perfect T have finished the job', a construction which in present-day English is used to refer not to the result, but to the past event of FINISHING itself. A more appropriate expression for the concept under discussion here would be a resultative of the type "I have the job finished", which is not colloquial English.

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(3)

GuaFrCr:

(4)

SeyFrCr:

Travay-la fini; ay pozé kò a ou! (cf. Toumeux and Barbotin 1990: fini2) 'The job is finished now; go and have a rest!' Anu

ale,

IMP: lp go

mô

dalô,

' n

my

friend

you RESULT gain.

gâje

'Come on, my friend, you have enough now!' (cf. Michaelis 1993: 73)

Since the fact of whether or not one is finished with something is important in everyday life, there is a huge range of rhetorical activity around the concept of FINISHEDNESS. In the case of FrCr fini, this rhetorical activity caused semantic change in different directions, among which the shift to temporal meaning and the subsequent grammaticalization figure as only one instance. If a speaker says 'I am FINISHED WITH doing this job', an obvious infer­ ence is that he has done the job COMPLETELY. This inference is systematically possible whenever fini is used with resultative meaning, e.g. in (3) und (4). In most FrCr's, the inference 'completely' became conventionalised as an addi­ tional independent lexical meaning of fini, which, as a consequence of this change, now functions as an adverb of degree. Fini 'completely' can modify verbs and adjectives that normally exclude fini 'to finish', 'to be finished with': (5)

RéuFrCr :

Quand tout lafiniprêt, frrr [...] Canards y s'envole. (L. Héry 1828, La tortue et les deux canards, cf. Chaudensonl981: 17) 'When everything was completely ready, frrr [...] the ducks flew away'

(6)

MauFrCr:

Mon Dié moi fini bète (F. Chrestien 1820, Le meunier, son fils et l'âne, cf. Chaudenson 1981: 94) 'My God, I'm completely stupid'.

(7)

HaiFrCr:

M'pa t'a-vlé l'fin-kônê sa (Sylvain 1979 [1936]: 92) I wouldn't want him to know this completely/the whole story'.

In many European languages, adjectives and adverbs denoting PERFECTION are metonymically derived from verbs expressing FINISHING: Lat. perfectus 'perfect' < perficere 'to finish, to complete', Germ, vollendet 'perfect' < vollenden, 'to finish, to complete', Span, cumplido 'perfect' < cumplir 'to complete, to finish, to fulfil'. The obvious explanation for repeated meaning change from 'finished, completed' to 'perfect' is that the use of lexical items denoting the concepts of COMPLETION or FINISHEDNESS in order to refer to the metonymically related, but more abstract concept of PERFECTION is a procedure which produces conceptual

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salience and expressivity. Fini with the adjectival or adverbial meaning 'perfect(ly)' is documented in 19th' GuyFrCr:10 (8)

GuyFrCr: (19th. .)

Enkò yé di-konsa ou ka-chanté fini. (St. Quentin 1872: 63, cf. Schlupp 1997: 237) 'And moreover, they say you sing perfectly'.

Another frequent effect triggered by fini in its RESULTANT STATE meaning is the inference that the event in question is ALREADY finished. This inference is regularly brought about in situations where speakers react to some counterexpectation on the hearer's side: 'IN SPITE OF WHAT YOU THINK, the job is 11 FINISHED now' > 'The job is ALREADY finished'. However, it is unclear to what extent 'already' can be regarded as an independent lexical meaning of fini, or whether it is more appropriate to view it as a mere conversational implicature induced by contextual counter-expectation. Neumann (1985) translates fini in (9) with 'already' which is justified by the presence of me 'but', an overt indica­ tor for surprise and counter-expectation. Dictionaries of the different FrCr's never list 'already' as a separate meaning of fin(i). (9)

LouFrCr:

Me li te fini muri! (cf. Neumann 1985: 235) 'But he was already dead!'

In other creole languages however, lexical items meaning 'to finish' (which also function as anterior markers) sometimes do have 'already' as one of their meanings (see note 13). The typical rhetorical procedure that turns fini into a temporal marker may be conceived of as a situation in which someone asks the speaker: "Did you do the job I asked you to?" and the latter answers "Look, I'm FINISHED WITH doing it (here is the result)!" Traces of this technique can be found in an early use of fini as a temporal marker in MauFrCr: here,fini appears in a context (the proclamation of the abolition of slavery from 1835) where it is crucial for the authors of the text to make the readers believe that the event in question — the signing of the bill by the king — did in fact take place:

10) It is possible, however, that fini 'perfect(ly)' in 19th c. GuyFrCr, which appeared in obligatory postposition to the element it referred to, did not originate in this Creole, but was borrowed from French. Like GuyFrCr fini, Standard French fini 'perfect' (derived from the past participle of finir) appears in postposition: C'est un coquin, un voyou fini (cf. Robert, Fini), 'He's a perfect villain, a perfect crook'. 11) A well-known example of the relation between the state of being ready and counterexpectation is English already < Middle English al redi 'completely ready'. This relation is apparent in the following ambiguous example: 'Where is youre fader? ... 'Lord, he is al ready heere. ' (Chaucer, CT.CL.E. 299, cf. MED, al-redi). 'Lord, [in spite of what you expect] he is here, completely ready' > 'Lord, he is already here'.

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(10)

MauFrCr: The Declaration of the Abolition of Slavery, creole Version: Lé-Roi fini faire eine la loi qui nous tous va sivre bientot [...] {Proclamation pour Noirs Esclaves dans Maurice, 1835, cf. Chaudenson l981: 118) 'The king is finished with making a law/has really just made a law [...]•

The fact that it is a present state of FINISHEDNESS which the speaker presents in order to make the hearer believe in the truth of some past event, leaves its traces in the new meaning: as a temporal marker, fin(i) is used to "indicate [...] that a past action and its results are in immediate relation to the present moment and continue to be decisive for future action" (Michaelis 1993: 72, transl. by U.D.).12 This feature is not inherent in the original lexical meaning 'to finish, to bring to an end'; rather, is has to be explained by some general mechanism of grammaticalization like the one described above: "young" markers of the nonpresent are usually anchored in the present. 1. TO FINISH (DOING) S.TH.

M fini travay-la.

2. TO BE FINISHED WITH DOING S.TH.

3. COMPLETE(LY)

4. ALREADY

3.1.PERFECT(LY) 5. HAVE DONE SOMETHING

Figure 1: Polysemous fini in the FrCr's

The metonymic changes in meaning described in the preceding paragraphs reveal a network of contiguous concepts (Fig. 1), a "pathway" of possible (and frequent) change which lexical items meaning 'to finish' underwent in the different FrCr's. Not all of the possible changes did in fact occur in all of the FrCr's. In all of these languages however, the rhetorical activity which made use of the concept of FINISHEDNESS gave rise to at least some of the above described meanings, so that synchronically, any FrCr has a highly polysemous item deriving from Fr fini(r). In the majority of the FrCr's, notably in GuyFrCr, HaiFrCr, MauFrCr, SeyFrCr and RéuFrCr, this item has a full-fledged temporal 12) See also Bollée (1977: 56).

Two TYPES OF RESTRUCTURING

143

meaning, even though it is grammaticalized to varying degrees. Only MauFrCr ((f)i)n, SeyFrCr ((f)i)n and RéuFrCr fin(i) are frequent and can be combined with other markers. The rhetoric of HAVING FINISHED DOING SOMETHING is a widespread phenomenon. In many non-French Creoles, the lexeme normally used to refer to the concept TO FINISH also developed temporal meaning, so that today, these languages contain more or less grammaticalized items which can be traced back to English finish or done, or to Portuguese or Spanish acabar de. This is the case notably for Sranan k(a)ba, Papiamento kaba and Tok Pisin pinis which have a rather marginal status in their respective languages, for GuyECr don and Jamaican ECr don which are comparable to GuyFrCr and HaiFrCr fin(i) in that they have the status of auxiliaries in the language system, but exclude the possibility of a combination with other auxiliaries, and for Krio don, the status of which is comparable to fin/((f)i)n in the Indian Ocean FrCr's (Bickerton 1981: 80). Just like FrCr fini in its anterior meaning, these forms all refer to past events whose results extend until the moment of speech, as in (11) below. Moreover, some of these items developed non-temporal meanings similar to the ones described for fini.13 (11)

Guy ECr:

Mi don se da. 'I said that' [and I stick by it]. (Bickerton 1975:41) Tok Pisin: Mi lukim pinis. 'I have seen'. (Mikalic 1971: 29)

These temporal markers are the creole counterpart to Latin/Romance habeo factum. Both types of markers arise via rhetorical operations in which hearers are invited by speakers to infer from the FINISHEDNESS or the RESULT of a past event the reality of the past event itself. The main difference between habeo factum and the creole markers in this respect is that in Latin, the concept of FINISHEDNESS (which is the "input" to the rhetorical strategy) is already expressed by means of a grammatical construction whereas in the creoles, speakers make use of the lexical item denoting FINISHEDNESS. At this point in my argumentation, a remark is necessary concerning the relation between French and the FrCr's in the grammaticalization process described above. Fin(i) is derived from a lexeme which the FrCr's have inher13) Tok Pisin pinis (Bybee et al. 1994: 71) and GuyECr don (Bickerton 1975: 40) also mean 'completely', 'altogether'. Moreover GuyEC don, Jamaican ECr don (Winford 1993: 46f.) and Sranan kba (Sebba 1987: 72) can also mean 'already'. GuyFrCr has a particle caba which underlines the completion of the verbal action and can be translated as 'already': Li ta caba (Parépou 1885: 72, cf. Schlupp 1997: 243), 'It's late already'. In addition, caba developed uses as a discourse marker which are all somehow related to counter-expectation, for example mo femme pas té wlé mo vini landans mayouri la caba [...] (cf. Schlupp 1997: 243) 'my wife already did not want me to go the mayouri'.

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ited from French. So, there is a clear material continuity from French to these languages. On the other hand, the grammaticalization processes that turned fin(i) into an anterior marker in some of the FrCr's are developments specific to these languages. Neither in Standard French nor in any of the dialectal varieties of 17th  French were finir or fini used as anteriors in the sense outlined above. Along with material continuity between French and the FrCr's, we find a clearcut functional discontinuity. 1.3.

Later stages of grammaticalization: the loss of present relevance

Young forms which are the result of rhetorical operations such as the ones mentioned above are conceptually motivated. Speakers and listeners know why they are employed to refer to future or past events. The old meaning, i.e. FINISH, and the new meaning of PAST coexist for a while: in the initial stage of the sub­ sequent development, the new form is polysemous in that it has at least two meanings. The new meaning first refers only to recent past events. By the same token, young future markers refer to imminent future events that are anchored in the present situation. For terminological convenience, I will refer to this fact by using the notion of present relevance.14 For all these reasons, young forms are more expressive than the already existing grammatical form. Using younger forms, speakers confer more credi­ bility to the truth of past and future actions. This means that a young future marker which, by its newly acquired meaning and grammatical function, denotes a near and therefore relatively certain future in the first place, still can be used to lend credibility to remote and more uncertain future events. Old future markers which have already lost their present relevance cannot be used for such purposes. They can, of course, refer to events that are going to happen in the near future, but since speakers use them to refer to any kind of future event, they do not have 'near future' as their conventional meaning. The difference in meaning between the older future marker and the younger one may for some time be exploited as a functional opposition within the language system (Koch and Oesterreicher 1996: 87). But whenever speakers feel a need to certify the truth of some remote or uncertain future event, they have the possibility of using the younger future rather than the older one. In the long run, therefore, the older form tends to be replaced by its younger, more expressive rival.

14) In the meaning defined here, the term "present relevance" or "current relevance" is used in Fleischman (1983: 189ff.). However, as is shown in Harris (1982: 51) for Romance and in Carey (1995: 93) for Middle English, young perfect markers, in the initial stage of their development, refer to past events that extend temporally until the moment of speech. "Pure" present relevance (i.e. present relevance without necessary temporal duration of the past event until the moment of speech) arises only at a later stage of the development.

Two TYPES OF RESTRUCTURING

145

On the other hand, the very mechanism which is responsible for the success of the younger form leads paradoxically to a gradual loss of its original expressivity and present relevance: The "thing meant" by the use of the young form in the above-mentioned certificational strategy — namely a type of future which is relatively less certain than the one which the young marker normally refers to — becomes part of its conventional meaning. So, while gradually losing its expressivity and present relevance, the marker's meaning glides from a near and certain future to a remote and uncertain one. Creolists use the categories [± near], [± definite], [± asserted] future in order to describe the functional oppositions within the systems of future mark­ ers found in creole languages (cf. Schlupp 1997: 80ff). These categories are in implicational relation to one another: A speaker who claims that an event is about to take place in a near future also necessarily claims that it will take place within a definite time span, while the reverse is not always true. A speaker who claims that an event is going to take place in a near or in a definite future is at the same time asserting that it will take place, while the reverse it not necessar­ ily true. A speaker who wishes to avoid asserting the certainty of some future event cannot use a form expressing near or definite future for this purpose. It follows from these considerations that the categories [+ near], [+ definite] and [+ asserted] can be ordered as implicational intervals on a scale from [+ certain] to [- certain] (Fig. 2). Diachronically, the value of future markers glides from [+ near] to [- near], from definite to indefinite and from asserted to unasserted. This devel­ opment can be illustrated by the evolution of the future marker pou in MauFrCr. Around 1880, the periphrastic construction être pour expressed a near future,15 in which the concept of DESTINATION was still transparent.16 Today, the basic difference between pou and the older (and hence less present relevant) marker a/va/ava is that the latter marks an indefinite, often unasserted future, and pou a definite one (Baker 1993: 92f.).17 The relative loss of present relevance for pou went hand in hand with a rise in frequency (Baker 1993: 88ff). The account presented here, which views developments like the one represented in Fig. 2 as driven by pragmatic factors, explains the unidirectionality in the grammaticalization of tense markers.

15) Which already existed in this meaning in the variety of the 17th c. French settlers. 16) Discussing the meaning of être pour in MauFrCr, Baissac (1880: 24) notes: "pour marque un but à atteindre". 17) For SeyFrCr, some linguists deny any semantic difference between the two forms corre­ sponding to MauFrCr pou and a/va/ava (see Michaelis 1993: 98ff).

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ULRICH DETGES + CERTAIN

> + near

- CERTAIN - near

+ definite

- definite

+ asserted

- asserted

1. a/(a)va 2. pou (19th .)

(20th .)

Figure 2: Layering and loss of present relevance: a/va/ava and pou in MauFrCr Diachronie development is represented in two dimensions: line 1. represents the older, less expressive and less present relevant future marker a/va/ava, line 2. the younger, more expressive, more present relevant form pou. In addition, the loss of present relevance for pou is represented in line 2 as a gliding from the left ([+ certain]) to the right ([- certain]).

2.

Reanalysis in creolization

Having described the general features of grammaticalization, we are now in a position to ask if there are markers in creole languages that cannot be consid­ ered the results of grammaticalization processes in the sense outlined above. In what follows, I will show that some of the grammatical elements of the FrCr's, typically elements which, in the base language, already had grammatical or near-grammatical function, are not the result of grammaticalization in the sense outlined above. This applies to the anterior la in RéuFrCr (< Fr il/elle a) and to the tense markers which are the survivors of the French être-paradigm, particularly the past-tense marker ti/te (< Fr était (à)) which we find in all the FrCr languages and the future marker sa/sra (< Fr sera) in LouFrCr. The survival of such forms is all the more remarkable as clitic and inflectional elements of the base language normally have disappeared in the FrCr's. The problem is to find an explanation which accounts for the fact that some of these grammatical elements disappeared while others were retained. Chaudenson (1992), who has presented the best founded model of creolization for the FrCr's, provides two types of explanation: on the one hand, he speaks of "self-regulating processes" (Chaudenson 1989: 83ff, 1992: 152ff), i.e. "natural" developments entailing the disappearance of clitic and inflectional elements. A major natural mechanism which causes the disappearance of clitical and inflectional elements in normal language change is phonological erosion.18 18) Another possible mechanism leading to the "natural" disappearance of a form is its substitution by another form, a process which occurs as a consequence of grammaticalization (see above, 1.3). In the case of the FrCr's however the clitic and inflectional forms of the base

147

Two TYPES OF RESTRUCTURING

On the other hand, Chaudenson (1992: 92ff, 142ff.) regards second language acquisition as the second major source of creolization. In what follows, I am going to take up this proposal and point out in detail what could have been the cognitive mechanism which, in a situation of uncoordinated second language acquisition, determined the transition from French to FrCr. 2.1.

The principle of restructuring in the FrCr's

The claim that all clitic and inflectional forms of French have disappeared in the FrCr's is not quite accurate, as shows a closer look at the fate of the French article forms in the different FrCr's. In any FrCr, the French article forms seem to have agglutinated to a number of nouns varying from language to language. In each case the article forms have lost their functions and have become part of the respective noun stem.19 Only in this restricted sense is it legitimate to say that the French article forms have been "lost" in the FrCr's. Table 3: Residues of French article forms in the FrCr's (from Stein 1984: 38) French le la du un les/ 1 des

chien pluie feu âme affaire oiseau

Mau/SeyCr

RéuCr

LouCr

Hai/MarCr

others

lisyê lapli dife nam zafer zozo, zwazo

syên lapli (di/do) f e

chyên plwi, pli (di)fe nam, lam zafè, l-, nzozo, zwazo

chên, chyên lapli dife nam (z)afe zwazo. zwèzo

chyên lapli dife nam, nam zafe

zozo, zwazo

This picture calls for two remarks: first, the loss of the French article forms in the FrCr's was not brought about by some type of simplification strategy on the part of the speakers, i.e. by white French native speakers who deliberately omitted the article forms because they wanted to avoid unnecessary linguistic complexity in the contacts with their black servants ("foreigner talk"). The material relics of these forms are found in the creoles, so they must have been regularly uttered by a sufficient number of French native speakers. Second, the loss of the French article forms cannot have been the result of some selfregulating phonological process. They disappeared neither for articulatory reasons nor because the creole listeners were unable to hear these (always unstressed) forms in the utterances of French native speakers. Table 3 proves that these forms were (and actually are) heard and articulated by creole speakers. They language normally disappeared without being replaced by some other form, so that in this case substitution can be ruled out. 19) Of the FrCr's mentioned in Table 3, only RéuFrCr retained a non-obligatory article system, whose inventory is quite restricted in comparison to the French paradigm (Chaudenson 1974: 355ff.).

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were simply not identified as meaningful items. The simultaneous material transmission and functional loss of the French article forms provide a simple example of the cognitive mechanism which governed the process of restruc­ turing in the genesis of the FrCr's. One may conceive of the process that eventually led to the formation of nouns like FrCr lapli from French la pluie as a direct situation of communica­ tion, in which a French native speaker who wants to talk about some concept or real entity, for instance THE RAIN, utters a sound-chain /laplyi/ which is composed of the morphemes /la/ 'the' and /plyi/ 'rain'. What is heard by a hearer who does not know French is the sound-chain /laplyi/ without the morphemic analysis attached to it. All the hearer can do in order to attribute meaning to the sound chain heard is to match it with what seems to be the thing meant in the actual situation. He may understand that the sound chain /laplyi/ (which, trans­ lated into his own phonological system, sounds /lapli/) refers to some referent R, i.e. some concrete element RAIN which is salient in the situation of commu­ nication because it is pointed at by the speaker or because it follows from other situational factors that it is the RAIN which /laplyi/ refers to. The French article /la/ codes a type of rather complex information which is never salient because it is neither "communicable" by the speaker nor can its original grammatical function be inferred from the situation by the listener. So, /la/ is identified as being part of a sound chain which as a whole refers to the concept RAIN. This cognitive mechanism is represented in Fig. 3. French morphemic level phonol. realization

'the' 'rain' [la] [pluie

referent "thing meant"

R

phonol. realization morphemic level

/lapli/

/laplyi(e)/

[lapli] 'rain'

Creole Figure 3: The reanalysis of the French article forms

Two TYPES OF RESTRUCTURING

149

In this scenario the non-French listener, in order to make sense of what he hears, proceeds according to a simple principle which I will call, for terminological convenience, the "principle of restructuring". (12)

Principle of restructuring "Try to match salient elements of the situation, as you perceive it, with the sound chain you hear".

On the basis of this simple principle, many highly typical restructuring patterns in the grammar20 as well as in the lexicon21 of the FrCr's can be explained. A further remark is necessary concerning the nature of the process under consideration here. This process cannot be adequately conceived of as phonological agglutination (cf. critically Koch 1993: 263f.); rather, it was a process of morphological reanalysis.22 Moreover, as we have seen, morphologi­ cal reanalysis is a listener's, not a speaker's, phenomenon.

20) This principle can explain the "false segmentations" which are typical of the transition from French to the FrCr's, and which are for example found in forms like RéuFrCr la (< Fr il/elle a), lé (< Fr il/elle est), lavé (< Fr il/elle avait) etc. It is important to state here that these forms are not the outcome of "normal" language evolution, as Chaudenson (1989: 88) seems to suggest. I agree with Chaudenson that the origin of the FrCr forms in question must be looked for in non-Standard French sentences of the type Samson l'était d'dans les prisons 'Samson he-was inside the prisons'. In such constructions, "normal" grammatical evolution (which is well-attested for other languages, Givón 1976) had turned the clitic pronoun (i)l into a subject agreement marker of the 3sg. In RéuFrCr however, Fr l'était was reanalysed as part of the (uninflected) auxiliary, which is an entirely different type of process. 21) The "principle of restructuring" can explain the existence of a type of lexical item which can be traced back, in French, to entire phrases or utterances which were reanalysed in the FrCr's as single words, i.e. Fr. fous (moi) le camp! 'get lost!' > GuyFrCr foucamp, foumwalkan 'to leave', Fr coquin! 'stop thief!' > SeyFrCr koken 'to steal'. This type of language change is known under the label of délocutivité, coined by E. Benveniste. Both examples mentioned have in common that the meaning of the FrCr verb derives from some salient element of the typical situation in which the Fr sentence would normally be uttered. Either it corresponds to the state of affairs aimed at by the Fr utterance ('get lost!' > 'to leave'), or the new meaning is identical with the cause of the utterance as in 'stop thief!' > 'to steal', cf. Koch (1993). 22) In any case, it is not an instance of "normal" grammaticalization. The process that led to the reanalysis of the French article forms in the FrCr's has nothing in common with the ordinary "pathway" of grammaticalization of articles described in Greenberg (1978): Greenberg shows that, typically, old article forms tend to lose their semantic function and aggluti­ nate with the nominal stem, thereby turning into gender-markers. The result of this process is a new morphological class (gender markers) with a regular distribution. This is not what we find in the FrCr's, where gender has disappeared altogether, and where sequences like la-, li-, di-, z-, rather than having morpheme status, are part of the stem.

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Reanalysis of the base languages' article system is not restricted to the FrCr's. Other creoles, for instance Papiamentu, exhibit the same phenomenon, albeit to a lesser extent:23 (13)

lareina (< la reina); laman (< la mar); laria (< el aire); alavez (< a la vez); alomenos (< a lo menos); alafln (< a la fin). (Munteanu 1991: 135)

The cognitive mechanism sketched in Fig. 3 was also applied to the tense markers of French. Time reference normally was inferred from the situation of communication or was overtly expressed by temporal adverbs. Just as with the function of the French article forms, the meaning carried by the inflectional tense-forms of the French verb was treated as situationally non-salient. At the same time, the most frequently used inflectional forms of the French verb, normally the 3sg. ind. pres., the infinitive or the past participle, were reanalysed as the unmarked (= stem) forms of the FrCr verb.24 The creole verb stems thus contain reanalysed French inflectional forms. As in the case of the French article forms, the French verbal inflections "disappeared" functionally while being retained materially. 2.2.

Creole tense markers brought about by reanalysis

Under the circumstances pointed out above, how could grammatical forms of 17th' c. French be transmitted to the FrCr's at all? An example of a tense marker that they inherited from the base language is té/ti, which in all of the FrCr's assumes the function of an anterior marker. Etymologically, the forms té and ti go back to Fr était. The use of té/ti as an anterior can be traced back to a peri­ phrastic construction of the type il était à écrire 'he was writing'. RéuFrCr (lé)té ((k)i) derives from French il était qui écrivait 'it was him who wrote', 'he wrote' (Chaudenson 1981: 206ff.). Both French constructions are already marked as imparfait, a tense which, as we shall see, shares some similarities with the functions marked by té/ti in the FrCr's. A satisfactory account of the genesis of té/ti has to explain a) why it was from était à, and not from other French forms 23) Further evidence for the link between the type of reanalysis under consideration here and language contact is provided by Arab loan words in Spanish, which all contain a reanalysed Arab article form al: aldea 'village', alcalde 'mayor', almacén 'storehouse', algodón 'cotton', alcohol 'alcohol', aduana '(customs) duty', etc. 24) In earlier stages of the development of the FrCr's, typically several forms of the stem (derived from the most frequent forms of the French verb) coexisted for some time (for MauFrCr and RéuFrCr cf. Chaudenson 1981: 195). In some of the FrCr's, this situation gave rise to two regular stem forms, a long one, for which the French infinitive and/or the past participle provided the model, and a short one, patterned upon the form of the French 3sg. of the ind. pres. In SeyFrCr and MauFrCr, these two forms coexist in allomorphic variation, in RéuFrCr, they are functionally differentiated (Stein 1984: 74).

Two TYPES OF RESTRUCTURING

151

Table 4: Guadeloupe FrCr verb stems and their French base forms

Creole fo 'to be necessary' Creole verb stem derived pé 'can' from vo 'to be worth sth.' 3sg. ind. pres. tyenn 'to hold' manj 'to eat' dwèt 'must' (obl.& prob.) Creole verb stem derived vwè 'to see' from bwè 'to drink' bat 'to beat', 'to hit' infinitive (arch.) mouri 'to die' Creole verb stem derived kouvè 'to cover', 'covered'

past participle

kuit 'to cook', 'cooked' mo 'to die', 'dead' pran 'to take' Creole verb stem derived konprann 'to understand' rann 'to return sth.' from 3sg. ind. pres. tann1 'to hear' tann2 'to hold' and/or défann 'to forbid' infinitive penn 'to paint' alé 'to go' Creole verb stem derived manjé 'to eat' konté 'to count' from rivé 'to arrive' infinitive rantré 'to come back' and/or past participle pansé 'to think' kouri 'to run' vini 'to come' savé 'to know' vlé 'to want' Creole verb stem voudré 'to wish sth. (unreal)' derived from other forms fò imp. 'it is necessary to' falé imp. 'it was necessary ' fodré imp. 'one should'

French il faut {falloir 'to be necessary') il peut {pouvoir 'can') il vaut (valoir 'to be worth s.th.*) il tient (teni 'to hold') il mange (manger 'to eat') il doit (arch, [dwst], devoir, 'must') voir (arch. [vwεR]) 'to see' boire (arch. [bwsR]) 'to drink' battre 'to beat', 'to hit' mourir 'to die' couvert 'covered' (couvrir 'to cover') cuit 'cooked' (cuire 'to cook') mort 'dead' (mourir 'to die') prendre 'to take', il prend comprendre, il comprend rendre 'to return sth.', il rend entendre 'to hear', il entend tendre 'to hold', il tend défendre 'to forbid', il défend peindre 'to paint', il peint, (PP. peint) aller 'to go', allé manger 'to eat', mangé conter 'to count', conté arriver 'to arrive', arrivé rentrer 'to come back', rentré penser 'to think', pensé courir 'to run', couru venir 'to come', venu vous savez (2pl ind. pres. savoir) vous voulez (2pl ind. pres. vouloir) je/il voudrais/t (l/3sg. cond. vouloir) il faut que (impers. 3sg. pres. falloir) il fallait que (impers. 3sg. imperf. falloir) il faudrait que (impers. 3sg. cond. falloir)

1

| 1

|

\

or constructions in the imparfait, that the FrCr anterior markers were derived, and b) why it was only from the imparfait-forms of these periphrastic construc­ tions and not, for example, from their present or future forms that tense markers were derived. In order to answer both questions, we have to consider the semantics of the constructions. A 19th*  normative grammatical manual

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describes the meaning of il est à faire qc. as something which someone is doing at a particular moment: (14)

Ne dites pas: Il est après écrire, ou à écrire. Dites: Il écrit en ce moment. (Pomier, 1835, Manuel des locutions vicieuses cf. Gougenheim 1971 [1929]: 51) 'Don't say: he is writing. Say: he writes at this moment.

Periphrastic était à was used with this meaning in the variety of French of the white population segment in the French colonies: (15)

Toutes les nuits le dit Jourdain était à gratter à la porte [...]. (Court record, 1734, cf. Chaudenson 1981: 4)

By virtue of its meaning, était à can be used in French to mark expositional situations of narrative texts. It marks states of affairs which are in effect before the action narrative proper starts. In this case, it is marked as imparfait, which is the French tense reserved for background information in narratives. In this context, était à normally is accompanied by a temporal adverb. On the other hand, the "backbone of the action narrative" (Givón 1982: 119) will be marked by some other tense, in spoken French preferably by the passé composé: (16)

Vautre jour j'ai vu Pierre qui était à réparer son vélo. Il m'a vu aussi et il a dit: [...]. 'The other day, I saw Peter who was repairing his bike. He saw me too and said: [...]'.

If we apply the restructuring principle (12) to a modern French example like (16), the most salient element of temporal reference, the time adverb l'autre jour, is retained. The forms which mark the tense of the action narrative (a in (16)) will not be retained, because on the one hand, they do not refer to some salient element of the situation, while on the other hand, the information encoded in them, namely the fact that the related events take place in the past, can be inferred from the temporal frame already established by the time adverb l'autre jour. Apart from this, the temporal structure of the action narrative, especially the sequence of the related events, normally follows from the relative order in which the events are told in the text without further tense marking. Like the tense marker a, était à is not salient in its own right. It can, however, be understood as belonging to the expositional frame of the narrative, especially if it regularly occurs in conjunction with past time adverbs, which is to be expected at the beginning of narrative texts. According to this hypothesis, the "principle of restructuring" was applied twice: first, in matching the temporal adverb with what seemed to be the thing meant in the situation, thereby estab­ lishing a temporal frame; second, in matching the element était (à) which

Two

TYPES OF RESTRUCTURING

153

regularly occurred in the context of the adverb, with the temporal frame. According to this analysis, était à was not primarily retained because it is a free form. The decisive point rather seems to be the fact that the typical situation of its utterance contained some clue to its function. L 'autre jour j'ai vu Pierre qui était à réparer son vélo. Il m'ayu aussi et il a_dit: salient

not salient

(regular co-occurrence) "expositional temporal frame".

not salient

^ Inference

background of narrative

Figure 4: The reanalysis of était à The hypothetical mechanism sketched in Fig. 4 yields a principle of tense marking which is typical of creole narrative texts: events which belong to the "backbone narrative" and thus are told "in sequence" are unmarked whereas events which belong to the expositional frame or the background of the narra­ tive are marked as being "out of sequence" by ti/té. This principle was first described by Givón (1982), and has been shown to be effective in SeyFrCr narrative texts by Michaelis (1993). Its genesis can be accounted for by the simple "principle of restructuring" and the cognitive mechanism described in Fig. 4. The creole sentence in (17) which is the exposition of a narrative text can be read as the creole "mirror image" of a corresponding French sentence which has been reanalysed according to the mechanism depicted in Fig. 4. This is not always the case, since — as a consequence of its reanalysis as a marker of expositional and background information — FrCr té/ti can appear in syntactic contexts which would, in Standard French, exclude the use of était à: in (18) ti is combined with stative ana 'there is'; French était à however can only be combined with action verbs which by definition are [- stative]. (17)

A proç li cap bon l'Espérance,/ein jour ein gros requin/L'était rôde A proche le cap bonne Espérance/un jour un gros requin/(il) était à /PAST chercher

pour remplir son la panse. [...] A v'là qu'li _ guette ein navire. de quoi remplir son panse. [...] Et voilà qu'il guetter ø un navire. 'Near the Cape of Good Hope, one day, a big shark was looking for something to fill his belly with. All of a sudden, he beheld a vessel'. (LaRéu. 1828, L. Héry: Le Requin, cf. Chaudenson 1981: 40, paraphrase and translation U.D.)

154

ULRICH DETGES (18) Ê zur ti ana ê Kok bjê malê-bug. I ti reste pre ek lakaz Sûngula. One day PAST have a cock quite roguish. He P A S T stay close with house Soüngoula. 'Once upon a time, there was a cock who was quite sly. He lived close to Soungoula's house'. (Mod. SeyCr, cf. Michaelis 1993: 40)

Further indirect evidence in favour of my hypothesis is provided by the fact that in some FrCr's not only était (à), but also the French presentative (il) y avait 'there was' whose typical function consists of marking the expositional frame of narratives, has been preserved in forms like yavé, navé (LouFrCr) and navé, lavé (RéuFrCr) in its specific inflectionally marked temporal form and has retained the corresponding function: (19) Navé ein foi ein roi avé ein la renne, ki té gagné jiche ein piti, eine fille, [...]. (cf. Neumann-Holzschuh 1987: 21) 'Once upon a time, there were a king and a queen who had a child, a daughter [...]'

2.3.

Conclusion

Having examined in some detail instances of universal grammaticalization and examples of creole-specifìc reanalysis, we are now able to see that both types of restructuring are radically different. Grammaticalization is brought about by speakers who try to speak convincingly, creole-specifìc reanalysis is the result of a hearer's strategy, aimed at understanding. In grammaticalization, new markers normally emerge on the basis of speaker-related linguistic forms — normally the lsg. pres. ind. — while in creole-specifìc reanalysis, new markers are selected on the basis of frequent forms. The form of the FrCr verb stem is normally derived from the French 3sg. ind. pres., the infinitive or the past parti­ ciple. Semantically, the forms which are the linguistic "input" to grammaticali­ zation have in common that they efficiently serve some rhetorical purpose (see Table 1), forms that are selected in creole-specifìc reanalysis have in common that they refer to situationally salient concepts (see Fig. 3). Especially in earlier stages of their development, markers which result from grammaticalization are polysemous, because (at least) the old meaning which is the "input" to the grammaticalization mechanism coexists with the new meaning of the marker (see Fig. 1). Markers which are the result of creole-specifìc reanalysis are con­ ceptually isolated: in the FrCr's té/ti never had a function other than marking background past events. Markers which are brought about in grammaticalization evolve polygenetically along universal conceptual pathways of change (see Table 2), products of creole-specific reanalysis are etymological continuations of forms in the base language. Té/ti represents the special case that such markers can rise in parallel evolution in genetically related creoles. Markers that emerge in grammaticalization are, at least for some time in their development,

Two TYPES OF RESTRUCTURING

155

expressive (see 1.3) in that they can be used to make the hearer believe that some event will or did in fact take place — markers like ti/té cannot be used for such purposes. In earlier stages of their evolution, markers that are the result of grammaticalization have present relevance, in later stages of their evolution they undergo a gradual loss of expressivity and present relevance (see Fig. 2) while markers like ti/té never had present relevance. Historically, the generation of markers which are brought about by creole-specific reanalysis represent the earliest layer in the system of the language while markers which are the result of grammaticalization emerge in later stages of the Creole's history.

3.

Reanalysis or grammaticalization? Sorting out the FrCr future markers

If we take a look at the linguistic expression of future in the FrCr's, we find both types of processes. The more recent future markers are the result of gram­ maticalization, the earliest forms in each language have been brought about by reanalysis. Examining the individual future markers in the FrCr's, I shall start with the recent markers and move back in time. The most recent type of future marker derives from present continuous forms (ka in GuyFrCr, ap in HaiFrCr). It seems to be the result of some rhetori­ cal strategy of the type v outlined in Table 2. HaiFrCr ap still bears the traces of recent grammaticalization in that it refers to a future anchored in the present and is primarily used in the lsg. and 2sg. (Damoiseau 1987: 93).25 Another type of future marker, namely pou in MauFrCr and SeyFrCr can be explained as an instance of partial grammaticalization. We know that in these FrCr's pou underwent an evolution typical of later stages of the grammati­ calization pattern (Fig. 2). On the other hand, periphrastic être pour already existed in Middle French (Werner 1980: 307). Today it is still in use in the small French-speaking communities in North America (Chaudenson 1989: 110) where it refers, like 17th.  French être pour, contemporary HaiFrCr pou (Valdman 1970: 216), RéuFrCr (Chaudenson 1981: 209) and 19th'  MauFrCr , to both NEAR FUTURE and DESTINATION. In all of these languages and varieties, pour/ also functions as a preposition (corresponding to Engl, for) which expresses the concept of DESTINATION. From this situation, one can conclude that the FrCr's borrowed from 17th.  French a construction which in French had been the result of a rhetorical strategy of the type iv (Table 2), i.e. a young future marker which, however, in French (including the varieties of the North American communities) did not evolve any further. In all of the FrCr's, this construction was conceptually motivated in that the link between the 25) Damoiseau explains these facts without reference to the grammaticalization of the form in question.

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concepts of DESTINATION and NEAR FUTURE was originally accessible to the speakers (as it still is in HaiFrCr and RéuFrCr). In terms of the "principle of restructuring", these constructions were selected because one of their meanings, namely the meaning 'for' (correspond­ ing to the concept of DESTINATION), which is more concrete, i.e. more lexical in nature, refers to a type of concept which lends itself to be treated as situationally salient; listeners who had learned that pou meant 'for' were also able to reconstruct, starting from this meaning, the more abstract grammatical meaning 'near future', which in itself would have been situationally non-salient. Unlike in HaiFrCr, RéuFrCr and French itself, the expressive construction pou was used in MauFrCr and SeyFrCr, long after it had been borrowed from French, as an input to a mechanism of the type described in section 1.3 of this paper. This mechanism eventually obliterated, in these creoles, the construction's original conceptual motivation and its present relevance and turned it into a fully grammaticalized future marker. The most complicated situation is found in what at first sight seem to be the clearest cases, namely the FrCr future markers in etymological relation to Fr aller 'go'. In all of the FrCr's and in Standard French as well as in the koiné of the population segment of French origin, there existed or still exist, as a result of grammaticalization, future markers deriving from lexical items which mean 'to go' (Table 2, technique i). In the FrCr's, many of these items underwent developments of the type described in 1.1 and 1.3. RéuFrCr sava — which was itself the product of the reanalysis of French (il) s'en va 'he goes', 'he leaves' — started out as a marker of the near future (ex. (20)). Today, it is used mainly as a marker of the definite future (Baker and Corne 1982: 23f.) (ex. (21)). (20)

Bourriq' la lass' mon reins, moi s'en va lass' son dos. 'This donkey here is tired of my reins, I'm about to grow tired of his back' (L. Héry 1828, Le Meunier, son fils et l'âne, cf. Chaudenson 1981: 15).

(21)

Mi sa((v)a) mâze. T will eat' (Baker and Corne 1982: 26)

Similar developments are documented for GuyFrCr ké/k'ay on the one hand, and kale on the other which all derive from the combination of ale 'to go' with the progressive marker ka and which today occupy different sectors on the 'certainty-scale' (Schlupp 1997: 89ff, 105ff). There are indications that LouFrCr ale and HaiFrCr prole (composed of the progressive marker (a)pr and ale 'to go') represent the same type of development, namely the grammaticali­ zation, within the creole in question, of a lexical item meaning 'to go'. A fundamental condition for the assumption that in a given creole some grammatical element originating from French aller was brought about by grammaticalization (and not by reanalysis) is, of course, that this grammatical

Two TYPES OF RESTRUCTURING

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element can be traced back to a lexical item which, in the same creole, at one moment had the meaning 'to go'. This condition is not fulfilled in the case of a/va/ava, the oldest future paradigm which at one stage existed in all the FrCr's26 and which displays striking phonological and distributional similarities to the periphrastic future paradigms found in the varieties of the French minorities in North America (Dörper 1990, Mougeon 1996).27 Even though in 17th.  varieties of French, the link between the dialectal forms of the peri­ phrastic future and the forms of aller 'to go' was doubtlessly accessible to the speakers,2 it was most probably obscure to creole speakers, in whose language the concept GO was never expressed by forms which resembled a/va/ava.29

26) It is nowadays obsolete in the ka-creoles (Goodman 1964: 86f ). An allomorphic variant wa is documented for older stages of GuyFrCr (Schlupp 1997: 85). 27) In SeyFrCr, the marker for the lsg. of the future is m a (va); Québécois has (along with Standard French /Ʒve/ je vais, preferably used by educated speakers, and /Ʒve/ je vas, regarded as socially unmarked), the dialectal form /ma/ which is itself a contracted variant of /(3)mava/ (je) m'en vas (Mougeon 1996: 64, 66). The French variety spoken by the small community in Missouri has the future paradigm lsg.: /ma/, /Ʒve/, 2sg.: /ta/, /tyva/, 3sg.: /iva/, lpl.: /ova/, 2pl.: /vuva/, 3pl.: /ivo/ (cf. Dörper 1990: 113). If one eliminates the personal pronouns (3, t/ty, i, o, vu, i) agglutinated to the form of aller, this yields, as allomorphic forms of the future marker proper, /ma/, /va/, /a/, /vo/, which, apart from the form /vo/, correspond to the core set of the creole forms. 28) Even in contemporary Québécois, whose periphrastic future markers have common ancestors with the FrCr preverbal future markers (see previous footnote), for each form of the periphrastic future, there are corresponding forms of aller 'to go' as a verb of movement. The only exception in this respect is ma, the form which underwent the most phonological attri­ tion (Mougeon 1996: 64). 29) The only exception in this respect seems to have been RéuFrCr, where va is documented not only as a future marker, but also as a full verb meaning 'to go' in the poetry of L. Héry (written around 1828 and reedited in 1849, 1856 and 1883; Chaudenson 1981: 19). In these documents, the normal term for 'to go' already is sava (which Héry spells s'en va, underlining the etymological links to French): Li s'en va l'étang Saint-André (L. Héry 1849, L'aigrette trop vantarci, cf. Chaudenson 1981: 41). The form va is mainly used as a future marker, sometimes, as in French, as an imperative marker: Zédi, va porte à moi la viande ensemb' graton [...] (Héry 1849, Le renard et la cigogne, cf. Chaudenson 1981: 37). In some very rare contexts however, va functions as a verb of movement. Apart from li va, li vient, en bas, en haut (L. Héry 1828, Les aventures de Phaéton, cf. Chaudenson 1981: 12) corresponding to the French formula il va, il vient, Héry typically employs va in expressions like moi va rôd' ein bambou (Héry 1828: La tortue et les deux canards, cf. Chaudenson 1981: 17), which is the word-for-word counterpart of French aller chercher. Even in these contexts, Héry some­ times uses sava: comment di mond' malad' s'en va rôd' ciriziens (L. Héry 1828, Le meunier, son fils et l'âne, cf. Chaudenson 1981: 16). Wherever FrCr's other than RéuFrCr dispose of a lexical item va meaning 'to go', it is borrowed from French and reflects some degree of decreolization. In contemporary LouFrCr, va 'to go' is due to the influence of Cajun (cf. Neumann 1985: 62f), in GuyFrCr its introduction is caused by Standard French influence (Schlupp 1997: 88).

158

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Table 5: Future markers originating from Fr. aller 'go' Gua, Dom,

Future markers

Mar, SLu, Lou Tri, Guy [a, va, wa ] 1 ) a, va kale, hay, ke 2) ale

Hai

Mau, Sey

a, (a)va prale 3)

a (a)va

meaning 'to go'

kale, kay,

[ke]

2)

[ale] 1)

prate 3)

ale

kuri

(1) [squared brackets] indicate that the form in question is obsolete. (2) kale, kay, ke < ka ale

a, (a)va 4)

sava, sa4)

in etym. relation to Fr. aller

lexical items

Réu

[va ? ] 1 ) 5 ) alé

sava (3)prale < apr ale (4) sava, sa < Fr. s'en va (5) see note 29

The logical conclusion from the foregoing observations is that while forms like GuyFrCr kale, kay, ke, LouFrCr ale, HaiFrCr prale and RéuFrCr sava, sa result from grammaticalization, a/va/ava was, like ti/té, a copy of the French model, brought about by reanalysis. This assumption is supported by the fact that in most of the FrCr's, a/va/ava maintained some of the formal features of its model. From the Middle French period onwards, the periphrastic future in French was preferably used in affirmative contexts.30 The forms construed with a/va/ava have always been excluded from negative contexts in most FrCr's.31 Exceptions in this respect are MauFrCr where va appears in negative contexts already in the oldest documents (Chaudenson 1981: 209) and SeyFrCr where

30) For Middle French see Wilmet (1970: 187) and Werner (1980: 176), for Classical and modern Standard French see Flydal (1943: 57), for dialectal Québécois see Dörper (1990: 109). interestingly, in negative contexts the synthetic future is retained in Québécois (Dörper 1990: 109) as well as in RéuFrCr (Baker and Corne 1982: 26). This restriction may have been a consequence of the certificational strategy which gave birth to the periphrastic future marker: it only made sense for speakers to use this strategy when they wanted to underline that some event was really going to take place, while the use of the same technique in the negative form for proving that the event in question would not take place may have been felt to be illogical (an explanation of this restriction based on the "illogical" character of a nega­ tive aller-fatmQ is advanced in Wilmet 1970: 187). From the moment that the formerly expressive rhetorical technique had lost its transparency and turned into a grammaticalized tense marker, it was possible, in principle, to drop this restriction (which would explain why the genuine FrCr future markers kale, ale, prale and sava present no such restriction), but in French, it was maintained as an unmotivated grammatical norm. In the case of FrCr a/va/ava, the restriction to exclusively positive contexts was never motivated — it was simply a "copy" of the situation in the base language. 31) For GuyFrCr Schlupp (1997: 78), for LouFrCr Neumann (1985: 215), for HaiFrCr Sylvain (1979: 87), for RéuFrCr Chaudenson (1981: 209).

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the restriction from negative contexts is, however, conserved in certain varieties (Corne 1977: 104).

References Andersen, Roger, ed. 1983. Pidginization and Creolization as Language Acquisition. Rowley, Massachusetts: Newbury. Arnovick, Leslie K. 1990. The Development of Future Constructions in English. The Pragmatics of Modal and Temporal will and shall in Middle English. Frankfurt: Peter Lang. Baggioni, Daniel. 1990. Dictionnaire créole réunionnais —français. Saint-Denis, Réunion: Université de la Réunion. Baissac, Charles. 1880. Étude sur le patois créole mauricien. Nancy: Imprimerie Berger Levrault. Baker, Philip. 1993. "Contribution à l'histoire du futur en créole mauricien. Observations sur les communications de Hazaël-Massieux et de Touchard & Véronique distribuées au Colloque International des Études Créoles, Île Maurice, 30 sept - 5 oct 1992". Études Créoles 16: 87-100. — and Chris Corne. 1982. Isle de France Créole: Affinities and Origins. Ann Arbor: Karoma. Bickerton, Derek. 1975. Dynamics of a Creole System. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —. 1981. Roots of Language. Ann Arbor: Karoma. Bollée, Annegret. 1977. Le créole français des Seychelles: Esquisse d'une grammaire, textes, vocabulaire. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Boretzky, Norbert. 1983. Kreolsprachen, Substrate und Sprachwandel. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Bybee, Joan, Revere Perkins and William Pagliuca. 1994. The Evolution of Grammar. Tense, Aspect and Modality in the Languages of the World. Chicago, London: U.C.P. Carey, Kathleen. 1995. "Subjectification and the development of the English perfect". In Dieter Stein and Susan Wright, eds. 1995: 83-102. Chaudenson, Robert. 1973. "Pour une étude comparée des créoles et français d'outre-mer: Survivances et innovations". Revue de Linguistique Romane 37: 342-71. —. 1974. Le lexique du parler créole de la Réunion. Paris: Champion. —. 1981. Textes créoles anciens (La Réunion et Ile Maurice). Comparaison et essai d'analyse. Hamburg: Buske. —. 1989. Créoles et enseignement du français. Français, créolisation et français marginaux: Problèmes d'apprentissage, d'enseignement des langues et d'aménagement linguistique dans les espaces créolophones. C.E.R.F.O.I. Université de La Réunion. Paris: L'Harmattan. —. 1992. Des îles, des hommes, des langues. Essai sur la créolisation linguistique et culturelle. Paris: Editions L'Harmattan.

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Corne, Chris. 1977. Seychelles Creole Grammar. Elements for Indian Ocean Proto-Creole Reconstruction. Tübingen: Narr. Damoiseau, Robert. 1987. "Situation de communication et fonctionnement de la langue en créole haïtien". Études Créoles 10, 2: 90-106. Detges, Ulrich. 1999. "Wie entsteht Grammatik? Kognitive und pragmatische Determinanten der Grammatikalisierung von Tempusmarkern". In Jürgen Lang and Ingrid NeumannHolzschuh, eds. Reanalyse und Grammatikalisierung in den romanischen Sprachen. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 31-52. Dörper, Sven. 1990. "Recherches sur ma + Inf'Je vais' en français". Revue québécoise de linguistique 19, 1: 101-27. D'Offay, Danielle and Guy Lionnet. 1982. Diksyonner kr eoifranse. Dictionnaire créole seychellois-français. Hamburg: Buske. Faine, Jules. 1981 [1936]. Philologie créole: Etudes historiques et étymologiques sur la langue créole d'Haïti. Réimpr. de l'édition de Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Genève: Slatkine. Fleischman, Suzanne. 1983. "From pragmatics to grammar. Discourse reflections on pasts and futures in Romance". Lingua 60: 183-214. Flydal, Leiv. 1943. 'Aller' et 'venir de' suivis de l'infinitif comme expressions de rapports temporels. Oslo: Dybwad. Givón, Talmy. 1976. "Topic, pronoun, and grammatical agreement". In Charles N. Li, ed. Subject and Topic. New York: Academic Press, 149-88. —. 1982. "Tense — aspect — modality: The Creole prototype and beyond". In Paul Hopper, ed. Tense — Aspect: Between Semantics & Pragmatics. Containing the Contributions to a Symposium on Tense and Aspect, held at UCLA, May 1979, Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins, 115-63. Goodman, Morris Franklin. 1964. A Comparative Study of Creole French Dialects. The Hague: Mouton. Gougenheim, Georges. 1971 [1929]. Etude sur les périphrases verbales de la langue française. Paris: Nizet. Greenberg, Joseph H. 1978. "How does a language acquire gender markers?". In Joseph H. Greenberg, Charles A. Ferguson and Edith A. Moravcsik, eds. Universals of Human Language. Vol. 3. Word Structure. Stanford: University Press, 47-82. Harris, Martin. 1982. "'Past simple' and 'present perfect'". In Nigel Vincent and Martin Harris, eds. Studies in the Romance Verb. Essays Offered to Joe Cremona on the Occasion of his 60th Birthday. London, Canberra: Croom Helm, 42-70. Keller, Rudi. 1990. Sprachwandel. Von der unsichtbaren Hand in der Sprache. Tübingen: Francke. Koch, Peter. 1993. "Kyenbé — Tyonbo. Wurzeln kreolischer Lexik". In Christian Foltys and Thomas Kotschi, eds. Berliner Romanistische Studien. Berlin: Institut für Romanische Philologie der Freien Universität, 259-87. (= Neue Romania 14). —. 1999. "Frame and contiguity. On the cognitive basis of metonymy and certain types of word formation". To appear in Klaus-Uwe Panther and Günter Radden, eds. Metonymy in Language and Thought. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins, 233-53.

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— and Wulf Oesterreicher. 1996. "Sprachwandel und expressive Mündlichkeit". Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik 102 (June 1996), Jahrgang 26: 64-96. Kurath, Hans et al. 1954 - . Middle English Dictionary. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. (= MED) Michaelis, Susanne. 1993. Temps et aspect en créole seychellois: Valeurs et interférences. Hamburg: Buske. Mikalic, F. 1971. The Jacaranda Dictionary and Grammar of Melanesian Pidgin. Sidney, Melbourne: Jacaranda Press. Mondésir, Jones E. 1992. Dictionary of St.Lucian Creole. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Mougeon, Raymond. 1996. "Recherche sur les origines de la variation vas, m'as, vais en français québécois". In Thomas Lavoie, ed. Français du Canada — Français de France. Actes du quatrième Colloque international de Chicoutimi, Québec, du 21 au 24 septembre 1994. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 61-77. Mufwene, Salikoko. 1996. "Creolization and grammaticization: What creolistics could contribute to research on grammaticization". In Philip Baker and Anand Syea, eds. Changing Meanings, Changing Functions. Papers Relating to Grammaticalization in Contact Languages. London: University of Westminster Press, 5-28. —. 1998. "What research on Creole genesis can contribute to historical linguistics". In Monika Schmid, Jennifer Austin and Dieter Stein, eds. Historical Linguistics 1997. Proceedings of the Xlllth International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Düssel­ dorf 10 -17 August 1997. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins, 315-38. Munteanu, Dan. 1991. El papiamento, origen, evolución y estructura. Bochum: Brockmeyer. Neumann, Ingrid. 1985. Le créole de Breaux Bridge, Louisiane. Etude morphosyntaxique textes - vocabulaire. Hamburg: Buske. Neumann-Holzschuh, Ingrid ed. 1987. Textes anciens en créole louisianais. Avec introduction, notes, remarques sur la langue et glossaire. Hamburg: Buske. Robert = Le Robert électronique DMW 1994. Disque optique compact CD-ROM. Outil d'aide à la rédaction sur la base du Grand Robert de la langue française. Sankoff, Gillian. 1983. "Comments on Valdman's 'Creolization and second language acquisi­ tion'". In Roger Andersen, ed. 1983: 241-5. —. 1990. "The grammaticalization of Tense and Aspect in Tok Pisin and Sranan". Linguistic Variation and Change 2: 259- 312. Schlupp, Daniel. 1997. Modalités prédicatives, modalités aspectuelles et auxiliaires en créole à base lexicale française de la Guyane française. XVIIIe - XXe siècles. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Searle, John R. 1969. Speech Acts. An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: University Press. Sebba, Mark. 1987. The Syntax of Serial Verbs. An Investigation into Serialisation in Sranan and other Languages. Amsterdam, Philadelphia. Slobin, Dan I. 1983. "What the natives have in mind". In Roger Andersen, ed. 1983. 246-53. Soll, Ludwig. 1968. "Synthetisches und analytisches Futur im modernen Spanischen". Romanische Forschungen 80: 239-48.

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Stein, Dieter and Susan Wright, eds. 1995. Subjectivity and Subjectivation. Linguistic Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Stein, Peter. 1984. Kreolisch und Französisch. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Sylvain, Suzanne. 1979 [1936]. Le créole haïtien. Morphologie et syntaxe. Genève: Slatkine. Tagliamonte, Sali. 1998. "Patterns of restructuring in FUTURE temporal reference: A crosslinguistic perspective on 'go'". Paper presented at the International Symposium on Degrees of Restructuring. Regensburg, June 24-27th, 1998. Tourneux, Henry and Maurice Barbotin. 1990. Dictionnaire pratique du créole de Guadaloupe suivi d'un indexe français-créole. Paris: Karthala. Traugott, Elizabeth . 1995. "Subjectification in grammaticalisation". In Dieter Stein and Susan Wright, eds. 1995: 31-54. Werner, Edeltraut. 1980. Die Verbalperiphrase im Mittelfranzösischen. Eine semantisch­ syntaktische Analyse. Frankfurt a.M. u.a.: Lang. Wilmet, Marc. 1970. Le système de l'indicatif en moyen français. Genève: Droz. Valdman, Albert. 1970. Basic Course in Haitian Creole. Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Winford, Donald. 1993. Predication in Caribbean English Creoles. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. Zimmermann, Rüdiger. 1968. Untersuchungen zum frühmittelenglischen Tempussystem. Perfect, Preterite und Pluperfect um 1200. Heidelberg: Groos.

Ulrich Detges Eberhard-Karls Universität Tübingen Romanisches Seminar Wilhelmstr. 50 72074 Tübingen [email protected]

The fate of subject pronouns: Evidence from creole and non-creole languages

Susanne Michaelis Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Leipzig to Wolfgang Raible on the occasion of his 60th birthday

1.

Introduction1

In this paper I would like to discuss a diachronic process observed in two different grammatical domains in which 3rd person agreement markers spread to other persons and numbers of the verbal paradigm. On the one hand, 3rd person singular subject clitics or affixes are overgeneralized with a subsequent restructuring of the whole paradigm. On the other hand, subject pronouns of the 3rd person can develop into copulas. I will try to show that one and the same mechanism underlies these two processes. In §2, I will look at the first type of language change in three creole languages. In §3, I will cite evidence from non-creole languages to show that these restructuring processes are by no means creole-specific. Against the empirical background, I will go on to try to explain the mechanism that under­ lies this language change (§4). In my view it is not so much because of unmarkedness of the 3rd person, but because of its high token frequency that speakers prefer 3rd person singular markers to be zero-marked and that they overgeneralize these verb forms. In §5, I turn to a parallel development from 3rd person subject pronouns to copulas, i.e. the second route mentioned above, again using data from creole and non-creole languages. §6 summarizes the results of this paper. A more general conclusion from this article is thus that there are restruc­ turing processes in creole languages that do not differ in principle from diachronic changes in non-creole languages. This conclusion is in line with the 1) I am grateful to Martin Haspelmath, the participants of the Regensburg Conference, and my colleagues from the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig for very useful comments on this paper.

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view that creole languages cannot be defined with reference to structural features (see especially Mufwene 1986 and subsequent work, and also the earlier work by Chaudenson 1974, 1992 and Bollée 1977).

2.

From subject pronoun to predicate marker: Evidence from creole languages

We know quite well the grammaticalization path by which stressed personal pronouns turn into unstressed clitic pronouns and finally agreement affixes. The diachronic starting point for this development is a former left-dislocation construction: Jan, he eats the potatoes changes into Jan he-eats the potatoes. This change has been widely discussed in many languages, but much less attention has been devoted to the question of what kinds of markers a subject clitic or an agreement marker can develop into in a further step of language change? In this section, I discuss data from three creole languages which has a bearing on this issue: Seychelles Creole and Reunion Creole, two genetically related French lexified creole languages, and Tok Pisin, an English lexified creole language. In these three languages, an original subject pronoun i, which originated in a left-dislocation construction, has undergone further changes. One possiblity of change is shown by Seychelles Creole (§2.1): Here the French subject clitic il develops into a dummy-TMA-marker i signaling finiteness. A different outcome is illustrated by Reunion Creole (§2.2): In this language the particle i also functions as a finiteness marker, though in other ways than the Seychelles Creole marker. In Tok Pisin we find a predicate marker i resulting from the English and substratal models (§2.3). Here this marker has the function of signaling that what follows is to be taken as a verb, though with still further restrictions. In all three cases, speakers overgeneralized verb forms marked for the 3rd person singular and refunctionalized the former 3sg. subject clitic2 as a dummy-TMA-marker or a general predicate marker, thus attaching other grammatical information to it. 2.1.

Seychelles Creole

I will first look at Seychelles Creole (SeyCr). In this creole language the process of overgeneralization of the 3sg. subject clitic pronoun has not gone very far yet. But still, we can see that the agreement function of this marker has been reduced and at the same time new grammatical meaning has been attached to it. I will examine the verbal marker i in SeyCr by first asking: Where does this marker appear? As is shown in examples (l)-(3), i occurs obligatorily in all 3rd

2) Abbreviations are explained at the end of the paper.

THE FATE OF SUBJECT PRONOUNS

165

person contexts with a full-NP subject, whether the NP is singular or plural (cf. Michaelis 1994: 82ff.): (1)

Lakaz i zoli. house TMA nice 'The house is nice'.

(*Lakaz zoli)

(2)

Marcel i dir: (...) Marcel TMA say 'Marcel says: (...)'.

(3)

Bann danm i danse. P1 women TMA dance 'The women dance'.

(*Marcel dir)

(*Bann danm danse)

In (4)-(8) below I exemplify contexts where i may not occur. First, in the context of negation we do not find i: (4)

Marcel pa dir: (...)/Ipa dir (...) (* Marcel i pa dir) 'Marcel does not say/He does not say (...)'

Next, ƒ does not appear when there are other verbal particles present (, pou, in, ti, a): (5)

Pyer pe sante. (*Pyer i pe sante) Pyer PROG sing 'Pyer is singing'.

(6)

Zanfan ti sorti lekol. (*Zanfan i ti sorti lekoï) child PAST come.from school 'The children came home from school'.

With subject pronouns we do not find the particle i either. Table 1 shows the full verbal paradigm. Table 1: SeyCr verbal paradigm lsg. 2sg. 3sg.

rhon sorti Sesel ou sorti Sesel i sorti Sesel

lpl. 2pl. 3pl.

 sorti Sesel T come from the Seychelles' zot sorti Sesel etc. zot sorti Sesel

3) The verbal particle i is homophonous with the 3sg. subject pronoun i.

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Thus *mon i sorti, *ou i sorti or *nou i sorti would not be possible. Another context where i does not appear is with full NPs in 'infinitive"-like clauses:4 (7)

I neseser pour Mari retournen.(*Ineses er pour Mari iretournen) 3sg. necessary for Mari come.back 'It is necessary for Mari to come back'.

The lower degree of fíniteness of the verb form after the complementizer pour is also mirrored by the use of object pronouns instead of subject pronouns. The object form of personal pronouns is distinct from the subject form only in the lsg. and 3sg.: (8)

I neseser pour mwan/li retournen. (*I neseser pour mon/i retournen) 3sg. necessary for me/him come.back 'It is necessary for me/him to come back'.

To account for these data, different hypotheses have been proposed: (a) i is an agreement marker (Bickerton 1990). The problem with this hypothesis is: Why does i not occur with negation and other TMA-particles? This fact makes the agreement hypothesis implausible. (b) In another hypothesis i was considered a present tense marker (Bickerton 1989). This interpretation also creates some problems: Why does i not appear with other personal pronouns? And why should there be no present marking in negative sentences? So i cannot be interpreted as a present tense marker. (c) I proposed a third hypothesis (Michaelis 1994: 85ff.): i is a dummy TMA-particle which expresses as a portmanteau morpheme 3rd person agree­ ment, present tense, and affirmation. It does this in occupying the position to the left of the verb as a purely material filler to signal minimal fíniteness. So i would still have its 3rd person agreement function, but enriched with two other unmarked notions, i.e. present tense and affirmation, in order to make sure that the following lexeme in the absence of any other verbal particle is interpreted as a finite or actualized verb. An interesting parallel here is the differentiation between main and subordinate clause in non-standard dialects of American English (Givón 1984: 378): (9)

the man he-came to dinner 'The man came to dinner'.

4) The question of fíniteness in creole languages is a thorny one (cf. Michaelis 1994: 21-37), but there are tests which show that we can distinguish more verb-like forms from more noun­ like forms. Cf. Raible (1992) on the role of reduced fíniteness in complex sentences in differ­ ent creole languages.

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167

the man came to dinner is my friend 'The man who came to dinner is my friend'.

In the first example the verb of the main clause is marked by the subject clitic he, whereas in the second example this marking is lacking and the verb came is interpreted as less finite and thus equivalent to a subordinated verb ('the man coming to dinner ...'). As already mentioned, the diachronic origin of z lies in a French leftdislocation: Pierre, i(l) chante — Les enfants, i(ls) chantent. As the Seychelles were settled from France, from Reunion, and especially from Mauritius, one could try to find a forerunner of SeyCr i in older Reunion Creole (ReuCr) and/or Mauritian Creole. And in fact we do find analogous constructions in both creoles. As for Mauritian Creole, we find an optional resumptive subject pronoun li in older Mauritian Creole texts, e.g.: (11)

cat li vini encore (Chaudenson 1981: 198) cat 3sg. come again 'The cat came back/The cat, it came back'.

But for some reason the use of li was in decline in the second half of the 19th century (Chaudenson 1981: 205), and in modern Mauritian Creole there is no such thing as a resumptive subject pronoun or even a dummy-TMA-particle. Thus, the source of SeyCr z could have been spoken French of the 18th century, Mauritian Creole li, or even a model from ReuCr (see §2.2 below), or all three of them. To sum up, SeyCr shows a process by which the 3rd person marker has been reduced within its agreement function and, on the other hand, enriched with other grammatical meaning, i.e. present tense and affirmation. It is now used as a dummy-TMA-particle to signal finiteness. This process could be a starting point for a further spread to other than 3rd persons verb forms. The data from Reunion Creole presented in the next subsection (§2.2) demonstrate that in this creole the 3rd person pronoun i has spread to other persons of the paradigm. 2.2.

Reunion Creole

Here we also find a verbal particle z.5 At first glance one could think that SeyCr i and ReuCr z' have a lot in common. For instance we also find z after a singular or plural full-NP subject, as in (12):

5) Cellier (1985); Chaudenson (1974, 1981, 1992); Come (1995). The data available reflect a conservative variety of ReuCr. In the contemporary language, an innovative verbal system seems to be used (Robert Chaudenson, p.c.).

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(12)

mon frer i sant 'My brother sings'.

But contrary to SeyCr, ReuCr i combines with all persons, i.e. it is not limited to 3rd person contexts. We find contractions within the pronominal paradigm: mi from moin + i, vi from vou + i, ni from nou + i. The paradigm is shown in Table 2: Table 2: ReuCr present tense lsg. 2sg. 3sg.

mi manz vi manz li manz

(mi<moin + i) (vi < vou +i)

lpl. 2pl. 3pl.

nou i (ni) manz zot i manz zot i manz

'I

eat' etc.

But there are other contexts where i occurs: In acrolectal varieties we find a past tense construction as in (13): (13)

mi manzé 'I ate' (cf. French je mangeais)

The future tense in ReuCr is also constructed with i. Depending on polarity, there are two distinct future constructions: the negative future preserves the former French morphosyntax (cf. 14a), while the affirmative future uses the verbal particle sa from French s'en va (cf. 14b). (14)

a. mi manzra pa 'I will not eat' (cf. French je ne mangerai pas) b. mi sa manzé 'I will eat' (cf. French je mangerai; sa < French s'en va)

Besides these often-cited examples, one can also find i in examples like (15). This sentence expresses a "recent past", and can be traced back to the French verbal periphrasis venir de faire quelque chose ('to have just done something'): (15)

mi viendmanzé

'I have just eaten' (Cellier 1985: 93)

It is now interesting to see where we do not find i: The list of forms in Table 3 shows us that it cannot co-occur with most of the verbal particles (Chaudenson 1974; Cellier 1985).

6) Cf. Bollée (in preparation), Chaudenson (1974: 979-81).

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Table 3: Some ReuCr verbal particles moin lé apré manzé 'I am eating' moin la manze 'I have eaten' moin la fini manze 'I have eaten' moin (lé)téfini manzé 'I had eaten' moin lora manzé 'I would have eaten'

lé apré < French (i)/ est après la < French (i)/ a {lé)té < French (i)/ était lora < French (i)/ aura

These examples illustrate that the former French 3sg. pronoun il has not only changed to the above mentioned marker i, but also left its traces as an aggluti­ nated /- in the very frequent vowel-initial French copula and auxiliary constructions like Pierre, il a mangé/il est venu, giving rise to verbal particles like lé, la, lora etc. (cf. Table 3), which are hereafter referred to as /-particles. Thus i and /- are in complementary distribution, this being totally independent of tense or aspect. So what is the situation in ReuCr? The former French 3sg. pronoun il has two outcomes in ReuCr: On the one hand, the phoneme / was absorbed into the different verbal particles. It is now part of the morpheme and totally opaque (lé apré, la, lora), a process of phonogenesis, as Hopper (1994) puts it. On the other hand, i was also attached to another element, namely to the preceding pronoun {moin + i > mi, vou + i > vi etc.). This means that mi can be consid­ ered an allomorphic counterpart of moin. Only in the 2pl. and 3pl. and with full NPs does i remain independent. There is another context where i cannot occur, namely in infinitive-like clauses as in example (16) (taken from Cellier 1985: 158). (16)

moin la aste in pin pou moin manzé lsg. PERF buy a bread COMP lsg. eat lit.: T have bought a loaf of bread for me to eat'. *moin la aste in pin pour mi manzé

The complementizer pou triggers non-finite verb forms (cf. the analogous examples (7-8) from SeyCr). But as there is no differentiation between subject and object pronouns, in contrast to SeyCr, moin is ambiguous as to the finite­ ness of the following verb. Only if an /-particle follows {moin la/lé/lora aste...) is the verb interpreted as finite; moin manzé is therefore non-finite. On the other hand one could not use mi in this context, because mi apparently signals unam­ biguously that what follows is to be taken as a finite verb. So -i/i can be under­ stood as a particle that is required in the absence of l-particles to mark finiteness in all persons and numbers. The effect of the merger of this finiteness marker with certain pronouns entails a differentiation in the pronominal paradigm: Now there are distinct subject pronouns, like mi and vi, as well as distinct object pronouns where moin constitutes the semantically unmarked member and mi the

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marked one. Thus, syntagmatic loss is translated into paradigmatic gain (cf. Hopper 1994: 30). Important for the present discussion is the fact that a former 3sg. subject pronoun spread to all other persons by losing its agreement function. 2.3.

Tok Pisin

The third example comes from Tok Pisin, a case that is very well known from the literature (cf. Sankoff 1980; Romaine 1993; Verhaar 1995: 69ff.). Here the predicate marker is also i. Diachronically i can be seen as the convergence of the English left-dislocation John, he told me and substratal models. Where does one encounter the particle il In his grammar of Tok Pisin, which is primarily based on one variety of Tok Pisin, the written language of a 1989 Bible translation, Verhaar notes: In short, nondeictic subjects trigger i; deictic subjects do not, unless the pro­ nouns in such subjects are remote subject pronouns. Then even they trigger i. (Verhaar 1995: 71)

What does this mean? Table 4 shows a paradigm of 'to be happy' in Tok Pisin: Table 4:  Pisin 'be happy' lsg.

mi amamas

2sg. 3sg.

yu amamas em i amamas

lpl. incl. lpl. excl. 2pl. 3pl.

yumi amamas (1+2) 'I am happy' mipela i amamas (1+3) etc. yupela i amamas ol i amamas

The data show that in the 3sg. and 3pl. (nondeictic subjects) there is an i, but we also find it with mipela and yupela, even though these two pronouns refer to non-third persons. This use of i depends on the -pela in both forms: -pela goes back to English fellow. This "nouniness flavor of -pela (< fellow) forms", as Verhaar puts it, triggers the predicate marker i in these cases. I is also triggered by a remote subject pronoun, i.e. if there is something between the subject and the verb, i reminds the speaker that what comes is to be interpreted as a verb. This is exemplified in (17): (17)

Mi yet i go lukim kern bilong em. I self PM go see.TRANS camp POSS he 'I am going to see his camp myself.

(Verhaar 1995:75)

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In complex verb constructions, i introduces the second verb, as shown in (18): (18)

God, yu harim mi i singaut long yu. (Verhaar 1995:31) God, you hear.TRANS me PM cry to you 'God, you hear me cry out to you'.

Romaine (1993) describes the great variation of the distribution of the predicate marker with preverbal TMA-markers. The variation depends on region, age, rural or urban origin of the speakers, and on spoken or written texts. Her conclusion is that among younger speakers of particular urban areas predicate marking before tense, mood, and aspect is in decline (Romaine 1993).7 Again, important for the purpose of the argumentation is that the former 3sg. pronoun has spread to other than 3rd person contexts. 2.4.

Comparison of creole languages with a preverbal marker i

What do all these verbal markers i have in common? In all the cases we have discussed so far, a former 3sg. subject pronoun/clitic has been reanalyzed as something different than it was in the lexifier or substrate languages. In this process, the former person/number agreement information (i) eventually spreads to all persons of the paradigm, which results in the loss of paradigmatic person contrasts. The former 3sg. marker can acquire new grammatical functions: (i) In SeyCr, i has not been generalized beyond the 3rd person, but it has gained another function, that of marking a 3rd person verb as finite in the absence of any other verbal particle. (ii) In ReuCr, by contrast, the erstwhile 3rd person information has been totally lost, because i has been generalized to all persons. Here i also functions as a finiteness marker in the absence of another special set of verbal particles (/particles, as I called them above). Within the group of pronominals, the phonological merger of i with most of the pronominals leads to a differentiation between subject and object pronouns. (iii) In Tok Pisin the generalization of i has not gone that far: i seems to have spread first to the various contexts close to 3rd person interpretation, and the function of i of picking up a remote subject might have helped to generalize the use of this particle as a predicate marker, providing the information that what follows is a verb. This process was heavily influenced by models of predi­ cate marking in the substrate languages. For instance, in Mota, an Eastern Oceanic language of the Northern New Hebrides, we also find a predicate

7) In the related Broken, the creole language of Torres Strait, there is also a predicate marker i. Shnukal (1988 [1998]: 62) reports a similar situation for this predicate marker: "The predi­ cate marker is optional, [...], and younger speakers tend to leave it out more than their parents and grandparents did".

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marker which developed out of a former subject-referencing pronoun. Here the predicate marker is also Z.8 In the following section I will try to link these creole data to phenomena from non-creole languages. We will see that very similar restructuring processes have taken place in many languages throughout their history (cf. Watkins 1962; Bybee 1985; Koch 1995).

3.

Parallels from non-creole languages

3.1.

Germanic

The first example comes from Swedish, and it fits well with the cases already discussed: The Old Scandinavian desinence of the 3sg. verb form -r, which must ultimately go back to a pronoun in pre-Proto-Indo-European, has spread in Modern Swedish (and other mainland Scandinavian languages) to all the persons in the paradigm, first to the singular and then to the plural forms. This means that the 3sg. form has been reanalyzed as not marked for person any­ more, i.e. Old Scandinavian kalla-r 'he calls' is now analyzed as kallar-Ø. The consequence again is the loss of paradigmatic contrasts. In this process of restructuring, the former desinence -r becomes refimctionalized as a present tense marker. Thus, the form hallar is not marked anymore for person and number. Table 5: Old Scandinavian and Swedish present tense

lsg. 2sg. 3sg. lpl. 2pl. 3pl.

Old Scandinavian kalla kalla-r kalla-r koll-um kall-ið kal-la

Swedish jag kalla-r du kalla-r han kalla-r-Ø ni kalla-r vi kalla-r dem kalla-r

'I call' etc.

Watkins (1962: 95f.) cites similar examples from Danish and also from Afrikaans. In the latter, the Dutch 3sg. verb form of 'to be' is becomes overgeneralized to all other persons and numbers of the paradigm: 8) Information on this language comes from Roger Keesing's work (1988: 81f.): "An even more striking example of the attenuation of the anaphoric-referencing function of the SRP [subject-referencing pronoun], in Northern New Hebridean languages, comes from Mota, in the Banks Islands. Here the PEO [Proto Eastern Oceanic] subject-referencing pronoun set has essentially lost all its marking. The invariant form i serves simply to reiterate a previously established subject reference, and (presumably) to mark the base that follows as a verb".

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Table 6: Dutch and Afrikaans present tense of 'be'

lsg. 2sg. 3sg. lpl. 2pl. 3pl.

Dutch ík ben jij bent hij is wíj zíjn jullie zijn zij zijn

3.2.

Romance

Afrikaans ek is jy is hy is ons is julle is hulle is

'I am' etc.

The next example from Occitan (Bybee 1985: 39f.) shows a slightly different outcome of the same process described so far. Here again the 3sg. form spreads to all the other persons of the paradigm, but, unlike in the creole and Germanic cases, there is no syncretism here. Instead, we see a restructuring of the whole paradigm on the basis of the 3sg. verb form, i.e. the 3sg. is reinterpreted as zeromarked, and new person/number affixes are added to this form. In the Old Occitan paradigm (Table 7), the only mark of the Preterite is the stressed vowel following the verbal root, e.g. cant-é-t 'he sang' in the 3sg. Now this cumulative tense-person-number marker (Preterite 3sg.) is reinterpreted as zero-marked for person and number. Thus, the former tense-person-number marker -et becomes refimctionalized as the marker for the preterite only, so that in the newly recreated paradigm the 3sg. is zero-marked for person and number: cant-et-0. Subsequently all other persons are restructured on the basis of the former 3sg. desinence. Table 7: Old and Modern Occitan Preterite forms (Bybee 1985: 39f)

lsg. 2sg. 3sg. lpl. 2pl. 3pl.

Old Occitan cant-é-i cant-é-st cant-é-t cant-é-m cant-é-tz cant-é-ren

Modern Occitan (Clermont-Ferrand) cant-ét-e 'I sang' cant-ét-es etc. cant-ét-0 cant-ét-em cant-ét-etz cant-ét-on

The next example, from Vallader Romantsch (Haiman 1985: 5; Haiman and Benincà 1992: 89f; Koch 1995: 33), is completely analogous: the archaic 3sg. verb form chant-et, where the ending -et stands for a cumulative tense-personnumber marker, is reinterpreted as zero-marked for person and number: chant-et-Ø. On the basis of this form all other persons have been restructured, and we get, for instance, chant-et-an for the lsg., so that the former 3sg. ending is reinterpreted as a tense marker.

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Table 8: Past Definite in Swiss Vallader Romanisch

1 sg. 3sg. 3pl.

4.

archaic chant-aun chant-et chant-aun

modern chant-et-an chant-et-Ø chant-et-and

'I sang' 'he sang' 'they sang'

What is the motivation for these changes?

The examples from the creole and non-creole languages show that speakers tend to restructure whole paradigms on the basis of the 3sg. by either reinterpreting the 3sg. as simply not marked with a subsequent syncretization of the person information (ReuCr, Tok Pisin, Swedish, Afrikaans), or as zero-marked for person and number with a subsequent restructuring of the whole paradigm (Occitan, Vallader Romantsch).9 But why do speakers want the 3sg. to be either not marked or else zeromarked? There are two possible explanations for this phenomenon: iconicity and frequency. 4.1.

Iconicity vs frequency

The first position is associated with Natural Morphology (Mayerthaler 1981) and related approaches (Haiman 1985). It roughly says that speakers tend to restructure non-iconic grammatical structures into iconic structures, i.e. they tend to map semantic or cognitive structure onto linguistic form. In doing this they convey the non-person, the unmarked 3sg., by a zero-marking. Benveniste (1966 [1946], vol. 1: 25Iff.) was among the early scholars anticipating the iconicity argument. The 3sg. is the "non-personne": [...] la "3 e personne" n'est pas une "personne"; c'est même la forme verbale qui a pour fonction d'exprimer la "non-personne". A cette définition répondent: l'absence de tout pronom de la 3 e personne, fait fondamental, qu'il suffit de rappeler, et la situation très particulière de la 3e personne dans le verbe de la plupart des langues. (Benveniste 1966 [1946]: 228)

Indeed, in her typological study, Bybee (1985: 54ff.) has found that in a world­ wide sample of 50 languages, more than half of the languages show zeromarked 3sg. verb forms. However, an alternative explanation is available, and I suggest that in fact it is the better one. This explanation is based on frequency of use. As early as in 9) The first person to have systematically described this process was Calvert Watkins in his book Indo-European Origins of the Celtic Verb (1962).

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1966 Greenberg (45) pointed out that the token frequency of 3rd person verb forms is always higher than 1st and 2nd person verb forms, irrespective of the kind of text sampled (conversational or non-conversational).10 Bybee (1985: 54ff.) elaborates on this argument. In her opinion the frequent use of these verb forms leads to rote-processing, which means that the speaker tends to store and retrieve often used forms as wholes. Here computational economy comes in: Speakers want to keep down not only the costs of realizing linguistic signs phonetically, but also the costs of internal processing. Segmentation implies additional costs, compared to holistic storage and retrieval. But through frequent holistic use, morphologically structured units become opaque. So at some point speakers no longer notice that the particle i or the desinence -t is a person/ number agreement marker. They take the form as a whole and may restructure the paradigm on the basis of this form. As this form spreads to other persons and finally to all persons of the paradigm, the former marker of the 3sg. can now again be reinterpreted as another grammatical marker, such as tense, finiteness, or predicate marker. 4.2.

Further evidence for a frequency-based explanation

Evidence from local markedness phenomena confirms the idea that it is token frequency, and not so much iconicity reflecting semantic basicness, that deter­ mines the unmarked status of an item within a grammatical category. Koch (1995), who relies on Tiersma's (1982) work on local markedness, shows that it is not only in unmarked positions of a paradigm (such as 3sg.) that speakers create zero morphemes. The locative case, for example, is considered to be marked with respect to the nominative and accusative case. But with certain semantically defined subclasses of nominais (place names, demonstratives, etc.), the locative can be zero-marked, or diachronically reinterpreted as zeromarked, and thus extended to the nominative case. An example of this diachronic change from Sorbian is shown in Table 9 (Koch 1995: 48), in which the place names under I represent an earlier stage of Sorbian, and the forms under II represent the contemporary language. Table 9: Sorbian reanalyses of locative-case forms as nominative I II I II Nom Bela Belej Damna Damnej Loc Belej Belej Damnej Damnej

10) However there might be different frequency figures with special verb lexemes (e.g. speech act verbs like promise, verbs of wanting, etc. should occur more often with 1st person verb forms).

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Another case of newly created zero-morphemes in marked terms of a category involves plurals (cf. Koch 1995: 54ff). For example, the Middle Dutch plural form schoe-n was reinterpreted as not marked for number (schoen-Ø). It was subsequently used as the stem with a zero-marked singular, while the plural is now marked by the regular plural morpheme (schoen-en): Table 10: Dutch reanalysis of plurals (Tiersma 1982: 838; Koch 1995: 55)

Sg. PL

Middle Dutch schoe schoe-n

Modern Dutch schoen schoen-en

How can one explain such phenomena of local markedness? Again, token frequency is the decisive factor: In place names, we use the locative more often than the nominative or the accusative. Similarly, with a certain subset of nouns — those which refer to objects which in the extralinguistic reality typically appear more often than singularly — the plural is used more frequently than the singular. Because speakers use the locative more often with place nouns, and the plural more often with things that occur in more than one exemplar, the respective items will tend to become rote-processed, as Bybee points out with respect to the 3sg. verb forms. Here the same mechanism applies. At a certain point, frequent use will lead to grammatical opacity, and this is again the pre­ condition for spreading to other members of the paradigm which are less frequently used. What, then, do both general markedness (third person vs. first and second, singular vs. plural, nominative vs. locative etc.) and local markedness have in common? In both cases it is token frequency that determines the status of the unmarked member within a paradigm. Token frequency mirrors the communicative needs of the speakers: For instance, we talk more often about things and situations (i.e. 3rd person) than about ourselves or our communica­ tion partner(s), about being at or going to or coming from a place than stating something about this place per se. If in our world shoes occur more often in a pair, we will refer to them more often in the plural. In this case, the plural word form will undergo the process of gradually becoming grammatically opaque, being rote-processed and finally lexicalized as the stem of the word. That the frequency of use is ultimately pragmatically based was already observed by Joseph Greenberg: The important phenomena of zero and facultative expression can be under­ stood in terms of frequency phenomena based on the situation in the world with which the users of language must deal. In fact there is here no real differ­ ence between semantic and grammatical phenomena. For example, it is not so much in English that male is in general the unmarked category in relation to female, but the frequency of association of things in the real world. 'Author'

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means facultatively a writer of both sexes, but par excellence, male, because in fact most authors are male. (Greenberg 1966: 66)

Koch claims that only local markedness depends on token frequency, whereas "general markedness is based primarily on semantics" (Koch 1995: 56). Although Greenberg and Bybee lay the primary stress on token frequency, they nevertheless take semantic basicness of the respective category as one factor in unmarkedness. However, it appears that token frequency by itself can explain phenomena of both general and local markedness. In §5 I would like to demonstrate another route by which pronouns of the 3sg. can be refunctionalized: They can become copulas. At first glance this language change does not appear to be directly relatable to the phenomena so far discussed. But again the dominance of the 3sg. pronoun and the following grammaticalization as a copula with subsequent spread to all other persons of the paradigm is the linking element. Again I will look first at creole examples.

5.

From subject pronoun to copula

In Capeverdean Creole (Baptista 1999), there is a copula e which comes from the Portuguese 3rd person singular pronoun ele. It is the copula for all persons in the singular and plural in the present tense: (19)

Joan e nha Joan COP my 'Joan is my father'.

pai. father

(20)

Joan e ka nha Joan COP NEG my 'Joan is not my father'.

pai. (*Joan ka e nha pai) father

The fact that the negation particle ka follows the copula, whereas it normally precedes the other verbal markers, is a strong argument for the supposed diachronic origin of e. If it originated in the Portuguese copula é, one would not expect a difference in behavior between é and era (the past tense of the copula, from Portuguese era) with respect to the negation particle:11 (21)

Joan e ka Joan COP NEG 'Joan is not sick'.

duenti. sick

11) Stassen (1997: 84f.) notes a parallel case from Sranan where a former pronominal item became a present-tense copula na/a. Under negation this copula behaves like the Capeverdean e: It precedes the negation particle no, whereas "normal" verbs follow this particle.

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SUSANNE MICHAELIS (22)

Joan ka era Joan NEG was 'Joan was not sick'.

duenti. sick

If the subject position is occupied by a personal pronoun, it always has to be the non-clitic, stressed pronoun. Thus, we find mi (lsg.) in (23), not the clitic pro­ noun n, which is otherwise used as a subject pronoun with verbs. This, too, seems to reflect the pronominal source of the copula: (23)

Mi e profesor. I COP teacher 'I am a teacher'.

(*n e I.CLT COP

profesor) teacher

Further examples come from Guiné-Bissau Creole and Tok Pisin. In GuinéBissau Creole the diachrony of the copula is still easily traceable, because it is homophonous with the 3sg. clitic pronoun i. This copula appears in all persons. Its behavior with the negation particle ka is the same as in Capeverdean, as we have just demonstrated: It also precedes the negation marker, as shown in (25) (do Couto l994: 110f.). (24)

ami i pursor I COP teacher 'I am a teacher'.

(25)

i ka ami COP NEG I 'It is not me'.

Tok Pisin has a verbal copula stap (cf. 26), but there is also a process in pro­ gress whereby the 3sg. pronoun em (from English him) is developing into a new copula through its use as a resumptive for the first NP (cf. 27) (Verhaar 1995: 82ff). (26)

Em i stap Praim Minista. he PM COP Prime Minister 'He is the Prime Minister'.

(27)

Nem bilong dispela man em name POSS this man he 'The name of this man is Dabi'.

Dabi. Dabi

Benveniste (1966 [1946], vol. 1: 189-90) already mentioned that the change from a 3sg. subject pronoun to a copula is very common in the languages of the world. We now have a comprehensive typological study of intransitive predi­ cation, especially copula structures, by Leon Stassen. Stassen (1997: 76ff.) has examined a world-wide sample of 410 languages. He has found that there are

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three larger geographical areas in which the occurrence of pronominal copulas is highly prominent: (a) (b) (c)

northern and central Asia: Altaic languages, eastern Uralic languages, Paleo-Siberian languages eastern Indonesia and Melanesia: Austronesian languages the Afro-Asiatic family (Middle East and northern Africa), e.g. Semitic languages: Akkadian, Amharic, Arabic, Maltese

The example below is from Maltese, where we still have the gender distinctions of the former pronoun in the two copulas (hu 'he', hi 'she'): (28)

Maltese (Stassen 1997: 78) a. Malta hi gzira Malta C0P/3sg.FEM island 'Malta is an island'. b. Jien hu alla sid-ek lsg. cop/3sg.MASC God master-2sg.POSS T am thy God, thy Master'.

Diachronically the pronominal copulas develop out of something like John, he/this man (Stassen 1997: 77): Thus, "he" functions like a resumptive subject pronoun in a topic-comment structure. Pronominal copulas which have been grammaticalized to some degree still show morphosyntactic characteristics of their original construction: They combine only with 3sg. subjects, and they occupy syntactic positions typical of pronouns, i.e. they precede the negation marker, as shown in the Capeverdean and Guiné-Bissau Creole examples. With progressive grammaticalization, we observe the loss of pronominal features and the acquisition of verbal features (e.g. verbal position, loss of gender and number distinctions), and eventually morphological and/or syntactic alignment with auxiliaries, verbal particles, or verbs (Stassen 1997: 77). Again the 3sg. pronoun is the source for this language change. Because of the higher token frequency of 3sg. contexts, this pronoun increasingly becomes a grammatical linking element between two entities in an equational sentence. As it grammaticalizes further, the pronoun loses its person and number agreement function and spreads to the other persons and numbers of the paradigm, a process well known from the change discussed in §§2 and 3.

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Conclusion

We have seen that subject clitic and agreement markers can lose their original function and take on various other functions, such as tense, fmiteness and mainclause status. All of these outcomes have in some sense to do with fmiteness or "verbiness". In a subsequent stage, these highly grammaticalized elements can merge via phonogenesis with an adjacent morpheme. In the final stage, these items are lost altogether. In addition, subject pronouns can develop into copulas. We have seen the different stages of both these restructuring processes. A summary of the changes worked out so far, together with related changes to be discussed briefly below, is given in Figure 1. agreement marker ► tense marker fmiteness marker main clause marker predicate marker

(phonogenesis: part of an adjacent morpheme)

subject pronoun

copula object pronoun

agreement marker ►transitive/causative markers .

Figure 1: Summary of possible diachronic pathways

This figure is not intended to suggest that agreement markers HAVE TO develop into these kinds of new markers: As with all grammaticalization paths, the claim is simply that IF an item further to the left of the path grammaticalizes, this process will not be random, but in line with the options to the right of this item. So far we have only looked at subject pronouns and agreement markers. As indicated in Figure 1, there is evidence that object pronouns also grammaticalize beyond the status of agreement markers. The most often cited example again comes from Tok Pisin (Givón 1984: 377; Lehmann 1995: 42). Here the former English object pronoun him develops into a transitive or causative marker -im (see also examples [17] and [18]).12 Again, it is the 3sg. pronoun that enters this grammaticalization path. (29)

bruk-im 'to break'

bruk 'to get broken'

12) This situation is parallel to others involving data from first language acquisition. In Tomasello's book (1992), around the age of 18 to 20 months the child studied utters sentences like: eat-it soup 'I am eating the soup'. Here the object pronoun it becomes attached to the verb eat in order to form the single word verb eat-it. This process can be observed with a certain range of verbs like lick-it, kick-it, brush-it, like-it. I am grateful to Holger Diessel, who made me aware of these data.

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The linking element between all these diachronic processes is the fact that speakers use the 3sg. verb form as a basis for restructuring or building up a new paradigm. In this re-creation the 3sg. verb form is reanalyzed as zero-marked. The former marker of person can thus be reftmctionalized for other grammatical purposes. I have argued that the decisive motivating factor in these changes is not so much iconicity as token frequency. We simply refer more often to third per­ son contexts because they are more often at the center of interest. One important general goal of this article has been to show that the restructuring processes discussed are by no means creole-specific: We find them in non-creole languages in very much the same way. If we want to find out which linguistic features are typically creole, we should widen our view to include non-creole languages, and, by implication, especially those languages which are neither lexifier nor substrate languages.13 The specificity of creoles emerges only against the background of the world-wide situation, so the results of global typological studies are extremely relevant to an understanding of the nature of creole languages. Abbreviations 3rd person singular 3sg. = lpl. = 1st person plural lpl. (excl./incl.) = 1st person plural exclusive/inclusive CLT COMP FEM LOC

= = = =

clitic complementizer feminine locative

MASC

=

masculine

NOM PAST RF PL poss PROG TMA TRANS

= = = = = = = =

nominative past tense marker perfect marker plural marker possessive marker progressive marker tense-mood-aspect marker transitivity marker

13) In a recent attempt to classify creole languages on the basis of linguistic features, McWhorter (1998) tries to cluster linguistic traits. He claims that the following three cluster­ ing features are found only in creole languages: little or no inflectional morphology, little or no use of tone to lexically contrast monosyllables or encode syntax, and semantically trans­ parent derivational morphology. In my view, a lot of typological work still needs to be done to prove this hypothesis, because we just do not know enough about the range of possible variation in the world's languages.

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References Baptista, Marlyse. 1999. "On the nature of the morpheme e in Capeverdean Creole: to be or not to be". In Klaus Zimmermann, ed. 1999. Lenguas criollas de base lexical española y portuguesa. Frankfurt: Vervuert/Madrid: Iberoamericana, 25-47. Benveniste, Émile. 1966 [1946]. Problèmes de linguistique générale. 2 vols. Paris: Gallimard. Bickerton, Derek. 1989. "Seselwa serialization and its significance". Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 4: 155-83. —. 1990. "If it quacks like a duck... a reply to Seuren". Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 5,2: 293-303. BoUée, Annegret. 1977. Zur Entstehung der französischen Kreolendialekte im Indischen Ozean. Kreolisierung ohne Pidginisierung. Genf: Droz. —. In preparation. Dictionnaire étymologique des créoles français de l'Océan Indien. Première partie: Mots d'origine française. Hamburg: Buske. Bybee, Joan L. 1985. Morphology: A Study of the Relation between Meaning and Form. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. Cellier, Pierre. 1985. Comparaison du créole réunionnais et du français. St. Denis: Université de la Réunion. Chaudenson, Robert. 1974. Le lexique du parler créole de la Réunion. 2 vols. Paris: Champion. —. 1981. Textes créoles anciens (La Réunion et Ile Maurice). Hamburg: Buske. —. 1992. Des îles, des hommes, des langues: Essai sur la créolisation linguistique et culturelle. Paris: L'Harmattan. Corne, Chris. 1995. "Nana  nana, nana  n: The paratactic and hypotactic relative clauses of Reunion Creole". Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 10,1: S7-76. do Couto, Hildo Honorio. 1994. O crioulo português da Guiné-Bissau. Hamburg: Buske. Givón, Talmy. 1984. Syntax. A Functional-Typological Introduction. Vol. I. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. Greenberg, Joseph. 1966. Language Universals, with Particular Reference to Feature Hierarchies. The Hague: Mouton. Haiman, John. 1985. Natural Syntax. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Haiman, John and Benincà, Paola. 1992. The Rhaeto-Romance Languages. London: Routledge. Hopper, Paul. 1994. "Phonogenesis". In William Pagliuca, ed. Perspectives on Grammaticalization. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins, 29-45. Keesing, Roger. 1988. Melanesian Pidgin and the Oceanic Substrate, Stanford: Stanford University Press. Koch, Harold. 1995. "The creation of morphological zeroes". In Geert Booij and Jaap van Marie, eds. Yearbook of Morphology 1994. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 31-71. Lehmann, Christian. 1995. Thoughts on Grammaticalization. München: Lincom. Mayerthaler, Willi. 1981. Morphologische Natürlichkeit. Wiesbaden: Athenäum.

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McWhorter, John H. 1998. "Identifying the creole prototype: Vindicating a typological class". Language 74,4 (1998): 788-818. Michaelis, Susanne. 1994. Komplexe Syntax im Seychellen-Kreol. Tübingen: Narr. Mufwene, Salikoko S. 1986. "Les langues créoles peuvent-elles être définies sans allusion à leur histoire?" Etudes Créoles 9,1: 135-50. —. 1991. "Pidgins, creoles, typology, and markedness". In Francis Byrne and Tom Huebner, eds. Development and Structures of Creole Languages. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins, 123-43. —. 1996. "Creolization and grammaticization: what creolistics could contribute to research on grammaticization". In Philip Baker and Anand Syea, eds. Changing Meanings, Changing Functions: Papers Relating to Grammaticalization in Contact Languages. London: University of Westminster Press, 5-28. Raible, Wolfgang. 1992. Junktion. Eine Dimension der Sprache und ihre Realisierungsfor­ men zwischen Aggregation und Integration. Heidelberg: Winter. Romaine, Suzanne. 1993. "The decline of predicate marking in Tok Pisin". In Francis Byrne and John Holm, eds. Atlantic Meets Pacific: A Global View of Pidginization and Creolization. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins, 251-260. Sankoff, Gillian. 1980. The Social Life of Language. Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press. Shnukal, Anna. 2 1998 [1988]. Broken: An Introduction to the Creole Language of Torres Strait. (Pacific Linguistics C-107.) Canberra: The Australian National University. Stassen, Leon. 1997. Intransitive Predication. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tiersma, Peter M. 1982. "Local and general markedness". Language 58: 832-59. Tomasello, Michael. 1992. First Verbs: A Case Study of Early Grammatical Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Verhaar, John W. M. 1995. Toward a Reference Grammar of Tok Pisin. An Experiment in Corpus Linguistics. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. Watkins, Calvert. 1962. Indo-European Origins of the Celtic Verb. I. The Sigmatic Aorist. Dublin: Dublin University Press.

Susanne Michaelis Max Planck Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie Inselstr. 22 04103 Leipzig Germany [email protected]

Reassessing the role of demographics in language restructuring

Mikael Parkvall Stockholms Universitet

1.

Introduction1

One of the most interesting questions in creolistics is what factors determine the radicalness2 of a restructured language. To most creolists, the proportion of speakers of the lexifier vis-à-vis speakers of the various substrate languages in a restructuring situation is one such factor. To investigate this putative causal relationship empirically, I have designed a restructuring index intended to quantify the typological distance between some Atlantic creoles and their respective lexifiers (see Appendix 1). This is then compared to data on the black-to-white ratios (see Appendices 2-3) of the various colonies during the formative periods of the creoles. The reader may want to have a look at the appended graphs before continuing to read.

2.

The role of demographics

The assumption that demographic disproportion — i.e. a number of substrate speakers that by far exceeds the number of speakers of the lexifier language — leads to more radical restructuring has long been inherent in contact language studies. Bickerton (1981: 4) seems to have been the first to explicitly try to quantify the disproportion needed for pidginisation to take place, by requiring a substrate population of at least 80%. In his review of Bickerton (1981), Goodman (1985) cast doubt on the strict relationship between demographics 1) Previous drafts of this paper were commented upon by östen Dahl, Magnus Huber, Glenn Gilbert, Philip Baker, Jacques Arends, Chris Corne (f), John McWhorter, Bill Samarin, Salikoko Mufwene, David Sutcliffe, Jeff Siegel, Tjerk Hagemeijer, and Emmanuel Faure, for which I am grateful. 2) "Radicalness" here refers to the degree of typological divergence from the lexifier.

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and restructuring postulated by Bickerton. More recently, McWhorter (1999) has gone so far as to suggest that there is no connexion whatsoever between demographic disproportion and restructuring. In his view, the degree of learner motivation3 is the determining factor. An emphasis on motivation is also noticeable in some other current creolistic work, such as Mühlhäusler (1997: 59), and in particular publications by Baker (1990, 1995, etc.), although no one has gone so far as McWhorter.

3.

The linguistic data: Quantifying creoleness

In this paper, linguistic data from restructured or partly restructured languages of English, French, Portuguese, Dutch, and Spanish lexifiers are examined together with demographic data from the relevant territories. For the sake of comparison, data from four areas where European-lexifier creole languages have not been attested (Brazil,4 Bermuda, the Dominican Republic and Frenchtown, St. Thomas) are also taken into consideration. By itself, the presence or absence of a linguistic feature does of course not prove that a certain variety is further from its lexifier than any other. Taken together, however, I believe that these 45 features give a fairly correct indica­ tion with regard to this. The features chosen are those that have been perceived as typical of Atlantic creoles in relation to their lexifiers by a variety of authors, including Van Name (1869-70), Adam (1883), Hesseling (1933) [1979], Whinnom (1965), Taylor (1971, 1977), Alleyne (1980), Bickerton (1981), Muysken (1981), Boretzky (1983), Holm (1987, 1988), Chaudenson (1992), and Bartens (1996). The origin of these features is not considered here. In other words, I disregard for the present purposes whether the presence of a certain feature can be ascribed to substratal influence, universals, or any other possible forces that may have been at work, so long as the feature in question to my knowledge was not present in the lexifier. I would like to emphasise that since the authors mentioned were studying (primarily or exclusively) creoles with a strong Niger3) "Motivation" in this paper refers to the motivation to acquire the lexifier; it seems to be less controversial among creolists that slaves arriving after the emergence of a local (black) speech norm attempted to acquire the latter — and succeeded in doing so. Some who have read and commented on previous drafts of this paper have objected that limited access and creolisation are group phenomena, whereas motivation and L2 acquisition are individual phenomena. Although true, a society by definition consists of individuals, and when crystal­ lising, a pidgin or creole must have formed out of a compromise between existing idiolects. For macro-level comparisons such as this, I therefore find it unnecessary to put too much emphasis on this distinction. 4) As opposed to Holm (1992), I do thus not consider the Portuguese of Helvécia, let alone general Vernacular Brazilian Portuguese, creoles.

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Congo component in their substrates, this index is not intended to be applicable to other creoles. It is possible, and even likely, that this affects the score of Mauritian, which developed in a setting with — despite an initial Niger-Congo dominance — a strong Austronesian presence. A metric quantifying the "creoleness" of non-Atlantic creoles — or even identifying languages as such — would necessarily look quite different. An attempt at a synchronic definition of creoleness can be found in McWhorter (1998) and McWhorter and Parkvall (1999). Another possible measurement would be the retention rate of grammatical vs. lexical morphemes, where creolised X might tentatively be classified as a language where lexical items have been retained to a greater extent than grammatical ones, whereas the opposite would be true for a dialect of X. Under the present model, languages getting a score above about 20 would seem to be those normally regarded as creoles. The selection of features is of course a crucial issue. I have attempted to include features that will be useful for comparison across all language group­ ings, rather than just within one of them. This means that features such as prodrop, synthetic future constructions, gender agreement, front rounded vowels, etc., are deliberately avoided, since the lexifiers themselves differ substantially on these points. There is, of course, variation also among the substrate languages, and a creole could be strongly influenced by a substrate without serial verbs, and yet, for that reason lack such constructions, and thus score lower than a creole with a serialising substrate. Similarly, the effects of a substrate allowing more complex syllable structures would be less noticeable than those of a strictly CV language. It is my hope, though, that the number of features considered will minimise the risk of such biases. Lack of space prevents me from giving source indications for every single entry in the grid, since a very large number of grammars and other descriptions have been used. 5 1 would like to express my gratitude, however, to people who through personal communication kindly provided additional data and clarifications, namely Philip Baker (Mauritian), Peter Patrick (Jamaican), Tom Klingler (Louisianais), Vincent Cooper (Kittitian), David Winter and Kevin Mayall (Bermudan), Laura Álvarez (Brazilian), Silvia Kouwenberg (Papiamentu), Salikoko Mufwene (Gullah), Robin Sabino and Thomas Stolz (Negerhollands), Jacques Arends (Sranan), Maxette Févrin-Olsson (Guadeloupean), Marlyse Baptista (Cape Verdean), and Tjerk Hagemeijer (Saotomense). After having seen earlier drafts of this paper, David Sutcliffe and 5) For Bermuda, I have had to rely entirely on my two informants, as there appears not to exist any detailed study of the island's dialect. The fact that present-day Bermudan is markedly acrolectal does, of course, not exclude the possibility that Bermudan once was closer to the Caribbean creoles. One of my informants suggests, however, that the reverse is true, the youth culture of the island having been strongly influenced by that of Jamaica in the past few decades.

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Kate Green generously contributed the entire columns on African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and Non-Standard Dominican Spanish respec­ tively,6 for which I am of course most grateful. The following symbols indicate the status of each feature in the languages under discussion: +

= Feature found = Feature not found ~ = Feature found only in some lects, in certain contexts, to a limited extent or as an alternative to other, more common, constructions. † = Feature formerly found 0 = Insufficient data n/a = Irrelevant, since the feature is found in the lexifier as well

After indicating the presence or absence of the feature chosen, a "radicalness value" was calculated for each of the languages. This was done the following way: The results <+>, <†> result in two points for the variety in question, and the <~> in one point. <0> and do not affect the total score, whereas <-> reduces it by one point.7 As the number of features considered is 45, the score can theoretically vary between 90 (= the ideal creole) and -45 (= the ideal lexi­ fier). Since the non-existence (former or present) is virtually impossible to prove, it is of course hazardous to award negative points for the absence of a feature. I consider this necessary, however, since a language on which I lack sufficient information would otherwise appear more basilectal than it may actu­ ally be. For obvious reasons, the <-> in the table below cannot be taken to mean that no speaker has ever used the feature in question. Thus, the following scores are obtained: Language Sranan Sãotomense Kittian Jamaican, Haitian Gullah Negerhollands, Guadeloupean, Guyanais Louisianais Martinican

Score 68 63 51 48 42 41 39 38

Language Mauritian, Papiamentu Cape Verdean Barbadian AAVE Brazil, Dominican Rep. Bermudan English St. Thomas French

Score 35 23 20 16 -5 -23 -24

6) I made a few subsequent modifications of their lists, however, in order to make them more consistent with the data from the other languages. 7) In the version of this paper presented at the Regensburg conference, two points were subtracted here. I decided to change this to one point following suggestions by colleagues. The general picture remains the same, however.

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189

How reliable are the results ?

Given the number of features discussed (45), and the number of varieties considered (20), it seems inevitable that some of the 900 entries in the grid will be disputable, and I am of course most grateful for any corrections that readers may come up with. Also, the survey can easily be expanded to include more language varieties and/or new features, and such suggestions are welcome as well. The first reflection I myself made upon seeing the results was that they correspond fairly well to my own intuition, and, I suspect, also that of other creolists who have some familiarity with the languages considered. Some peculiarities may arise due to extant descriptions dealing with nonbasilectal varieties (such as AAVE, Bermudan English, St. Thomas French, Vernacular Brazilian Portuguese, Dominican Spanish); wherever possible, the data set out in the tables below are intended to represent the most basilectal varieties documented, and these varieties, normally not considered creole, may of course once have been far "deeper" than they are now.8 For an extinct language like Negerhollands, the available material mainly consists of texts written down by non-native speakers; indeed, Stolz (1986: 243-4) suggests that the language once did contain more basilectal features. It may be the case of other creoles as well that basilectal features once present have disappeared without ever being attested, or at least without having been brought to my attention. In order to determine whether or not the scores obtained actually reflect the degree to which the creole in question has distanced itself from the lexifier, I decided to compare my results with those of others. Some authors have earlier attempted to assign radicalness values to creoles. Schneider (1990), basing himself on Hancock (1987) attempts to define the overall "creoleness" of 14 English-related varieties, whereas Sutcliffe (1998), partly relying on the same source, deals with a smaller number of varieties. Bickerton (1984: 177) arranges a number of creoles according to their relative closeness to the Bioprogram (i. e. distance from the lexifier). Two other useful sources do not attempt to rank the creoles, but provide data that can be used for doing so. Ericsson and Gustafson-Capková (1997) use a phonological criterion, viz. the degree of syllable restructuring — a potential measure of radicalness not included in my own calculations, whereas Baker (1998) exam­ ines a large number of features in both present-day varieties and in historical

8) The fact that AAVE turns out to be less acrolectal than the other varieties just mentioned might be in part due to the existence of older material; for the others, virtually only synchronic data is available.

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sources in order to establish the historical relationships between the Atlantic ECs.9 Differences certainly exist, but similarities are encouragingly present, and in essence, these five papers by and large confirm my results.

4.

The demographic data and the problems inherent in demographic reconstruction

Of course, the demographic data used here have to be taken with more than a grain of salt, not only because the scantiness of the information,10 but also because country- or island-wide data inevitably will mask the local differences in slave-to-white ratios. This is potentially a significant problem in large coun­ tries such as Brazil, but may be significant even in small islands such as e.g. St. Thomas or Sao Tomé. I hope to have reduced this problem somewhat by giving priority to small and insular territories. Where I have some details on the regional distribution of slaves, some colonies fail to show differences from one region to another, whereas in others, there are significant differences. Some examples of both possibilities are found in the discussions of census data from various colonies in e.g. Lobban (1995: 16), Abénon (1973: 299), Hayot (1969: 20), Stolz and Stein (1986: 12, 14), Michel (1989: 165), Hall (1992: 177, 206), Usner (1992: 114-5, 183), Calvet and Chaudenson (1998), and Schwartz (1985: 88). Several other factors are important as well. Slaves were unevenly distrib­ uted even at a micro level, partly depending on the crop cultivated, as well as, of course, the wealth of the plantation owner (see e.g. Michel 1989: 16; MamLam-Fouck 1982: 57; Van Lier 1971: 31; Klein 1986: 66; Stein 1988: 42; Garfield 1992: 73; Sheridan 1974: 138-9, 163, 189 and Solow 1988: 101). Migration both between and within colonies also presents a potential problem. For one thing, slaves seem in many colonies to have had surprisingly good possibilities of moving around between various plantations (Hall 1992: 9) I know of three other studies, namely Markey (1982), Bender (1987) and Gilbert and Makhudu (1987) which attempt to quantify radicalness, but none of them deals with the varieties included here. 10) The amount of information available to me varies significantly from one territory to the other, though. For Martinique, for instance, I have consulted 31 sources, resulting in almost 400 data points. For most other English or French colonies, I have also had access to fairly large amounts of data. In most cases, more than a dozen sources were consulted for each territory, and more than a hundred data points were available for most territories. More prob­ lematic are the Portuguese colonies, and I have therefore excluded Brazil from the demo­ graphic comparison, whereas the inclusion of the Cape Verdes and Sao Tomé entails a great deal of guesswork and interpolation, and these figures should thus be treated with caution. The quality and quantity of colonial documentation in general varies enormously between the Iberian and north-west European colonies.

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294; Rochefort 1658: 321-2; du Tertre 1667: 527, 529; Wimpffen 1797 vol. 2: 34; Geggus 1991: 404; Thornton 1992: 174-5 and Arends 1995: 21). Moreover, some islands, in particular Sao Tomé, the Cape Verdes, St. Thomas, and Curaçao, but to a lesser extent also Jamaica and Martinique, served as transit ports for slaves intended for use elsewhere. It is not known for how long these transit slaves were present on these islands, nor to what extent they interacted with the local population. Furthermore, they are included in some censuses and population estimations, but not in others. The same applies to the European population, where transient populations such as soldiers are present in certain counts and estimates, but absent from others. The problem posed by the transit slaves is related to that of population renewal in general. Whereas some colonies (such as Louisiana and Barbados) had a fairly high rate of natural increase, others (especially the Guianas) suffered from extreme mortality rates and thus had to renew their slave popula­ tion through continuous imports of Africa-born adults. Whatever the role of children in creole creation (see 5.1.3 below) may be, it appears likely that a large and steady influx of new pidginisers contributed to moving the creole further from the lexifier, all the more so since it seems reasonable to assume that a higher birth rate and a higher life expectancy correlated in these societies. Other difficulties encountered include Amerindian slaves and Mulattos, some­ times counted as "coloured" or "freedmen", sometimes as "slaves" or "blacks", owner's understatement (for fiscal reasons) of the number of slaves owned (see e.g. Storm van's Gravesande 1911 vol. 1: 399-401; Bridenbaugh and Bridenbaugh 1972: 226), and the differing boundaries of e.g. Louisiana, with some settlements included in certain censuses, but not in others. Many figures are also estimates rather than regular counts. Regular censuses were not taken in Brazil and Sao Tomé until 1872 and 1921 respec­ tively, and even estimates predating that are remarkably scarce, compared to northern European colonies. Finally, all my demographic information stems from printed sources, which are in many cases contradictory. It is not unusual to find three or four different figures for a particular year. I have tried to make sound reliability judgements, but where that has proven impossible, I have instead simply made a compromise.

5.

Discussion of the results of the comparison

In the appended graphs (Appendix 3), I have plotted the creoles according to their relative radicalness against the number of years it took the non-white population to reach 20%, 50% and 80% of the total, in other words how abrupt or protracted the transition from the société d'habitation to the société de plantation phase (Chaudenson 1992) was.

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As can be seen in the graphs, there is indeed a correlation between the intervals between the events and the linguistic outcome, although it is not a straightforward one. The main points of divergence are Bajan, which comes out as less basilectal than expected, and the creoles of Surinam, Sao Tomé and St. Kitts, which are all more radical than their demographics suggest. The acrolectal character of Bajan has often been commented upon, in words such as those of Hearn (1890: 62): One is almost startled on hearing Barbadian negroes speaking English with a strong Old Country accent. Without seeing the speaker, you could scarcely believe such English uttered by black lips; and the commonest negro laborer about the port pronounces as well as a Londoner.

Some creolists, such as Hancock (1980: 22) have indeed claimed that a creole register never was to be found in Barbados: "As now, it was a local metropoli­ tan, rather than creolized, variety of English that was spoken by both Blacks and Whites on the Island". Such conclusions, however, true though they might be, seem to be based on demographic, rather than linguistic evidence, and in recent years we have seen large numbers of creole features being unearthed in old texts (Cassidy 1986; Rickford 1992; Rickford and Handler 1994; Fields 1995; Baker 1999) as well as in modern-day speech (Roy 1986). It therefore doesn't seem unlikely — all the more so since early Barbadian demographics did not in fact differ that much from that of other territories — that a creole (albeit possibly somewhat more mesolectal than elsewhere) was indeed spoken on the island, but that extensive decreolisation set in earlier there than elsewhere. Some factors are likely to have been a topography and a well developed infrastructure that would have facilitated the spread of English, and the especially favoured status that Barbados enjoyed among British colonies, which led to a larger emphasis on education, and possibly also a greater identification with British values. It is of course also true that the proportion of whites continued to be quite high until just before emancipation. For Sranan, which ranks as more basilectal than might be expected, one obvious reason is the almost complete withdrawal of the lexifier after the Dutch take-over. After about 1675, the anglophone presence in Surinam would have been almost negligible. Virtually all of the first generation of (proto-) Srananspeakers also left the country with the Englishmen, so that modern Sranan may be the result of twice broken transmission. Further factors contributing to the radicalness of Sranan could be the linguistic heterogeneity of the white popula­ tion (Van Lier 1971: 33; Arends 1995: 238, 262), and the extremely high mortality and low nativity, and thus rapid renewal of the slave population, which must have meant further trials of language transmission mechanisms. In the case of Sao Tomé, I am not sure what may have contributed to its radicalness, and I must also admit that the demographic material I have from

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this island is far less reliable than that of other creolophone territories. It is thus possible that the non-white population of Sao Tomé actually did grow more rapidly than my diagrams illustrate, and that Sao Tomé thus would differ less from other islands than it might appear. If not, it is possible that the emigration of the white population following the economic decline in the late 16th century (Garfield 1992: 123, 183), which left the island and its language largely to its own devices, contributed to further distancing Sao Tomense from its lexifier. When the Portuguese again took interest in the island after the introduction of coffee cultivation, they also seem to have been less devoted to schooling than the British or the French, which would have disfavoured decreolisation. The fact that St. Kitts deviates from the expected values is interesting. Both the demographic and linguistic data for this island are fairly detailed, and it is obvious that in comparison to the other creoles, that of St. Kitts has devel­ oped under somewhat different circumstances. The slave population never passed two thirds of the total during the 17th century, and it took more than a hundred years for the non-whites to make up more than 80% of all Kittitians. For the less basilectal Papiamentu and Negerhollands, this required less than half the time. This is particularly significant for reasons outlined in 5.1.1 below. The correlation between radicalness and the all-time-low (until the aboli­ tion of slavery) value of the white population is also visible. Indeed, territories where non-whites never became numerically dominant (such as Bermuda and Virginia) are also those where acrolectal speech habits prevail. The lowest ever number of whites in Guadeloupe, however, is about a fourth that of Jamaica, whose "deep" creole nevertheless is more basilectal. This, of course, raises the question of how long a period to take into consideration. To just mention one difficult case, Mufwene (1996: 109) comes to the conclusion that the black-towhite ratios of the founder population is what determines the degree of restructuring. It should be noted, though, that among the creoles he mentions (Barbadian English Creole vs. the rest of the Anglophone Caribbean, Réunion French Creole vs. Mauritian French Creole, Martinican French Creole vs. Haitian French Creole, Gullah English Creole vs. Jamaican English Creole, and AAVE vs. Jamaican English Creole), the less basilectal member of each pair has also had closer contact with its lexifier ever since its inception. 5.1.

Complicating factors

5.1.1. Diffusion One possible reason why there appears to be a lack of correspondence between the demographic and the linguistic data is that the creoles under investigation did not arise in the areas where they are presently spoken. I have myself (Parkvall 1994, 1995a, 1995c) suggested that French creóles spoken on the

194

MlKAEL PARKVALL

Lesser Antilles today may have derived from a French pidgin or creole once spoken in French St. Kitts, whereas Baker (1998) proposes — and convincingly argues in favour thereof— the same for English creoles in the Americas. For these reasons, I have chosen mostly territories whose speech varieties I believe are somewhat less likely to have been introduced from outside. Although for instance Jamaican and Haitian are in part derived from languages spoken on St. Kitts, we are not dealing with straightforward transplantation of the Kittitian creoles, as seems to be more or less the case with e.g. the Commonwealth Leewards or the French Antilles.11 It is not possible to get around this problem completely, though, but in order to examine the assumption that St. Kitts was the starting point for both French and English creoles in the Americas, I made the same calculations under the working hypothesis that every French or English colony at its founding received linguistic input from St. Kitts, which then continued to develop in each colony according to the demographic circumstances of the colony in question (Appendix 4). Interestingly, this yields quite bizarre results for the 20% and 50% points — creoles appear to have diverged less from their lexifiers the quicker these proportions were reached. Presumably, no creolist would recognise such a connexion. For the 80% level, however, the diagram looks more like the ones we've already seen. The French créoles, as well as most ECs show a clear correspondence between demographics and radicalness, whereas Bajan again diverges conspicuously. So does Kittitian itself, and the variety is once again more basilectal than the island's demography would lead us to expect. This could be taken to imply either that the time required to reach the 20% and 50% levels are less important than the time elapsed before 80% of the population is non-white (in other words, radical restructuring would not start before then), or that St. Kitts was not the springboard for English and French creoles in the Americas, or possibly even that demographic disproportion isn't relevant at all. If we use the same method, but assume (as does McWhorter 1995, 1997) Barbados as the diffusion point for English creoles in the Americas, we find that Sranan, Gullah and Jamaican show a correlation between demographics and "creoleness", but again, Bajan is too acrolectal, and Kittitian too basilectal (Appendix 4). Even if West Africa rather than Barbados or St. Kitts is the true starting point for English and/or French creoles (Hancock 1969, 1986; McWhorter 1997, 1999, 2000; Goodman 1964; Hull 1979; Parkvall 1994, 1995a, 1995b, 1999b), we are still confronted with the fact that the varieties have differentiated after transplantation to the Americas, and these differences must somehow be accounted for.

11) The latter are included because there no longer is a Kittitian FC to study.

DEMOGRAPHIC DISPROPORTION AND LANGUAGE RESTRUCTURING

195

Although there does seem to exist a correspondence between demo­ graphic disproportion and linguistic radicalness, the relatively low slave-towhite ratios on St. Kitts and Barbados constitute a problem. If American ECs did not arise in Africa, they must have done so on either St. Kitts or Barbados. The many similarities between Atlantic ECs in general, and between the Surinamese varieties — cut off from contact with the Anglophone Caribbean after the 1660s — and the others in particular, make it virtually inescapable that a basilectal EC existed by that time, and that it was subsequently diffused to other English colonies. Barbados had barely passed Event 1 (black-white demographic equilibrium; Baker and Corne 1982) in the 1660s, and St. Kitts didn't do so until at least a decade later. Nevertheless, an English-lexicon creole must have spread from one of these places (for further arguments, see McWhorter 1995; Baker 1998; Parkvall 1999a). A creole genesis in Surinam is theoretically possible, but again, Event 1 had only just occurred when the Dutch captured the colony, and also, we do not know how a Surinamese proto-creole would have been introduced in e.g. St. Kitts or the Carolinas, where creoles quite obviously related to Sranan are spoken. Basilectal registers are unlikely to have arisen in St. Kitts or Barbados in the 18th century or later since they would in such a case hardly have been transplanted to other Caribbean colonies, least of all Surinam. If we exclude polygenesis, the conclusion must be that the ancestor of today's ECs must either have been imported from Africa, or else have emerged in a setting where at least a third — and quite probably more — of the inhabitants were white. Hitherto, the assumption that such a scenario would lead to acquisition of the lexifier has been prevalent in creolistics (Arends 1995: 237 being one recent example)12. If Barbados and/or St. Kitts did indeed produce creole basilects, the role of motivation, as opposed to accessibility of the lexifier becomes preva­ lent. 5.1.2. The role of motivation As for the question of motivation vs. learning possibilities, it seems safe to say that motivation to fully acquire the superstrate must be somewhere between present and lacking, whereas the possibility to do so if motivated depends on whether this language is accessible or inaccessible. The combination of these 12) Arends suggests that the "old", "English" slaves in Surinam spoke L2 English rather than EC at the time of the Dutch take-over. This is apparently only based on demographic evidence. Since for instance conventionalised TMA-marking radically different from that of the alleged target language is a feature of expanded pidgins and creoles rather than of L2 varieties, this would then imply that slaves in Sranan, after the departure of virtually all native speakers of English, chose grammaticalisation paths in remarkably many regards not only similar, but even identical to those opted for in the Caribbean. I consider this highly unlikely.

196

MlKAEL PARKVALL

two traits, then, yields the following table of four logical possibilities (disre­ garding intermediate degrees of motivation or accessibility): Table 1: Possible conditions and outcomes of language restructuring

Motivation No motivation

Superstrate accessible No restructuring Not discussed (traditional) Not discussed (McWhorter 1999)

Superstrate not accessible Restructuring (traditional) Not discussed (McWhorter 1999) Restructuring (indisputable?)

This inevitably leads to a questioning of the parallels between restructuring and L2 acquisition (see e.g. Siegel 1999.). If motivation is more important a factor than limited access in pidgin and creole genesis, and especially if it is so dramatically more important as McWhorter (1999, 2000) suggests,13 creolists would have little benefit from studying L2 acquisition; successful creation rather than failed acquisition would be responsible for the outcome of the restructuring process in such a scenario. It seems difficult, though, to prove either view on purely language-inter­ nal grounds. Interestingly, however, distant as the FCs may seem to be from their lexifier, the French rules governing the pre- or postposing of adjectives have been taken over more or less in extenso in these languages, including the cases where both orders are possible, but yield different readings.14 The discrepancy between the thorough restructuring in other areas of grammar, and the inclusion of this particular idiosyncratic feature in the FCs might perhaps be taken to support the view that creation rather than failed L2 acquisition is the main factor behind language restructuring — if the slaves did grasp relatively redundant details of lexifier grammar such as this, how and why would they then fail so completely in acquiring more crucial parts of it? 5.1.3. Other relevant factors A number of other factors, both linguistic and extra-linguistic, have been suggested to be relevant for the degree of restructuring of plantation creoles. Some of these would include:

13) Note, though, that McWhorter does acknowledge the role of demographics so far as the preservation of an already existing creole is concerned. 14) This is the case of most Romance creoles in the Atlantic, though not of the Bight of Benin PCs.

DEMOGRAPHIC DISPROPORTION AND LANGUAGE RESTRUCTURING

• • • • • •

Degree of heterogeneity of the substrate languages Typological characteristics of the languages involved Transit shipping Proportion of children in the slave population Race mixing Shifting language of power

• • • • • • •

197

Individuals' attitudes and other micro-sociolinguistic factors Typological distance between substrates and lexifier Maroonage Slave mortality and annual rate of immigration Ratio of house slaves to field slaves Continued contact with the lexifier Educational opportunities

Due to lack of space and data, the specific conditions in each colony with regard to these factors cannot be discussed here. One of the few of these factors on which I do possess some reasonably detailed data is the proportion of children in some of the colonies. Contrary to popular belief, women were well represented among the slaves in most of these territories in the early years, and some even had a surplus of women (see e.g. Beckles 1990: 51; Ly 1955: 49, 51; Peytraud 1897: 137). Presumably as a result of this, the percentage of children was far from negligible. The 1678 census of English St. Kitts lists 26,9% of the slave population as children (Dunn 1972: 127). Other censuses from the same period constantly give percentages above 20% for most colonies (Ly 1955: 49, 51), with proportions well over 30% in e.g. Guadeloupe (Ly 1955: 49) and Barbados (Beckles 1990: 51). Lower nativity is found in societies more devoted to large-scale sugar monoculture such as Haiti (Singler 1994; Bickerton 1993) and the Guianas (Peytraud 1897: 137; Jennings 1995: 40; Arends 1995: 265). The role of children in language restructuring has been vividly debated in recent years; in Bickerton's (e.g. 1993) view, a high proportion of children produces a radical creole, whereas Singler (e.g. 1995: 220-1) has repeatedly claimed that the very opposite is true. Whatever the causal relationship, there does indeed seem to be a statistical correlation between radical creoles and low reproduction rates (Surinam, Haiti) on the one hand, and less radical ones and a (by plantation society standards) high rate of natural increase (Barbados, Louisiana) on the other. My own suspicion is that the number of children itself does not directly affect the degree of restructuring more than marginally, but rather that high mortality (and thus, in a slave society, importation of new pidginisers) and low nativity correlate by both being products of particularly high levels of exploitation of the enslaved labour force.

6.

Conclusion

As we have seen, there is indeed a correlation — whether causal or not — between the degree of restructuring and the demographic ratios in the formative period. This may cast some doubt on the more extreme versions of the creativist

198

MIKAEL P A R K V A L L

hypothesis insofar as it seems intuitively clear why a high slave-to-white ratio would hinder access to the lexifier, whereas it is not equally clear why the same ratio would affect the motivation to acquire the lexifier. Presumably, a defender of a strong version of the motivation approach might argue that a low slave-towhite ratio would foster a cultural identity closer to European values, and thus indirectly contribute to creating a less basilectal creole. Also, it must be remembered that McWhorter (1999, 2000) recognises demographic ratios in the preservation of basilectal registers. An important question, then, is whether originally equally basilectal speech varieties in each colony, after accommoda­ tion to local demographic circumstances would yield the creoles as we know them today. The examples of St. Kitts and Barbados (5.1.1) show, however, that demographics certainly isn't everything, and another interesting case is the Dominican Republic. In the Spanish dialect spoken there, one can still identify creole-like residues (Green 1997), but not by far to the extent suggested by the country's early demography. The first population data giving the relative numbers of whites and Africans that there are for what is today the Dominican Republic are from the 1520s (Bell 1981: 21), i.e. about 20-25 years after the introduction of African slaves. They indicate, as do those from the following decades (Green 1997; Pons 1980: 34; Watts 1987: 123; Bartens 1996: 56; Thomas 1997: 100) a proportion of Africans already above or in the vicinity of the 80% level. In 1606, slaves even made up 90% of the total, and this percent­ age may well have been higher in rural sugar-producing areas along the south­ ern coast. Interestingly, this amazingly quick growth of the slave population — in a country where no creole has ever been attested — is paralleled in my data only by Sranan, home to the most basilectal Atlantic creoles known. This clearly shows that drawing conclusions regarding the degree of restructuring in a given language at a given time from only demographic evidence, as some have done, is risky. Similarly, although Brazil is also a country where both the quantity and quality of early demographic data are exceptionally disappointing, it is clear that whites did not make up a majority of the population during the first few centuries after colonisation (Mello 1996). But just as is the case with the Dominican Republic, a Portuguese-based creole has never been found in Brazil. If population ratios unfavourable to complete lexifier acquisition are believed to have created creoles in the British and French Caribbean, it would seem odd if things worked differently in Iberian colonies. The proportion of blacks in both Brazil and the Dominican Republic have since decreased, how­ ever, which offers the possibility that decreolisation has swept away all traces of former creoles. It should be noted, though, that there are so many highly isolated communities in several parts of Ibero-America, that it is somewhat puzzling that creole-like traits are not more conspicuous than they are, if creoles were indeed once spoken. Note also that despite decreoUsation, creoles can still easily be identified in similar areas such as Louisiana and the Carolinas.

DEMOGRAPHIC DISPROPORTION AND LANGUAGE RESTRUCTURING

199

Of the several alternative explanations of the observed phenomena that have been discussed, I myself am inclined to agree with a somewhat more moderate version of McWhorter's hypothesis, in that I believe that demographic disproportion can contribute to the formation of a pidgin or creole, but that restructuring can also take place even in a setting with a strong presence of speakers of the lexifier language. There are thus obviously other factors that affect the degree of restruc­ turing as well, but sorting out the most easily quantifiable of these — the blackto-white ratios — as one of them might help us understand which the other relevant ones are. Although that possibility has not been examined here, language-internal factors may be relevant too. Siegel (1999) provides a nice overview of this and related issues. Sometimes the data can be surprising, though. It is for instance usually assumed that transfer is most likely to occur when there is a category match between the substrates and the lexifier. However, to take a simple exam­ ple, Koriki Trade Motu verbs are not marked for transitivity, despite this being the case in both its two input languages, whereas Melanesian Pidgin English, whose lexifier lacks a transitive marker does have a transitive suffix. Although cases like this have not been discussed in this paper, it is my hope that a better understanding of the socio-historical circumstances will give us a better position to deal with other forces that determine the outcome of restructuring processes. Appendix la: The linguistic features considered 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Indefinite article derived from the numeral 'one' Simple preverbal sentence negator (before main verb) A verb of possession used to assert existence ('it has' = 'there is') No or optional number marking on nouns Verb fronting with "highlighter" copula and verb copy at extraction site {it is run I am running) 6. Bimorphemic interrogatives (what place 'where', what person 'who', etc.) 7. Body or body part reflexives {he killed his body) 8. No gender distinction of the 3sg. pronoun 9. Personal pronouns derived from superstratal oblique forms 10. Conjunction meaning 'and' derived from 'with' 11. Zero-marked relative clauses not permitted in the lexifier 12. Word order not inverted in interrogative clauses 13. Juxtaposition of nominal possessor and possessum {Peter book ~ book Peter) 14. A PP (other than that of the lexifier) is used to express the (absolute) possessive {book for Peter) 15. An NP is used to express the (absolute) possessive {my part) 16. Instrumental serialisation using 'take' {she took the knife cut the meat) 17. Benefactive serialisation using 'give' {open the door give me)

200

MIKAEL PARKVALL

18. Comparative serialisation using '(sur)pass' (he tall pass me) 19. Discontinuous sentence negator 20. A verb meaning 'say' or 'talk' is used as a complementiser 21. Zero complementiser (where one would be required in the lexifier) 22. Unbound pluraliser not derived from the main plural morpheme of the lexifier 23. The pluraliser also encodes a certain idea of definiteness (indefinite NPs are not overtly marked for number) 24. Nominal pluraliser derived from the 3pl. pronoun 25. TMA indicated with free, preposed morphemes 26. The unmarked dynamic verb marks a completed action or process 27. A combination of past and irrealis/fiiture morphemes other than that of the lexifier expresses the conditional 28. Completive marker derived from 'ready', 'finished', 'done', 'already', etc. 29. Reduplicated verbs used as participles/adjectives 30. Numerals juxtaposed in distributive constructions (they came three-three 'In groups of three', I gave them three-three 'Three each') 31. Nominal gender indicated by compounding (child man 'son', child woman 'daughter', etc.) 32. Zero equative copula 33. Locative copula not recruited from the lexifier 34. The definite article is postposed to its head noun 35. Lexifier definite article not retained, and a new definite article is derived from a lexifier demonstrative 36. Zero determiner marks non-specific NPs 37. Complex syllable onsets not allowed 38. Non-nasal codas not allowed 39. Diachronic variation or merger of/v/ and /b/ 40. Diachronic variation or merger of/r/ and /1/ 41. Prenasalised and coarticulated stops 42. Tones 43. Depalatalisation of palatoalveolar fricatives (f,3 > s, z) 44. Slight palatalisation of stops (to palatalised stops) 45. Full palatalisation of stops (to palatal stops or affricates)

DEMOGRAPHIC DISPROPORTION AND LANGUAGE RESTRUCTURING

201

Appendix lb: Results of the linguistic comparison Barbados 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45.

†+ +

t + _

t

+ 0 + + _ _ _ _ -

o

+ 19 0 +

t?

+ 0 + 0 0 + ~ 0 †? + 0 _ 0 + -

Sranan + + Î + + + + + +

t

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 0

?

Jamaica + + + ~ + + _ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

t?

+ +

+ + 0

† 0

+ +

î + -

S t Kitts 1 Gullah + + + + ~ + + ~ 16 _ _ ~ + + + -

+ ~

t

+ + + + + -

t

+ + + + + + + + + + + + ~ + + + 0 ~ + _2

17

+ + +? + + + + + + + + + + + ~ +

f

+ ': + + + 0 + +

AAVE - 15  _ + ~ _

~t ~ + _ ~ ~ + † †

† ~ + + + + + + Î? + 0

- 21 ~ +

-

Bermttdi~| 0



_ ~ _ -



+ -

~18

0 0 0

-

- 20 ~ 0 + 0 0 _ 0 _:

15) I do not have enough data to judge whether or not it might be justified to analyse ain't and don't as single morphemes. 16) Rare (Mufwene, p.c.). 17) Conforms to non-standard English vernaculars and 17th century English in this respect (Mufwene, p.c.). 18) One of my Bermudan informants has heard this being used, but is not sure about how widespread it is. 19) /dem/ only preposed. 20) Among the forms suggested by me, one of my Bermudan informants recognised the use of preverbal been, but its role seems to be marginal. 21) Controversial. Sutcliffe (1998), for instance, argues that AAVE is a tone language.

202

MlKAEL PARKVALL

Appendix lb, continued Louisiana

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17/ 18.

n/a Î +

1.9.

20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45.

Haiti

n/a + +

Guadeloupe

Martinique

n/a + +

n/a + +

Guiana

n/a + +

-

-

-

-

-

+ +

+ + + + + + + + +

+ + + + + + + +

+ + + + + + + + +

+ + + + + + 0 + +

+ + + + +

~

Mauritius

n/a + +

t

+ + + + + + 0 + + +

-

-

+

+ + + +

+ + + +

-

-

~

+ +

+ + + + + + + +

+ + +

0 + + +

-

-

+ + + +

+ + + +

+

-

-

-

-

-

0 +

0 +

+

~

~

+ + + 0

+ + + 0

-

-

-

n/a n/a

n/a n/a

n/a n/a

+ +

-

~ + + + + +

+

~ + + + Î

-

t n/a n/a

+ + + + + + +

n/a n/a

+ + + + + 0

-

~t

+ + +

-

+ + + +

+ + + + + + +

~ +

+ + + +

~ + + + + +

+ n/a n/a

St. Thomas

n/a

n/a n/a

. +

~ ~ n/a

~ ~ + +

V

-

DEMOGRAPHIC DISPROPORTION AND LANGUAGE RESTRUCTURING

203

Appendix lb, continued Sao Tomé

Cape Verde

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38.

Brazil

Negerhollands

n/a n/a +

n/a n/a +

n/a n/a +

n/a + +

-

~

~

+ + +

-

+ + +

~ -

_ ~23

-

-

+

~ + + 0 +

-

0 +

~ + + + 0

-

+ +

+ + + +

~ +

+ + + +

†28

+ +? + + + 28

†

+

-

+ + +29

~

+

0

_

_24

-

0

~

o27 ~ -

0 + + +

_ ~30

_30

_ -

0

+

0

-

+

+

-

JO

Papiamentu

+ + +

n/a n/a + + + + + + + +

~

-

+ +

-

Dominican Rep.

n/a n/a

-

0

-

0 0

-

-

+ 0 + + 0 0

_ _23

_

+

_25

-

-

+ + + + + -? + + 0 0 +

+ +

+ + +

-,22 _ _

~ +

_

+

-

+ +

~ +

~ -

+ +

-

+ +

_

+ 0

+ +

-

_-

z

+ 26

-

0

~ +

~ _ 0

-

22) The examples I have seen can be interpreted either as dative  benefactive. 23) For emphasis only. 24) This is a somewhat rare option in European Portuguese, but is far more common in Brazil. Also, only Brazilian can use postverbal NEG only. 25) Apparently not very common. Perhaps a late loan from EC. 26) Not normally used with indefinite NPs, but this is possible (Janson 1984: 307). 27) Holm (1987: 418) suggests this formerly existed. 28) In Annobonese (Bakker, Post and van der Voort 1995: 252). Modem São Tómense uses the imperfective morpheme only. 29) Attested in Principense. 30) Not fully grammaticalised as a DEF.

204

MIKAEL PARKVALL

Cape Verde

39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45.

+ +

_ + +

Säo Tomé

+ + + + +

-

+

31 ~ ~ 31

Brazil

Negerhollands

~ +

~ -

-

+

_33

~32

-

+ 0

+

Papiamentu

n/a

-

+ +

Dominican Rep.

n/a + +

-

n/a

-

31) This does occur in European Portuguese, but seems to be more common in Brazil. 32) Stolz (1986: 76) and Sabino (p.c.) suggest that Negerhollands formerly had prenasalised stops. 33) Attested (e.g. Mendonça 1933: 62-3; Bartens 1996: 112), but apparently not very

Sranan São Tomé St. Kitts Jamaica Haiti Gullah Negerholl. 36 Fr. Guiana Guadeloupe Louisiana Martinique Mauritius Papiamentu 40 Cape Verde Barbados Virginia42 Dom. Rep.

Variety

Non-white population exceeds 20% 1652 1493? 1650? 1657 1635 1672 1668 1665 1652 1711 1636 1722 1652 1515? 1643 1712 ?

First documented slave imports "event 0"

1651 1485 1626 1655 1634 1670 1665 1664 1640 1708 1635 1721 1634 1462 1627 1619 1502 1 8 24 2 1 2 3 1 12 3 1 1 18 53 16 93 ?

interval

never ?

43

Non-white pop. exceeds 50% "event" 1 1662 1499? 1680 1670 1698 1708 1675 1668 1667 1726 1655 1730 1657 1525? 1657 11 14 54 15 64 38 10 4 27 18 20 9 23 63 30 n/a n/a

interval (from Event 0) Non-white population exceeds 80% (bioprogram kicks in?) 1672"" 1546? 1729 1690? 1710 never 1710 1697" 172538 never39 1733  1750 1685 1540? 1705 41 never 1520s 21 61 103 35 76 n/a 45 33 85 n/a 98 29 51 78 78 n/a ca. 20

interval (from Event 0)

34) If known, otherwise start of permanent colonisation. Note that here, as well as elsewhere in this paper, "slaves" does not necessarily imply slaves of African origin. 35) Proportion of non-whites then fell again, and has been permanently above 80% only since 1684. 36) For Negerhollands, the demographic data used refer to St. Thomas only. 37) The non-white population had hovered around 80% since about 1670. 38) The non-white population did not exceed 17%) until 1759. 39) The non-white population reached an all-high low of 77,9% in 1741. 40) For Papiamentu, the demographic data used refer to Curaçao only. 41) The non-white population did not exceed 83%) until about 1820. 42) I have chosen Virginia as the geographical correlate of AAVE. 43) Proportion of non-whites peaked at 43,9%) in 1750, and thereafter remained stable at around 40%o until 1850.

68 63 51 48 48 42 41 41 41 39 38 35 35 23 20 16 -5

Score

Appendix 2: Basic demographic data

DEMOGRAPHIC DISPROPORTION AND LANGUAGE RESTRUCTURING 205

Brazil Bermuda St. Thomas44 Fr. St. Kitts Average

Variety

?

1549 1612 1660 1626 1618 1671 1626

Non-white population exceeds 20%

First documented slave imports34 "eventO"

13

? 6 11

interval

Non-white pop. exceeds 50% "event" 1 ? never 1787 1668

44) Demographic data refer to St. Barthélemy,fromwhence FC was imported to St. Thomas.

-5 -23 -24 n/a 30

Score

n/a n/a 127 42 33

interval (from Event 0)

Non-white population exceeds 80% (bioprogram kicks in?) never never never 1710 n/a n/a n/a 84 60

interval (from Event 0)

206 MIKAEL PARKVALL

MlKAEL PARKVAL

207

Appendix 3: Linguistic radicalness as a function of the time before the non-white population reached 20%, 50% and 80% respectively in various colonies Radicalness as a function of time elapsed until non-white population reached 20% of the total

Number of years

Radicalness as a function of time elapsed until non-white population reached 50% of the total

Radicalness as a function of time elapsed until nonwhite population reached 80% of the total

208

MlKAEL PARKVAL

Appendix 4: Two alternative

approaches

Radicalness as a function of time elapsed until non-white population reached 80% of the total, assuming spread from

St. Kitts

Radicalness as a function of time elapsed until non-white population reached 80% of the total, assuming spread from Barbados

These graphs assume that whatever was spoken in Barbados or St. Kitts when these reached the 80% level was diffused to the other English and French colonies in the Americas unless these had reached this level earlier.

References Abénon, Lucien. 1973. "Blancs et Libres de Couleur dans deux paroisses de la Guadeloupe (Capesterre et Trois-Rivières), 1699-1779". Revue Française d'Histoire d'Outre-Mer 60 (220): 297-329. Adam, Lucien. 1883. Les idiomes négro-aryen et maléo-aryen: Essai d'hybridologie linguistique. Paris: Maisonneuve. Alleyne, Mervyn. 1980. Comparative Afro-American: An Historical Study of English-based Dialects of the New World. Ann Arbor: Karoma.

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Arends, Jacques. 1995. "Demographic factors in the formation of Sranan". In Jacques Arends, ed. 1995,233-85. —, ed. 1995. The Early Stages of Creolization. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. Baker, Philip. 1990. "Off target". JPCL 5: 107-19. —. 1995. "Motivation in creole genesis". In Philip Baker, ed. 1995, 3-15. —. 1999. "Investigating the origin and diffusion of shared features among the Atlantic English Creoles". In Philip Baker and Adrienne Bruyn, eds., 315-64. — and Chris Corne. 1982. Isle de France Creoles: Affinities and Origins. Ann Arbor: Karoma Publishers. —, ed. 1995. From Contact to Creole and Beyond. London: University of Westminster Press. — and Adrienne Bruyn, eds. 1999. St. Kitts and the Atlantic Creoles. London: Westminster University Press. Bakker Peter, Marike Post and Hein van der Voort. 1995. "TMA particles and auxiliaries". In Jacques Arends, Pieter Muysken and Norval Smith, eds. Pidgins and Creoles. An Introduction. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins, 247-58. Battens, Angela. 1996. Der kreolische Raum. Geschichte und Gegenwart. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia. Beckles, Hillary. 1990. A History of Barbados from Amerindian Settlement to Nation-state. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bell, Ian. 1981. The Dominican Republic. Boulder: Westview Press. Bender, Lionel. 1987. "Some possible African creoles: A pilot study". In Glenn Gilbert, ed. 1987, 37-60. Bickerton, Derek. 1981. Roots of Language. New York: Karoma Publishers. —. 1984. "The language bioprogram hypothesis". The Behavioral and Brain Sciences 7: 17388. —. 1993. "How new evidence from Hawaii and Surinam supports the bioprogram". Paper presented at the SPCL meeting, Amsterdam, June 10-12 1993. Boretzky, Norbert. 1983. Kreolsprachen, Substrate und Sprachwandel. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. Bridenbaugh, Carl and Roberta Bridenbaugh. 1972. No Peace Beyond the Line. The English Caribbean 1624-1690. New York: Oxford University Press. Calvet, Louis-Jean and Robert Chaudenson. 1998. Saint-Barthélemy: Une énigme linguistique. Paris: Cirelfa - Agence de la Francophonie. Cassidy, Frederic. 1986. "Barbadian Creole: Possibility and probability". American Speech 61 (3):195-205. Chaudenson, Robert. 1992. Des îles, des hommes, des langues. Essai sur la créolisation linguistique et culturelle. Paris: l'Harmattan, du Tertre. 1667-1671. Histoire générale des Antilles habitées par les françoys. (3 vols.). Paris: Jully. Dunn, Richard. 1972. Sugar and Slaves. The Rise of the Planter Class in the English West Indies 1624-1713. London: Jonathan Cape. Ericsson, Christina and Sofia Gustafson-Capková. 1997. "Stavelsestrukturer i atlantiska kreolspråk". Unpublished Ms, Stockholms Universitet.

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Fields, Linda. 1995. "Early Bajan: Creole or non-creole?" In Jacques Arends, ed. 1995, 89111. Garfield, Robert. 1992. A History of Sao Tomé Island, 1470-1655. The Key to Guinea. San Fransisco: Mellen Research University Press. Geggus, David. 1991. "The Haitian Revolution". In Hillary Beckles and Verene Shepherd, eds. Caribbean Slave Society and Economy. New York: The New Press, 402-18. Gilbert, Glenn and Dennis Makhudu. 1987. "Le continuum créole en "Afrikaans": une perspective non-eurocentrique". Etudes Créoles 10 (2): 15-24. —, ed. 1987. Pidgin and Creole Languages: Essays in Memory of John E. Reinecke. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Goodman, Morris. 1964. A Comparative Study of Creole French Dialects. The Hague: Mouton. —. 1985. Review of Bickerton 1981. International Journal of American Linguistics 51: 10937. Green, Katherine. 1997. "Non-standard Dominican Spanish: Evidence of partial restructur­ ing". Ph. D. dissertation, City University of New York. Hall, Gwendolyn Midlo. 1992. Africans in Colonial Louisiana. The Development of AfroCreole Culture in the 18th Century. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. Hancock, Ian. 1969. "A provisional comparison of the English-based Atlantic Creoles". African Language Review: 7-72. —. 1980. "Gullah and Barbadian: Origins and relationships". American Speech 55: 17-35. —. 1986. "The domestic hypothesis, diffusion and complementiality. An account of Atlantic Anglophone Creole origins". In Pieter Muysken and Norval Smith, eds. Substrata Versus Universals in Creole Genesis. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins, 71-102 —. 1987. "A preliminary classification of the Anglophone Atlantic Creoles, with syntactic data from thirty-three representative dialects". In Glenn Gilbert, ed. 1987, 264-333. Hanotaux, Gabriel and Alfred Martineau. 1929. Histoire des colonies françaises et de l'expansion de la France dans le monde 1: l'Amérique. Paris: Société de l'Histoire/ Librairie Pion. Hayot, Emile. 1969. "Les gens de couleur libres du Fort-Royal 1679-1823". Revue Française d'Histoire d'Outre-Mer 56 (205): 5-163. Hearn, Lafcadio. 1890 [1923]. Two Years in the French West Indies. New York, London: Harper and Brothers Publishers. Hesseling, Dirk Christiaan. 1979. On the Origin and Formation of Creoles: A Miscellany of Articles. Ann Arbor: Karoma. Holm, John. 1987. "Creole influence on Popular Brazilian Portuguese". In Glenn Gilbert, ed. 1987,406-29. —. 1988. Pidgins and Creoles, vol. 1: Theory and Structure. Cambridge: Cambridge Univer­ sity Press. —. 1992. "Popular Brazilian Portuguese: A semi-creole". In Ernesto d'Andrade and Alain Kihm, eds. Actas do coloquio sobre crioulos de base lexical portuguesa. Lisbon: Ediçoes Colibri, 37-66.

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Hull, Alexander. 1979. "On the origin and chronology of the French-based creoles". In Ian Hancock, Edgar Polomé, Morris Goodman and Bernd Heine, eds. Readings in Creole Studies. Ghent: Story-Scientia, 201-15. Janson, Tore. 1984. "Articles and plural formation in creoles: Change and universals". Lingua 64: 291-323. Jennings, William. 1995. "The first generation of a Creole society: Cayenne 1660-1700". In Philip Baker, ed. 1995, 21-40. Klein, Herbert S. 1986. African Slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean. New York: Oxford University Press. Lobban, Richard A. 1995. Cape Verde. Crioulo Colony to Independent Nation. Boulder: Westview Press. Ly, Abdoulaye. 1955. L'évolution du commerce français d'Afrique Noire dans le dernier quart du XVIIe siècle. La compagnie du Sénégal 1673 à 1696. Bordeaux: Thèse pour le Doctorat des Lettres, Université de Bordeaux. Mam-Lam-Fouck, Serge. 1982. La Guyane Française de la colonisation à la départementalisation — La formation de la société créole guyanaise. Fort-de-France: Désormeaux. Markey, Thomas. 1982. "Afrikaans: Creole or non-creole?" Zeitschrift für Dialektologie und Linguistik 49: 169-207. McWhorter, John. 1995. "Sisters under the skin: A case for genetic relationship betwen the Atlantic English-based Creoles". Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 10: 289333. —. 1997. "It happened at Cormantin: Locating the origin of the Atlantic English-based Creoles". Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 12: 1-44. —. 1998. "Identifying the Creole Prototype: vindicating a typological class". Language 74: 788-818. —. 1999. "The Afrogenesis hypothesis of Plantation Creole origin". In Magnus Huber and Mikael Parkvall, eds. Spreading the Word: The Issue of Diffusion among the Atlantic Creoles. London: Westminster University Press, 111-52. —. 2000. The Missing Spanish Creoles: Recovering the Birth of Plantation Contact Languages. Berkeley: University of California Press. — and Mikael Parkvall. 1999. "Pas tout à fait du français: Une étude créole". Paper presented at the 9ième Colloque des Études Créoles, Aix-en-Provence, June 1999. Megenney, William W. 1993. "Elementos criollo-portugueses en el español dominicano". Montalban 25: 149-71. Mello, Heliana Ribeiro de. 1996. "The genesis and development of Brazilian Vernacular Portuguese". Ph. D. dissertation, City University of New York. Mendonça, Renato. 1933 [1973]. A influencia africana no portugués do Brasil. 4th ed. Rio de Janeiro: Civilizacäo Brasileira. Michel, Jacques. 1989. La Guyane sous l'ancien régime. Le désastre de Kourou et ses scandaleuses suites judiciaires. Paris: l'Harmattan. Mufwene, Salikoko. 1996. "The founder principle in creole genesis". Diachronica 13: 83134.

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Muysken, Pieter. 1981. "Creole Tense/Mood/Aspect systems: The unmarked case?". In Pieter Muysken, ed. Generative Studies on Creole Languages. Dordrecht: Foris, 181-99. Mühlhäusler, Peter. 1997. Pidgin and Creole Linguistics. 2nd ed. London: University of Westminster Press. Parkvall, Mikael. 1994. "On the input components of French Creole genesis". Paper presented at the 10th Biennal Conference of the Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics and the Society for Caribbean Linguistics, University of Georgetown, Guyana, August 24-27, 1994. —. 1995a. "A dual approach to French Creole genesis". Unpublished ms., Stockholms Universitet. —. 1995b. "Is Afrogenesis possible in the case of French Creoles?" Paper presented at the 2nd Westminster Creolistics Workshop, London, April 1995. —. 1995c. "The role of St. Kitts in a new scenario of French Creole genesis". In Philip Baker, ed. 1995,41-62. —. 1999a. "A note on the peopling of English St. Kitts". In Philip Baker and Adrienne Bruyn, eds. 1998,63-74. —. 1999b. "On the possibility of Afrogenesis in the case of French Creoles". In John R. Rickford and Suzanne Romaine, eds. Creole Genesis, Attitudes and Discourse: Studies Celebrating Charlene J. Sato. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins, 187-213. Peytraud, Lucien. 1897. L'esclavage aux Antilles françaises avant 1789. Paris. Pons, Frank Moya. 1980. Manual de historia dominicana. Santiago: Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra. Rickford, John. 1992. "The creole residue of Barbados". In Joan Hall, Nick Doane and Dick Ringler, eds. Old English and New: Essays in Language and Linguistics in Honor of Frederic G. Cassidy. New York: Garland, 183-201. — and Jerome Handler. 1994. "Textual evidence on the nature of early Barbadian speech, 1676-1835". JPCL 9: 221-55. Rochefort, César de. 1658. Histoire naturelle et morale des îles Antilles de l'Amérique. Rotterdam: Arnout Leers. Roy, John. 1986. "The structure of tense and aspect in Barbadian English Creole". In John Holm and Manfred Görlach, eds. Focus on the Caribbean. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins, 141-56. Schneider, Edgar. 1990. "The cline of creoleness in English-oriented creoles and semi-creoles of the Caribbean". English World-Wide 11: 79-113. Schwartz, Stuart B. 1985. Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian Society. Bahia, 1550-1835. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sheridan, Richard B. 1974. Sugar and Slavery. An Economic History of the British West Indies, 1623-1775. Lodge Hill: University of the West Indies. Siegel, Jeff. 1999. "Transfer constraints and substrate influence in Melanesian Pidgin". JPCL 14:1-44. Singler, John. 1994. "Creole genesis in the French Caribbean". Paper presented at the Relexification Workshop, Massachusets Institute of Technology, Boston 10 January 1994. —. 1995. "The demographics of Creole genesis". In Jacques Arends, ed. 1995, 203-32.

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Solow, Barbara. 1988. "The transition to plantation slavery: The case of the British West Indies". In Serge Daget, ed. De la traite à l'esclavage. Actes du colloque international sur la traite des noirs, Nantes 1985. Tomé 1: 5e-18e siècles. Nantes, Paris: Centre des recherches sur l'histoire du monde atlantique and Société française d'histoire d'outre­ mer, 89-110. Stein, Robert Louis. 1988. The French Sugar Business in the 18th Century. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. Stolz, Thomas. 1986. Gibt es das kreolische Sprachwandelmodell? Frankfurt: Peter Lang. — and Peter Stein. 1986. "Language and history in the former Danish Antilles: Nonlinguistic evidence for a diachronic description of the Negro-Dutch language". Amsterdam Creole Studies 9: 1-20. Storm van s'Gravesande, Laurens. 1911. The Rise of British Guiana. London: The Hakluyt Society. Sutcliffe, David. 1998. "African American Vernacular English: Origins and issues". Ph. D. dissertation, University of Reading. Taylor, Douglas. 1971. "Grammatical and lexical affinities of creoles". In Dell Hymes, ed. Pidginization and Creolization of Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 293-96. —. 1977. Languages of the West Indies. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press. Thomas, Hugh. 1997. The Slave Trade. London: Picador. Thornton, John. 1992. Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World 1400-1680. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Usner, Daniel H, Jr. 1992. Indians, Settlers and Slaves in a Frontier Exchange Economy. The Lower Mississippi Valley before 1783. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Van Lier, R. A. J. 1971. Frontier Society. A Social Analysis of the History of Surinam. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. Van Name, Addison. 1869-70. "Contributions to creole grammar". Transactions of the American Philological Association 1: 123-67. Watts, David. 1987. The West Indies: Patterns of Development, Culture and Environmental Change Since 1492. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Whinnom, Keith. 1965. "The origin of the European-based creoles and pidgins". Orbis 14: 509-27. Wimpffen. 1797. Voyage à Saint-Domingue pendant les années 1788, 1789 et 1790. Paris: Cocheris. Mikael Parkvall Institutionen for lingvistik Stockholms Universitet SE-10691 Stockholm Sweden [email protected]

"Intermediate" creoles and degrees of change in creole formation: The case of Bajan

Donald Winford Ohio State University

1.

Introduction

The label "creole" has been applied to a surprisingly wide variety of contact vernaculars, and there is still much controversy over its scope of reference. Even languages which have been generally accepted as belonging to this cate­ gory differ significantly in their structure. This has led to increased preoccupa­ tion with questions concerning the classification of creoles in relation to other outcomes of contact, and the distinctions among creoles themselves. The two issues are in fact closely related. The question of so-called "degrees of creolization" is simply one version of the broader question of the place of creoles in a typology of contact languages. I will argue in this paper that creole formation bears varying degrees of similarity to cases of shift-induced change involving substratum influence. Distinctions among creoles, and between creoles and the more usual outcomes of shift, have to do primarily with the degree of substratum influence involved in their formation, as well as the extent of certain universal processes of change such as morphological simplification in the outcome. The class of creoles includes "radical" outcomes such as Sranan and Haitian creole, the "basilectal" varieties of Guyanese, Jamaican and other Caribbean creoles, and "intermediate" creoles like Barbadian, urban Guyanese, Trinidadian, Réunionnais, and so on. As is well known, all of these creoles can be placed on a cline reflecting varying degrees of distance from their lexifier languages, and closeness to their substrates (cf. Parkvall, this volume). As Alleyne (1980: 181) puts it, We can conclude that the Afro-American dialects can be plotted on a scale representing different degrees of transmission of West African elements, and differentials in degrees of transmission that are to be explained by differences in sociolinguistic circumstances encountered in each area.

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In other words, we can place creoles of different types along a continuum of outcomes, ranging from relatively close approximations to an L2 (classic cases of shift) to radical creoles. 1.1.

A continuum of outcomes involving degrees of shift and  retention

SlightL1retention

Moderate

ExtremeL1retention

Advanced interlanguage

"Indigenized" varieties

Intermediate creoles

Basilectal CEC

Radical creoles

Near-native TL use

Hiberno Eng. AAVE

Barbadian Creole Réunionnais

Rural GC, JC Belize Creole

Sranan Haitian Creole

What this suggests is that some cases of "creole" formation — those on the left of the continuum — are quite similar to classic cases of shift. However, radical creoles like Sranan can hardly be viewed as the result of shift in the traditional sense of untutored acquisition of a TL. (See Winford 1998a for further discus­ sion.) Still, there are certain parallels between the initial stages of SLA and radical creole formation. In both cases, the starting point of acquisition/ creation is the learners' L1. Both situations are characterized by heavy reliance on L1 strategies (L1 retention, traditionally referred to as "transfer") as well as other universal strategies of learning and accomodation, for instance morphological simplification, leading to the emergence of a "basic variety" of the L2. The major difference is that, as it progresses, SLA involves replacement of L1-based strategies (and others) by those adopted from the TL. By contrast, radical creole formation continues to draw on the resources of the substrate languages to build the grammar of the emerging creole, restricting input from the superstrate mostly to lexical forms. The cover term generally used to describe all the mechanisms or strate­ gies involved in creole formation is "restructuring". It's not clear, however, that this term always refers to the same processes of change from one case of creole formation to another, and there is need for clarification of its intended meaning. There is a widespread tendency to view creoles as the result of "restructuring" of their superstrates, in the same way that advanced second language varieties of a TL can be seen as "restructured" varieties of that TL. Hence the tendency to equate "degrees of restructuring" with "degrees of creolization". This approach is problematic. In the first place, the notion of "restructuring" implies that the creators of creoles began with a particular variety (the superstrate), which they then modified in certain ways. The notion, then, is potentially misleading with respect to the process of learning and adaptation which went into creole forma­ tion. If we use the term "restructuring" as a convenient way of referring to the changes which we can observe in the outcome of contact-induced change as compared with the original superstratal input (to the extent that this can be

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identified as a single variety), then perhaps there is some merit in this use. But there is an even greater problem with the notion of "degrees" of restructuring. This implies that creoles can be distinguished in terms of different degrees of the same kinds of modifications of an original superstratal input. When we examine actual cases of creole formation, however, we find that what really distinguishes them is different degrees of substratal input. This input ranges from relatively moderate in the case of outcomes such as Bajan, to relatively substantial in the case of rural GC or JC, to extreme in the case of "radical" creoles such as Sranan, Saramaccan, Ndjuka, Haitian Creole etc. Given the extreme substratal retention that characterizes such creoles, it seems quite inappropriate to regard them as "restructured" versions of English, French, etc. If anything, Sranan, for example, is more like a restructured version of Gbe (Bruyn 1994; Migge 1998; Winford fc). There is therefore a difference in kind, not degree, between "radical" creoles and the "intermediate" varieties. I would argue, in fact, that the so-called "intermediate" creoles share much with, or are indeed themselves, cases of shift, that is, untutored SLA, and there is a sense in which they might be regarded as restructured versions of English, French, etc. (given the caveat mentioned above). In the rest of this paper, I will focus my attention on the earliest-formed "intermediate" creole of the Caribbean, Bajan (Barbadian creole), which was the parent of other inter­ mediate varieties such as urban GC and Trinidadian (TC), and provided input to the formation of other Eastern Caribbean English-lexicon vernaculars in islands such as Grenada and St. Lucia (LePage and Tabouret-Keller 1985: 79). I will discuss the circumstances of the origin of Bajan, both the sociohistorical context and the linguistic inputs involved. In particular, I will consider the sources and development of the Bajan tense/ aspect system and try to account for the kinds of "restructuring" (i.e. contact-induced change) that produced it. The findings presented here will be relevant to certain key questions concerning the nature of creole genesis and relationships, for instance: • •

1.2.

The differences in the inputs and types of adaptation that led to the forma­ tion of "intermediate" as opposed to "radical" creoles. The validity of notions like "decreolization" as an explanation of interme­ diate creole origins, and the wider issue of the relationship between socalled "mesolectal" and "basilectal" varieties. The issue of what is meant by "creole" and "creolization", as well as associated notions like "semi-creolization" and "differential creolization". On the origins of intermediate creoles

Most discussions of creole genesis have centered around "radical" creoles like Sranan, HC, etc., or "basilectal" creoles like Guyanese and Jamaican. Little attention has been paid to the less radical or intermediate varieties, which have been seen traditionally either as secondary developments of their more radical counterparts, or as less interesting elements in a continuum of outcomes that

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included the latter. There are in fact two conflicting views of the origins of intermediate creoles that still persist in the literature. One — the older tradi­ tional view — sees them as the result of "decreolization" of more radical ("basilectal") creoles under pressure from superordinate varieties of the lexifier language, the so-called "acrolect" (Bickerton 1980; Rickford 1987). Another view is that they are in fact chronologically prior to "basilectal" varieties, and provided the primary input for the more radical creole formation that took place in certain colonies when demographic and other social conditions were ripe for it (Mufwene 1991). The position adopted here is that intermediate creoles must be seen as independent creations in their own right, the result of a peculiar mix of linguistic inputs and social factors which favored the emergence of a contact vernacular which drew more or less equally on the resources of substrate and superstrate inputs. In several situations, indeed, intermediate creoles appear to have emerged either prior to, or independently of, the more radical varieties. This was the case in Barbados, urban Guyana, and Trinidad, though each situa­ tion was different in its make-up. Since I have discussed the cases of urban GC and Trinidadian elsewhere (Winford 1997), I will concentrate my attention on Bajan, which was in fact the model for the other two.

2. Origins of Bajan There has been a great deal of controversy over the origins of contemporary Bajan. On the one hand there are scholars like Hancock (1980) who claim that Bajan has always been essentially the same in structure as it is today, and emerged from the earliest period of settlement of Barbados in the period 1627 to 1700. According to Hancock (1980: 22), then, as now, "it was a local metro­ politan, rather than creolized variety of English that was spoken by both blacks and whites on the island". This would suggest that Africans had little influence in shaping Bajan grammar, and that no significant restructuring took place. On the other hand, there are those like Cassidy (1980) who suggest that contempo­ rary Bajan is the result of decreolization of an earlier more radical creole. In Cassidy's terms, "present-day Barbadian English preserves what can hardly be explained otherwise than as a creole residue". The issue has recently been discussed at length by Rickford (1992), Rickford and Handler (1994) and Fields (1995), all of whom provide evidence of "basilectal"-type features still preserved in the speech of some older Bajans, as well as many others docu­ mented in older texts that have survived. What all of this evidence suggests is that there is in fact a strong case for the existence of a more basilectal or radical creole in earlier Barbados. But that is not inconsistent with the claim that the intermediate variety we find today dates back to the earliest period of contact. In other words, the evidence does not prove that this variety developed out of the more radical one. Rickford (1992: 194) seems to adopt a neutral position on this question, noting that

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the synchronic issue [sic] does not in itself resolve the issue of whether seven­ teenth century Bajan was pidginized or creolized, since, as Hancock (1980: 23) has noted, the creole residue in Barbados could be due to the influence of African free laborers introduced into the Caribbean in the nineteenth century, or it could represent the effects of migration to and from other Caribbean territories.

However, Rickford and Handler (1994: 238-9) find little evidence for the importation of creole features into Bajan either by African recruits or Barbadi­ ans returning from other Caribbean islands in the nineteenth century, and they conclude that "the [creole] features present in our 19th century texts must be attributed to continuity from 18th century Bajan antecedents" (239). It seems indisputable that a continuum of varieties of English, ranging from close approximations to settler dialects to intermediate varieties to more highly restructured creole varieties existed among the African population in 18th century Barbados. This has been argued persuasively by Rickford and Handler, and was earlier suggested by Alleyne (1980: 182). As Rickford and Handler (1994: 228) put it, "[Barbadian] language is unlikely to have been any ONE variety at any earlier time, as some scholars seem to be suggesting [...] We believe that [...] Barbadian speech in earlier centuries constituted a continuum rather than a point". I shall argue that these different outcomes emerged at different times as a result of changing demographics and community settings in the course of the 17th to 18th centuries. To support this, it is necessary to examine the demographics of the settlement and early history of Barbados.

2.1.

The socio-historical background

For our purposes, the earlier history of Barbados may be divided roughly into four stages (following Beckles 1989 and Rickford and Handler 1994). •

• •

The pre-plantation period from 1627 (the date of colonization) to around 1650 The early plantation period from 1650 to 1680 The core plantation period from 1680 to around 1800 The late and post-plantation period from 1800 to 1900

I will focus my attention primarily on the first three periods. 2.1.1. Stage 1. 1627-1650:

The pre-plantation period

The first period was one of rapid growth in the population, with increasingly large in-migration of English settlers and indentured servants, and later, Africans. During this first period, white settlers outnumbered blacks signifi­ cantly, and continued to be in a majority up until sugar plantations were estab­ lished in the 1640's and began to flourish in the 1650's and later. Niles (1980: 57) notes that "by 1645 there were only 5 680 blacks in Barbados, while the

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white population had grown from 1 800 in 1629 to around 37 200 by 1642". Estimates of the African population in this period range from around 6 000 in the mid 1640's to around 20 000 in 1650. Beckles estimates the population of servants at over 15 000 in the mid 1640's (1989: 120) and at about 13 000 in 1652 (1989: 9).1 This meant that, during the late 1630's to early 1640's, the ratio of servants to slaves was approximately 3 to 1 (Beckles 1989: 237). Table 1 provides a rough breakdown of the population of Barbados from 1627 to 1780.

Table 1: Estimated population ofBarbados 1627 - 1780 Year 1627 1629 1642 1655 1679 1684 1700 1724 1780

Whites

60 1800 37,200 23,000 21,000 20,000 19,000 18,295 17,000

Blacks 40 (some Indians)

Total

50?

1850 43,200 43,000 59,746 66,602 69,000 73,501 87,000

6,000 20,000 38,746 46,602 50,000 55,206 70,000

100

Sources: Beckles (1989); Curtin (1969); LePage and Tabouret-Keller (1985); Lowenthal (1957); Niles (1980); Rickford and Handler (1994); Roy (1986); Williams (1987). At any rate, we can assume that by 1650, there was a sizeable group of Africans speaking second language varieties of the settler dialects, influenced in varying degrees by their native languages. These, along with the settler dialects themselves, continued to be accessible models for later African arrivals to acquire, as well as, crucially, for the children born to both whites and blacks in the course of the 17th and 18th centuries. As Singler (1992: 328) has argued, one of the key elements in the emergence of an intermediate (rather than a radi­ cal) creole as the majority vernacular of Barbados was the fact that the island had a locally born population far earlier in its history than other colonies. There seems to be some correlation between how early a "creole" population appears, and how close the emerging contact vernacular is to the lexifier language. I would add that it is not simply the rapid growth of a creole population, but also its size that matters. As we shall see, the creole population of Barbados was always significantly larger than that of other colonies, and continued to increase in size dramatically throughout the 18th to 19th centuries. In the case of 17th century Barbados, the creole population consisted of both white and black off1) Beckles also mentions Scott's (1667) description of the colony as having a total of 8,300 landowners out of a total white population of around 30,000. Indentured servants made up the majority of the population of whites, and the rest consisted presumably of other settlers, merchants, soldiers and the like.

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spring, the input to whose language acquisition came from dialects spoken by significant numbers of whites, as well as second language approximations of these spoken by Africans. 2.1.2. Stage 2. 1650 - 1680: The early plantation period Even when sugar plantations were established and imports of Africans increased, the close contact between white servants and black slaves continued for some time. Beckles (1989: 121) tells us that "By 1655, the sugar industry was propelled by many gangs of field servants and other common white servants working alongside African slaves".2 Even ex-servants who had completed their indenture were lured back to the fields by the machinations of the sugar planters, and by their lack of other opportunities. John Scott, a visitor to the island around 1667, relates how he commonly saw "field servants toiling in the hot sun without shoes or stockings". But the demographics of the island began to change significantly from the 1650's on. On the one hand, there was increasing importation of Africans to meet the ever increasing demand for labor on the now flourishing sugar planta­ tions. On the other, there was a dramatic decrease in the population of white servants and settlers, for a variety of reasons. There were no incentives for servants to stay in Barbados after their indentureship, unlike other colonies where they were offered land. The island was becoming overpopulated, and there were better opportunities in the American colonies, as well as Jamaica and the Leewards. As a result, there was a major exodus of whites between 1650 and 1690, numbering about 30,000 in all, and including small planters, yeomen and considerable numbers of servants (Lowenthal 1957: 450). Hence the marked decrease in the white population shown in Table 1. In addition, a variety of laws passed during the 1660's restricted movement of servants from places like Scotland, reduced the length of indenture, and imposed heavy taxes on the purchase of servants from England (Beckles 1989: 121). This led to a dramatic decrease in the importation of servants; for instance, the supply from England fell by 70% between 1660 and 1670 (Beckles 1989: 123). Meanwhile, the supply of African slaves was increasing, and planters found this supply of labor to be, in the long run, cheaper. The result of all this was that by 1680, "the total population of servants on the island had fallen from over 13,000 in the early 1650's to less than 3,000. The slave population had risen from circa 6,000 in the mid 1640's to 37,551 by 1680" (Beckles 1989: 125). By this time, the Barbadian 2) Rens (1953: 72) also tells us that "in the first couple of decades of the sugar industry, the necessary labor was recruited both from Europe and from Africa ... the fields continued to be worked by mixed groups of black and white". 3) A major factor in the lack of opportunity for ex-servants to own land was the fact that rich planters had purchased most of it for their plantations. Lowenthal (1957: 451) points out that "the number of property holdings in Barbados shrank from 11,200 in 1645 to 745 in 1667, and the proportion of estate land devoted to sugar rose from 40 to 80 percent".

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economy was flourishing due to the sugar industry. There also emerged a clear division of labor along racial lines, though servants still worked in the planta­ tions. The ratio of slaves to servants also increased. According to the 1679-80 census, it ranged from as many as 48 to one in St. Andrew, to between 12 and 30 to 1 in most other parishes, to about 8 to 1 in St. Michael and St. Peter, to less than 4 to 1 in Bridgetown (Beckles 1989: 131). The contact situation in the latter areas (St. Michael, including Bridgetown, and St. Peter) involved much closer contact between blacks and whites, and may have contributed to the emergence of some differences between urban and rural black speech. Based on the above summary, we can conclude that demographic and other social factors favored the acquisition of close approximations to the super­ strate dialects by Africans during the first two stages of the history of Barbados. 2.1.3. Stage 3: 1680 - 1800: The core plantation period The expansion and consolidation of the plantation system was accompanied by further increase in slave importation. As Table 1 shows, the black population increased from roughly 6,000 in 1642 (14%) to about 20,000 (47%) in 1655 to 55,206 (75%) in 1724, and to 70,000 (80%) in 1780. Lowenthal (1957: 452) tells us that more than 150,000 Africans were imported between 1712 and 1762, "yet the slave population increased from 42,000 only to 70,000. Thus slave deaths exceeded births by about 120,000 in half a century, which implies an annual natural decrease of about 4.3%". During the same period, the white population decreased slightly from 24,000 to 18,295. (See Curtin 1969: 55; Table 13 for estimates of slave imports to Barbados from 1640 to 1807). The emergence of a classic plantation system, with increasing division of labor along racial lines, stricter separation of blacks and whites, much higher ratios of blacks to whites, and the constant replenishing of the black labor force with new arrivals from Africa, must have had significant linguistic conse­ quences, leading in all likelihood to the emergence of more divergent, "creole"like forms of English among the black field workers in particular. This would have been true especially during the peak periods of slave imports from 1690 to around 1770, when annual imports averaged around 3,000. Rickford and Handler (1994: 230) tell us that By the late 1780's, following a trend that had started in the previous century and which continued until emancipation in 1834, slaves inhabiting plantations or small farm units comprised about 88% of the total slave population. Most of these slaves lived in compact village settlements located close to the plantation yard and the owner or manager's house They agree with Cassidy (1986) that "these are just the kinds of demographic and settlement patterns which would have produced and/or maintained creolespeaking communities". However, there are factors other than just demograph-

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ics and settlement patterns that must be taken into account which helped deter­ mine the kind of creole which emerged. At any rate, it seems reasonable to assume that, in the hey-day of the plantation era, many field slaves acquired creole-like or at least highly restruc­ tured forms of English. The textual evidence from the 18th and 19th centuries supplied by Rickford and Handler (1994) and Fields (1995) testifies strongly to this. The samples they present do in fact contain many morphosyntactic (and some phonological and syntactic) features that are characteristic of "basilectal" creole varieties. But they do not provide a clear picture as to how widespread and stable (homogeneous) these creole varieties were, and whether the "basilectal" features varied with others that were typical of the more intermedi­ ate creole variety that has survived as the primary vernacular of the island today.4 Whatever the precise nature and range of these more "basilectal" varie­ ties, no one, as far as I know, has claimed that they were the only, or even the most common, varieties spoken in the island in this period. The consensus seems to be that Barbadian speech in this period consisted of a spectrum or continuum of varieties, ranging from the (more standard?) English of land­ owners to the regional dialects of most settlers and indentured whites, to the second language varieties of the latter spoken by many, if not most Africans, to the more creole-like or pidgin-like varieties of many field slaves. To argue that most Africans in 18th century Barbados spoke only a basilectal creole is to ignore both the historical/demographic and linguistic evidence. There were other factors which would have encouraged closer access to superstrate varieties by many Africans, even during the height of the plantation era (see Beckles 1989: 135-9). In the first place, the continued presence of a significant number of white (ex-)servants and laborers ensured continued contact between blacks and whites. Many servants stayed on after their indentureship was over as militia members, overseers etc. Others continued working on the plantations or on small farm holdings in close contact with Africans. Another important consideration is the fact that, by contrast with the earlier period, much of the growth of the slave population during the 18th century was due to natural increase rather than continued re-supply from Africa. Rickford and Handler (1994: 237) inform us that slave imports to Barbados had decreased considerably by the late 18th century, so that "by the mid to late 1700's, the great majority of Barbadian slaves were creoles; this majority was probably close to 90% by the late 1780's". The 1817 census reported that 93% 4) Perhaps it is the nature of the citations — individual samples extracted from their context — that gives the impression of a lack of homogeneity and systematicity. Indeed, most of the samples given are reminiscent of the somewhat pidgin-like forms of English that have been cited for other colonies like Guyana as late as the 19th century (Rickford 1987). The early Bajan texts might be contrasted with those provided by Winer (1984, 1995) for 19th century Trinidad. The latter provide a very clear picture of well-established and stable varieties of basilectal creole in use in the island at that time.

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of the slaves were creoles (238). In addition to this, LePage and Tabouret-Keller (1985: 48) note the quick growth of a mulatto population in Barbados, where "children of mixed European and African unions became a well-established and numerous class quite early on". These "people of color" were usually free, and were given rudimentary education, often becoming skilled workers and even urban merchants. We also have to assume the likelihood of close contact between black and white children growing up together in this period, especially in the towns. There was also a growing tendency to convert Africans to Christi­ anity, which further increased their opportunity to acquire closer approxima­ tions to the superstrate dialects. Added to this was the growth in numbers of African domestic servants, replacing whites in white households as well as the growth of towns where Africans had closer contact with whites than their fellow-slaves on the plantations. Even in the latter, the emergence of a substan­ tial group of skilled slaves who had greater freedom of movement and contact with whites would have meant that many Africans continued to be exposed to superstrate varieties. Moreover, the growth of a substantial poor white commu­ nity in the 18th century which retained close ties with blacks ensured continued influence by the former on the latter (Williams 1987: 52). One further element was the fact that Barbados was a small and completely level island, with easy access from one estate to the other, and from town to rural plantation. This would have ensured continued close contact between blacks and whites, as well as between blacks of different language background, thus promoting levelling across the varieties spoken by Barbadians of all types. All of these factors encouraged the consolidation and spread of an intermediate variety modelled primarily on the settler dialects and the second language varieties of them already established among many Africans, with some degree of substratum influence from West African languages, and from the more divergent pidgin and creole-like varieties spoken by sections of the field slave population. 2.2.

The linguistic inputs

The linguistic evidence lends support to this scenario. Many of the distinctive features of Bajan, both in phonology and morpho-syntax, are clearly derived from English regional dialects of the 17th century — particularly those of the south-west. Since new migration of British settlers to Barbados had practically ceased by 1700 (Williams 1987: 48), it is clear that we must look to the dialects introduced in the 17th century as sources of the features of Bajan. These include tense/ aspect auxiliaries like Habitual does, Relative Past did and Completive Perfect done. To claim that such features arose in Bajan as the result of "decreolization" of a previously widespread basilectal creole in the 19th century is simply to ignore history. As Bickerton (1988: 271-2) acknowledged in rejecting his earlier position on the origins of the same forms in urban Guyanese creole:

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If the standard explanation of such intermediate varieties — that they were formed during "decreolization" of an original monolithic creole (DeCamp 1971; Bickerton 1975, etc.) — is correct, then Caribbean speakers in the 19th or 20th centuries must somehow have reinvented seventeenth-century struc­ tures.

Bickerton concluded that doz and did must have survived in Guyana from the very earliest days of contact. The same is true in the case of Barbados. The vast majority of British settlers to Barbados in the 17th century were speakers of regional dialects of English, with primary inputs from the south­ west, and secondary inputs from other southern (southeastern) and perhaps midland English dialects, as well as other parts of Britain. Bristol was the major port for shipment of servants and other settlers to Barbados, and most of them came from the surrounding counties — Somerset, Devon, Cornwall and Dorset in particular (LePage 1960: 12; Niles 1980: 25-30). Beckles (1989: 43) tells us that "in 1654-1664, when Barbados employed servants as field hands in sugar plantations, the island absorbed more servants from Bristol than any other colony did". Many servants and settlers also came from other parts of England, including the London area, Middlesex and Liverpool (Beckles 1989: 41). Among the servants, there were significant numbers from Scotland, Wales and Ireland, with Ireland in particular supplying a substantial minority of indentured workers.5 (See Beckles 1989: 41 for a breakdown of the origins of servants going to the New World colonies during the second half of the 17th century.) On the whole, the British arrivals consisted of a minority of planters, merchants and proprietors, and a large majority of servants and poorer white laborers and small farmers. In 1642, for instance, out of a total white population of around 37,200, the merchant and planter class numbered around 8,000 (Niles 1980: 19); the rest were mainly servants, with a significant number of free settlers who either worked as laborers or became small farmers. While speakers of English dialects dominated the servant population, there were many inden­ tured servants from Ireland, Scotland and Cornwall who spoke Gaelic or Cornish and there were perhaps other minority languages spoken by a few Gypsies and Travellers (Williams 1987: 81). Many Irish, in particular, migrated to the midland and southwestern areas of England in the course of the 17th century and earlier, and they were therefore part of the indentured population transported from those areas to Barbados and elsewhere (Hancock 1994: 100). But, as already noted, the strongest "superstrate" linguistic inputs to the contact situation in 17th century Barbados came from southwest dialects of English. For instance, Niles (1980: 24) tells us that the southwest region of England supplied 5) According to Niles (1980: 16), in 1648, a committee of the House of Commons approved the transportation of prisoners to the colonies. In 1654 the Council of State ordered the trans­ portation of English, Irish and Scots prisoners in Dorchester goal to Barbados and other colo­ nies. By 1655, Barbadian planters claimed to have 12,000 prisoners of war as servants, including Irish, Scottish and English.

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78.6% of the total number of servants shipped from Bristol to Barbados between 1655 and 1660. This probably reflects a general pattern of dominance by southwest dialect speakers among the settlers in general, and the servants in particular, during the first 50 years or more of the settlement of Barbados. 2.2.1. African inputs The picture we have of the origins of African slaves is much less clear, particu­ larly for the 17th century. During this period, the Dutch supplied most of the slaves to Barbados, as well as to the Caribbean in general. However, as LePage and Tabouret-Keller (1985) point out: "We know very little about the pattern of the Dutch slave trade to Barbados — how many ships came direct from Africa, how many from Curacao or St. Eustatius, how many from Brazil" (1985: 43). This reflects a general lack of information on the Dutch supply of slaves to the Caribbean in general during the 17th century. (See Arends 1995 on the dearth of information about slave imports to Suriname in this period.) One possible remedy is to extrapolate from the available figures for slave imports during the 18th century. But all this can suggest is that slaves must have come from wellestablished trading centers like the Senegambia region, the Guinea coast (espe­ cially the Gold Coast) and Angola. We have no precise information on how many slaves were supplied from each of these areas, or which ethnic groups were most numerous in the slave population of mid-17th century Barbados. A contemporary observer (Ligon 1647: 46) tells us that the slaves are fetched from several parts of Africa, who speak several languages, and by that means, one of them understands not another. For, some of them are fetched from Guinny and Binny, some from Cutchew, some from Angola, and some from the river of Gambia.

LePage and Tabouret-Keller (1985: 43) suggest that a high proportion of Barbados slaves in the 1630's were probably from Angola, reflecting the Dutch control of that area. On the other hand, they note that Dutch control on the Gold Coast tightened during the 1640's and 1650's, so that more slaves may have come from this area in this period, especially since they were preferred by British planters. After the 1650's, when the (British) Royal African Company controlled most of the trade, we might surmise that the sources of slaves brought to Barbados were similar to those for Jamaica or Surinam, in whose settlement and plantation development in the 1650's Barbadian planters played a major role. In both these cases, the documentary evidence suggests that the majority of slaves came from the Windward, Gold and Slave Coasts, with smaller numbers from Senegambia and Sierra Leone, and Angola, though the precise demographics differ in each case. In general, however, the major West African linguistic inputs appear to have come from Kwa languages (with Akan predominating in Jamaica and Gbe dialects in Suriname), as well as to a lesser

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extent from Bantu, primarily Kikongo, and languages of the Atlantic family. (See Curtin 1969: 122, 157 for estimates of the origins of slaves shipped to the New World by the Royal African Company from 1673 to 1689.) The question of the degree and sources of West African substrate influ­ ence on Bajan is not a straightforward one. Judging from the evidence of lexi­ con and general syntactic features, Bajan was not subject to the extreme substratal influence evidenced in Jamaica, and more so in the Surinamese creoles. For instance, contemporary Bajan appears to lack such syntactic features as serial verb constructions, predicate cleft and possibly other forms of contrastive focus, etc. (Burrowes 1983: 44), though it apparently has a passive similar to that found in other Caribbean creoles (Burrowes 1983: 43). In addition, many of the morphosyntactic features found in contemporary Bajan are similar to those found in other "intermediate" creole varieties. Fields (1995) refers to these as "mesolectal" features, and argues that older Bajan texts show much more evidence of "basilectal" creole features such as are found in Jamaican or rural Guyanese creole. Many of these features, such as past marker been and locative copula de have been found in contemporary data (Rickford 1992: 187). However, the older texts contain no examples of the "basilectal" syntactic features referred to above. The question such evidence raises is whether contemporary Bajan arose from an earlier basilectal creole, or whether the variation seen in the past and today was due simply to the co-existence of two somewhat different varieties of Bajan, one of which has become the primary vernacular today. Researchers like Fields adopt the position that the features in question "clearly support a full-fledged creole ancestry for Bajan and should dispel any lingering doubts as to its authenticity as a decreolizing creole" (1995: 105). On the other hand, researchers such as LePage and Tabouret-Keller (1985: 41) argue that the Barbadian English vernacular is much closer to British English in its grammar, and contains far fewer Africanisms ... than does, for example, Jamaican or Belizean or Guyanese creole. Moreover, it contains some features of pronunciation and grammar which are closely associated with the West of England and Ireland.

This would seem to imply that Bajan has always shown less West African substrate influence than other Caribbean creoles, and more substantial input from English dialects. Resolving these contradictory positions is not easy. However, we can go some way toward this goal by examining those areas of grammar which have figured prominently in the disagreement. One such area is the verb complex, particularly the auxiliaries and other morphemes used to mark tense and aspect. Though these forms clearly derive from superstrate sources, their functions in Bajan do not exactly parallel those of the English cognates. The explanation for this lies in the processes of change (restructuring) due to substratum influence from West African languages, and possibly also more "basilectal" creole varie-

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ties which were in contact with the English settler dialects introduced to Barbados in the 17th century. 2.2.2. The emergence of the Bajan TMA system It is interesting that contemporary Bajan can be separated into two distinct varieties which display different tense/ aspect systems. One of them, confined primarily to small rural settlements, appears more "basilectal" in nature, though subject to a high degree of variability, with basilectal markers increasingly yielding to those employed in the other variety. The latter has a TMA system which closely resembles those of other intermediate creoles such as urban GC and TC (not surprising, since the latter are both modelled on it). This variety of Bajan is in fact the one used by the vast majority of Bajans today. To explore the origins of this "mainstream" variety, let us now examine its tense/ aspect system and attempt to account for its sources. Later, I will consider the tense/ aspect system of the more divergent rural variety described by Roy (1986) and others. Table 2 provides an inventory of tense/ aspect cate­ gories and the forms which express them in Bajan: Table 2: Tense and aspect in (mainstream) Bajan Tense Relative Past

Future

Prospective

did

go(n)

goin (to)

Aspect Unmarked (Perfective) ø

Progressive

Pres. Hab.

Past Hab.

V-in

does

useto

Completive (Perfect) done

Our task now is to explain why these particular categories and forms were selected to make up this system. For present purposes, I will limit my discussion primarily to the forms of do, viz. does, did and done. The shift scenario I have proposed for the origin of Bajan assumes that the source of these forms was the English dialects introduced to Barbados in the 17th century, particularly those from SW England. As a first step, then, we can compare the inventory of tense/ aspect categories in Bajan with those of SW English dialects, as described in the dialectal literature (Elworthy 1877, 1886; Barnes 1886; Klemola 1996).6 Table 3 presents this comparison. 6) A fuller discussion of the history and contemporary uses of periphrastic do in these dialects can be found in Klemola (1996).

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Table 3: Correspondences between Bajan and SW English dialects in tense/ aspect marking Time reference

Bajan

17th  SW Eng, dialects

Simple present

ø (statives)

do/ does + V or V + pres. infl.

Simple past

ø (non-statives)

did+ V o r V +past infl.

Relative past

did+V

Future

go(n)+V

shall/will + V.

Prospective

goin to + V

be going to + V.

Present habitual

does + V

do/does + V or V + pres. infl. (+ adverbs)

Past habitual

useto + V

used to + V.

Progressive

V-in

(do) be + (a) V-ing

Perfect

done + V

be/ have (done) + V-ed ?

Aspectual reference

The above comparison makes it clear that the Bajan tense/aspect system is not a straightforward replica of its 17th century source. Some categories (Prospective Future, Progressive and Past Habitual) seem to match quite closely, except for the absence of auxiliary be in the former two in Bajan. The major differences between the systems involve mismatches in the meaning and/ or function of the three forms of do. It can be seen that Bajan expresses the meanings of simple present and past time reference in ways quite similar to other Caribbean creoles. Unmarked statives express simple present, while unmarked non-statives convey simple past (in both cases, when the reference point is S). In the SW English dialects, these meanings are expressed by present and past forms of do respec­ tively. Bajan, on the other hand, uses these forms of do, specifically does and did, to express the categories of Present Habitual and Relative Past respectively. Moreover, Completive Perfect done has somewhat different semantics and distribution than the English dialectal be/ have done V-en construction that was its putative source, as we shall see. Evidence for the meanings and uses of forms of periphrastic do in SW English dialects comes from earlier studies by Elworthy (1877, 1886), Barnes (1886) and more recent ones such as Klemola (1996).

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We can now examine, in turn, each of the forms of do which function in the Bajan tense/aspect system, to determine how their English cognates were reanalyzed to fit the categories of the Bajan verb complex. 2.2.3. Sources of present habitual does Two questions arise in connection with the origins of Present Habitual does in Bajan. First, why are its semantics and use different from those of present forms of periphrastic do in SW English dialects? Second, given the allomorphic alter­ nation of the latter (do vs. does), why was invariant does selected as the marker of this category in Bajan? It seems clear, first of all, that present forms of peri­ phrastic do in the 17th century SW English dialects conveyed the same meaning as the simple present tense of contemporary Standard English. As Ellegård (1953: 209) puts it: "It is certain that at this time [Early Modern English period — DW] it [periphrastic do] did not in general convey any special shade of meaning. It was completely synonymous with the simple verb form". This meant two things. First, like the simple present of SE, present peri­ phrastic do often conveyed the sense of habituality, as illustrated in the follow­ ing examples from Elworthy (1886: xx, xlvi):7 1. a. b.

I dŭ zay zom prayers now and again. (Devon) Aay du wurkee turr.ubl aard. (Somerset)

Second, like the simple SE present tense, present periphrastic do could be used with stative verbs as well as in temporal and conditional clauses to express simple present time reference, just like the SE present tense. The following examples illustrate this: 2. a. I do know 'I know' (Cornwall: Jago 1882: 57) b. I shall pick it up whun I da goo whom. (Somerset: Elworthy 1877: 52)  If I do dig/ digee (Somerset: Elworthy 1877: 50).

Similar uses of periphrastic do are found in contemporary SW English dialects, as the following examples from the Survey of English Dialects (SED) illustrate: 3. a.

He do tell I all through the summer that they do never hardly go in, see. (SED materials. Klemola 1996: 6) b. 9I da no: a bI? ɔbәu? ðsm (SED materials. Klemola 1996: 104) I do know a bit about them. c. i: da wont tә AId It (SED materials. Klemola 1996: 104) He do want to hide it.

7) As Harris (1986: 188) points out, Elworthy's transcription of present do as "du" indicates that it was unstressed, and was pronounced [da]. This is supported by Barnes (1863: 24-6) who notes that do in I do meäke is pronounced "as in French de".

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When we compare the use of does in Bajan, we find the following: • Does is invariant with all subjects, and always conveys the sense of Present Habitual. • Does is never used as a simple present tense marker with stative verbs, or in conditional and temporal clauses, as periphrastic do was. Instead, the un­ marked verb is used in all these cases. This is a general feature of all creoles. • Does is used with all verbs, including be. By contrast, periphrastic do is not, and has never been used with be in the SW English dialects (Klemola 1996: 68). The following examples from Bajan (Burrowes 1983: 41-2) and TC illustrate these points: 4. a. He does catch fish pretty. 'He catches fish in a pretty way.' b. Wha does be wrong wid you though? 'What's usually wrong with you anyhow?'  I ø know you vex, but Barrie bring she dey. T know you're angry, but Barry took her there.' d. We go pick it up when we 0 go home (TC). 'We'll pick it up when we get home.' e. If you 0 come tonight you go see me (TC). 'If you come tonight, you'll see me.'

It seems clear, then, that Bajan does represents a case of reanalysis of a super­ state form under contact-induced change. My assumption here is that Africans acquiring approximations of the settler dialects in 17th century Barbados re­ interpreted does as a Habitual marker on the model of the Present Habitual categories in their native languages. The evidence available to us indicates that most of the likely substrate languages introduced to Barbados in the 17th to 18th centuries had a distinct Habitual category. This applies to Kikongo (Mufwene 1988: 38), Akan (Kós-Dienes 1984), and Gbe dialects like Gengbe (Jondoh 1980: 40) and Fongbe (Lefebvre 1996: 271). The reinterpretation of does would have been facilitated by the fact that present periphrastic do often expressed habituality, providing a basis for the interlingual identification that often triggers reinterpretation of TL forms in terms of L1 functions. But this is not all there is to the picture. There is still the question of why invariant does was chosen to express the category of Present Habitual in Bajan. The question assumes importance since the usual phonetic realization of present periphrastic do in the SW English dialects was [dә]. Thus, we are told that the unemphatic do was pronounced like French de in Dorset (Barnes 1886: 22) and as "duh" in Somerset (Elworthy 1877: 71). As examples (3a-c) above from Klemola show, the same applies to contemporary SW dialects. This fact seems to have implications for the choice of da as the marker of imperfective aspect in the more "basilectal" Bajan variety, to be discussed below. But what of does in "mainstream" Bajan? One possible answer is that Hiberno-English (HE) input played a role in the selection of this auxiliary. There are certain similarities between Bajan and (southern) HE

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does which lend support to this hypothesis. Note, first, that southern HE shows alternation of does (3rd singular subjects) and do (all other subjects) but also has a tendency to generalize does to all subjects (Klemola 1996: 68). According to Curme (1931: 387-8), HE "used do as the habitual marker, but the tendency was to replace the plural form of the verb by the singular". By contrast, the SW English dialects showed a tendency to use unstressed do [dә] with all subjects, including 3rd person singular subjects. (See footnote 7 and examples above). There are other respects in which Bajan and HE resemble each other, and both differ from SW English dialects. Klemola (1996: 66-9) offers the following comparison of the uses of periphrastic do in HE and SW English dialects: Differences between Irish English and SW dialectal English (Klemola 1996) S'W dialects

Irish English

Use of do in present and past Do uninflected with all subjects Use of do + be not found Use of do with verbs other than be

Use of do in present only Do inflected with -s for 3rd per. sing, subjects Use of do + be common Use of do with verbs other than be rarer

Bajan resembles HE more than the SW English dialects in its preference for invariant does rather than uninflected do, and in its use of does with be.8 On the other hand, Bajan is more similar to the English dialects in employing did (though with different semantics) and in its fully productive use of does with all verbs (again with different semantics).9 However, Bliss (1979: 293) notes that, although auxiliary do is "rare in contemporary HE with verbs other than the verb 'to be' ... we might expect that in early usage it would be common with verbs other than the verb 'to be'".10 If so, then 17th century HE as spoken in Barbados might have provided a model for use of does with all predicates in Bajan. It's also possible, of course, that the generalization of does to all predi­ cates may have been part of the creative process of reanalysis itself, motivated by a similar range of uses of habitual markers in the substrates. The socio-historical evidence also supports the view that HE exerted influence on early Bajan. As was noted earlier, Irish servants made up a signifi­ cant portion of the servile population in Barbados (and other Caribbean islands) 8) According to Rickford (1986: 253), "Does be developed in a context where Irish servants were learning English simultaneously or slightly before the African slaves, both groups being influenced by SW dialects of indentured servants". 9) The southern HE preference for does with be may reflect Gaelic substratum influence. As Harris (1986: 178) notes, Gaelic distinguishes between a habitual and simple present copula, and this opposition seems to have been transferred into both southern and northern HE. The latter has an opposition between habitual be/ be's and simple present forms of be (am, is, are) (Harris 1986: 176). 10) Kallen's (1989: 6) corpus of Irish English only included 11 instances of do with verbs other than be (Klemola 1996: 66).

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in the 17th century. According to Bridenbaugh and Bridenbaugh (1972), the number of Irish in the West Indies was, by some estimates, probably half of the entire population of the English colonies. According to Beckles (1989: 38), "By 1660, some 20% of the servant population was Irish". The proportion may have been higher, since the Irish did not only come directly from Ireland, but also made up a significant portion of the transportees from SW England who were shipped from Bristol.11 Hancock (1994: 101), citing evidence from Beier (1985) concerning population movements between Ireland and England in the 17th century, argues that "many transportees from England spoke Hiberno-English, and it is possible that their influence [on Bajan — DW] was greater, linguisti­ cally, than the figures indicate". Klemola (1996: 47) also suggests that many Irish as well as West Cornish servants transported to the colonies in the 17th century already spoke a variety of HE in which does was already established. According to him, the formative period for Irish and Cornish English is assumed to fall within the early modern English period, from 1500-1700. This would support the view that early HE was itself a significant part of the input to the formation of mainstream Bajan. As we shall see, the HE input seems to have figured less prominently in the formation of the more basilectal variety that emerged during the plantation era. 2.2.4. Relative past did The available evidence suggests that auxiliary did in Bajan expresses the sense of a Relative Past, and is therefore in opposition to the unmarked verb which expresses simple present with statives and simple past with non-statives (when the reference point is S), as pointed out earlier. As in its closely related rela­ tives, urban GC and TC, did in Bajan is used with both statives and non-statives to convey the sense of a past in relation to S or some other reference point in the past (Winford 1993). The following examples illustrate this use: 5.

a.

I di see din fo bring yo broda. T said not to bring your brother.' (BC: Burrowes 1983:43) b. Dem did iitin/did da iit wen shii kom. 'They were eating when she arrived.' (: Burrowes 1983: 43)  When ah di small, a mapipire di bite me. 'When I was little, a mapipire [a snake DW] bit me.' (TC) d. As a youth, I did like the bad way of life. 'As a young man, I liked the bad (way of) life.' (TC)

11) Beier (1985: 34) notes that "the Irish provided the single largest contingent of vagrants in Devon and Cornwall in the 1630's". Since vagrants were very likely to be pressed into service as indentured servants, we can assume that many Irish were included in their numbers.

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The semantics of did in these intermediate varieties closely matches that of Relative Past markers derived from been in the more radical Caribbean creoles, and indeed in the more "basilectal" variety of rural Bajan. Once again, it would appear that West African substratal influence was responsible for the reanalysis of these forms. In support of this, we can first demonstrate that periphrastic did, the source of Relative Past did, was used to express quite different meanings in the 17th century SW English dialects. Most researchers seem to agree that peri­ phrastic did conveyed simple past meaning in Early Modern English, sometimes alternating with a past-inflected verb in this function. As Klemola (1996: 78) points out: The majority of 17th and 18th century grammars agree in treating the simple forms and periphrastic DO forms as simply interchangeable "different ways of saying the same thing", (see Michael 1970: 395-423; Visser 1963-73: 1507-9)

However, there is some disagreement about the semantics of did in grammars of SW dialects of the 19th and 20th centuries. Elworthy (1877, 1886) does not claim any special aspectual meaning for Somerset did, but Barnes (1886) claims that did has habitual function in Dorset. More recently, Ihalainen (1976: 615) claims that did is categorically habitual in his East Somerset data (recorded between 1972 and 1974). Weltens (1983), however, found that his subjects in SW England accepted did in both habitual and simple past functions (though Welsh subjects accepted only the habitual interpretations). Klemola (1996: 123) analysed data from three south-western dialect corpora (20th century) and concluded that though "there is a clear tendency" for did to receive a habitual interpretation (67% to 85% of all tokens), did was also used to convey simple past (3% to 15%), and in conditional and temporal clauses, "where the form seems to function as a marker of irrealis modality rather than habitual aspect" (10% to 15%). It may well be that the tendency to use did for habitual meaning in some contemporary SW dialects is a relatively recent development. The evidence from 17th century sources, as already noted, strongly suggests that periphrastic did conveyed simple past meaning. This would have made it amenable to reanalysis as a Relative Past marker in the Bajan tense/ aspect system. Further evidence of this reinterpretation of did in Bajan comes from its use in condi­ tional clauses, which parallels the use of Relative Past ben in "basilectal" creoles more closely than it resembles the use of periphrastic did in SW English dialects. In Early Modern English, did seems to function in much the same way as the simple past in (unreal) conditional clauses, that is, to convey hypothetical meaning. Elworthy (1877: 50) points out in a footnote that If I did dig in Somer­ set is equivalent to If I should dig. Elsewhere, he describes the difference between simple form and did + verb in //-clauses thus: "Neef aay zing dhu zau.ng questions the statement that I sang the song; neef aay daed zing puts the

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hypothesis If I should sing, If I were to sing, which is also expressed Neef aay wuz vur tŭ zing" (Elworthy 1877: 79). In contemporary SW English dialects, did seems to be used like the simple past in temporal and conditional clauses, as in the following examples from E. Somerset (Ihalainen 1976: 617): 6.

a. b.

Before you did put this ferret where the rabbits is, you put down nets at the holes and then put the ferret in. If you did buy up a load of peat in them days, it used to cost you ten shillings.

In all these cases, did conveys the sense of an open hypothetical condition. By contrast, did in conditional clauses in  and TC conveys the sense of a counterfactual past or present, as in the following examples: 7.

a. If I did run off the road there, ah di goin in a precipice. (TC) 'If I had run off the road there, I would have gone over a precipice', b. If I did have money, I woulda go. 'If I had money, I would go' or 'If I had had money, I would have gone'

Both in meaning and pragmatics, then, Bajan did is similar to basilectal ben and quite unlike English periphrastic did. Once more, this reanalysis seems to have been triggered by substratal influence, though the precise source of this influence is difficult to pinpoint. As Winford (fc.) demonstrates, some of the relevant substrates, including Akan and some Gbe varieties, have an opposition between a simple past expressed by the unmarked verb, and a Past category expressed by an overt morpheme. However, the available evidence does not make it clear whether this category was a Relative Past, and hence the source of the semantics of the Relative Past cate­ gory found in Bajan and other Caribbean English-lexicon creóles remains un­ clear. Another possibility is that Bajan did was reinterpreted on the model of the Relative Past marker ben which had emerged in the more "basilectal" rural creole that developed on some plantations in the 18th century. In other words, it is possible that speakers of this rural variety, in shifting to the mainstream variety during the 19th century, reinterpreted did on the model of ben. If the intermediate varieties in Barbados were in fact well established before the emergence of a more radical creole, this explanation would be feasible. This is speculative, however, and still leaves unanswered the question of the original source of the semantics of ben and did. More research is needed to clarify this issue. 2.2.5. Completive perfect done There seems to be consensus that the use of auxiliary done as a marker of Completive Perfect in Caribbean English-lexicon creoles had its source in

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English dialectal done, used both as a main verb meaning 'finish' and as a past participle in a perfect construction consisting of (be/ have) + done + V-en. The latter was apparently common throughout all English dialects up to the 15th century, and was more confined to Northern dialects after that. As Feagin (1991: 183) argues: Preverbal done is not limited to Atlantic Anglo-creoles, Black English or Southern White non-standard English. There was a done in Middle English, Medieval Literary Scots and Early Modern English which had the same meaning of "already" or "completely". However, unlike Southern White, every example of this done has a preceding auxiliary have/'has/'had.

Chaucer and Gower repeatedly used this form which Mustanoja (1960: 605-6) characterizes as "perfect tense with hath done followed by the past participle of the principal verb". Traugott (1972: 146, 193) reports that this form died out in the south of England in the 15th century, though it remained common in North­ ern English. Ellegård (1953: 143) suggested that the construction was charac­ teristic of uneducated usage since it was common in the 15th century Paston letters and in the 16th century Machyn's diary. The following examples illus­ trate: 8.

a.

Thise marchantz hath doon fraught hir shippes newe. (Chaucer: The man of law's tale, 1. 171) b. I have ... done dewely examyned the instrument. (The Paston letters, ed. by J. Gardiner 1904: letter 12, p. 26, line 5; Ellegârd 1953: 143). c. He hes done petuously devour the noble Chaucer ... (Dunbar. 1508. Scots. Lament for the Makaris ... line 49; Visser 1969: 111) d. As I afore have done discuss ... (William Lauder 1556. Scots. Office and Dewtie of Kyngis, 340; Craigie N.d. II. 178).

Unfortunately, there is no evidence from earlier grammars, dictionaries and dialect surveys to confirm this use of be/ have + done + V-en in the SW dialects of the 17th century. Nor are there any attestations of it in the SED, apparently. Despite this, it seems indisputable that Bajan done must have had an English dialectal source, just like preverbal done in other creoles and in varieties like Southern (White) American English (including Appalachian English) and African American Vernacular English. The fact that done seems to have appeared preverbally without be or have support in some English dialects would have facilitated its adoption as a preverbal auxiliary in all these cases. Also relevant is the fact that done was (and still is) used as a simple past form of do in southern English dialects (Niles 1980: 123). This use may well have been a source for creole done as well. Like the other forms of do, preverbal done in Bajan and other Caribbean English-lexicon creoles differs in both semantics and syntactic properties from its English dialectal cognate. In "intermediate" varieties like Bajan, urban GC

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and TC, done is used with predicates of all types to express the sense of 'already' — a meaning quite similar to that of a Perfect. With non-stative predi­ cates, done expresses the sense of a "perfect of result" - i.e. it describes some action in the past which has led to a present result at S, the former entailing the latter. With statives (including progressives) done describes a state that has been in existence for some time, up to and including S. The following examples illustrate this: 9.

a. Dat time I done know wo ii see aredi. ( Burrowes 1983: 43) 'By then I already knew what he had seen.' b. The man done paint the car. (TC) 'The man has already painted the car.'  Boy, I done duncey-head already. (TC) 'Boy, I'm already a dunce.' d. All the children done in school. (TC) 'All of the children are already at school.' e. The man done sleeping, come back tomorrow. (TC) 'The man's already asleep, come back tomorrow.'

The syntactic distribution of done in Bajan and related creoles is clearly differ­ ent from that of English dialectal done, which, as far as we know, could not be used with statives in base form, nor with adjectives, locatives and progres­ sives.12 Moreover, there are subtle differences in meaning between the two. Whereas Bajan done always expresses the sense of 'already', English dialectal done conveys the sense of a perfect of result, and does not always force the 'already' interpretation. (See Winford 1998b for further discussion.) The reanalysis of done as a marker of Completive Perfect in all the Caribbean English-lexicon creoles seems clearly due to West African substrate influence. All of the relevant substrates (Gbe, Kikongo and Akan) have a Perfect category which is similar in semantics to done (Winford fc.). In general, these markers of Perfect derive from a verb meaning 'finish'. It is therefore not surprising to find that done is used in all Caribbean English-lexicon creoles both as a verb meaning 'finish' and as a marker of Completive Perfect. It should be 12) Interestingly, the generalization of done to all predicates in the intermediate creoles has parallels in Southern White Vernacular English (SWVE). The following are examples from Feagin(1991): a. I think Mr.  has done passed away. b. They done had the tables fixed yesterday. c. They done know what it's all about. d. I'm done here. e. Some of 'em's done dead and gone. The semantics and distribution of done in SWVE seem to match those of done in the inter­ mediate creole varieties to a remarkable degree (putting aside the frequent use of be/ have support in SWVE, not found in the creoles). Interestingly, the use of done with non-statives is not found in African American Vernacular English (AAVE). It's not clear whether this means that SWVE has preserved the original semantics and use of periphrastic be/ have done + Ved, or whether it adopted these features from the creole varieties used by slaves, or simply generalized the use of done as the result of an internally-motivated innovation.

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noted, however, that the semantics and distribution of done in the intermediate creoles differs from the semantics and distribution of done in most basilectal creoles. For instance, JC done is restricted to non-stative verbs, and preserves a strong element of "completive" or "terminative" meaning. In JC and rural GC, done may occur in VP-fmal position. This is not possible in the intermediate varieties. 13 Such differences in the uses of done across the Caribbean Englishlexicon creoles may be due to differences in the nature of the substratal inputs, as well as possibly to internal developments. (See Winford fc. for further discussion.) At any rate, as in the case of does and did, we have two possibly complementary explanations for the semantics and syntax of done in Bajan and related intermediate varieties like urban GC and TC. One is that the reanalysis was due to direct substratum influence from West African languages whose speakers shifted to the English settler dialects. The other is that it was modelled after preverbal done in the more basilectal variety of rural Bajan which had itself been shaped under West African substratum influence. 2.3.

The role of "decreolization " in the formation

of Bajan

The major issue yet to be decided concerns the role of a more "basilectal" creole variety in the emergence of contemporary mainstream Bajan as described so far. Fields, citing a variety of morphosyntactic features from earlier (primarily 19th century) texts, argues that this evidence, "added to the already identified creole residue, ... supports a basilectal creole ancestry for Bajan" (1995: 92). The tense/ aspect markers identified by Fields and others in the earlier texts still survive in the conservative rural variety of Bajan today. The chief categories and forms that make up this earlier system are presented in Table 4, in highly idealized form (that is, with the assumption that the variety in question was fairly homogeneous, and not subject to the pervasive variation between more "basilectal" and more "mesolectal" forms which occurs in contemporary speech — see Roy 1986). The labels used here for the tense/ aspect categories are mine, and differ from those used by Roy and Fields. Table 4: An earlier basilectal Bajan tense-aspect system (idealized) Tense Relative Past been

Future go

Prospective gain

13) Belize creole is the only basilectal variety which seems to match the intermediate varie­ ties in so far as the semantics and syntactic distribution of done is concerned. See Winford (fc.) for more details.

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Aspect Unmarked 0

Imperfective? da

Completive Perfect done

Roy (1986) provides an account of the tense/ aspect system of what he calls "the basilectal Bajan verb" based on contemporary data he collected in a fishing and farming village on the east coast of Barbados. He demonstrates that the basilectal markers shown in Table 4 are still very much in use, in the meanings identified for them. Rickford (1992: 187-9) also provides further evidence for this, with data recorded from two older women in St. Lucy in 1991. As Roy and Rickford show, been is used as a relative past, but competes with the "interme­ diate" variants did and had. The aspect marker da, according to both scholars, can refer to progressive as well as habitual situations in both present and past contexts.14 Thus, Roy notes that sentence (10) "means either 'We are walking to work '... or 'We walk to work habitually' ... or 'We were walking to work' ... or 'We used to walk to work'" (1986: 147). 10.

We da walk to work.

This suggests that "basilectal" Bajan da is an Imperfective marker, similar in meaning and use to other creole Imperfective markers such as (d)e in Sranan and (d)a in rural GC. Again, however, Roy notes that da is frequently "replaced" by intermediate forms such as habitual does and progressive suffix -in. Other features of Roy's basilectal system such as Future go and various auxiliary combinations such as bin go, bin go done etc. are also typical of other basilectal Caribbean creoles, though these too are subject to variation (did/ had go, did/ had go done, etc.). Finally, certain other features such as the unmarked verb, Completive done and prospective gain are found in more or less the same forms and functions in both basilectal and intermediate varieties of Caribbean English Creoles. On the whole, both the contemporary and historical evidence suggests that the system shown in Table 4 was once well-established in Barbados, but is now increasingly yielding to the more intermediate system, discussed below. However, this does not by itself prove that the intermediate system devel­ oped from an earlier basilectal one in the way that the traditional decreolization hypothesis suggests. According to this hypothesis, a basilectal creole would have been the primary, if not only, variety to emerge as the vernacular of Afri­ cans as a result of their contact with British settlers in the 17th to 18th centuries. Then, continued contact between this creole and superstrate dialects would have led to "decreolization" — i.e. attrition of creole features in favor of superstrate 14) Burrowes (1983: 42) makes no mention of been in her outline of tense/ aspect markers in contemporary Bajan. She interprets da as a "continuative" marker, and notes that it is "possi­ bly restricted to St. George and St. Philip".

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ones — and the emergence of an intermediate variety closer to the superstrate. Presumably, this would have occurred after emancipation during the 19th century. This is the first weakness of the hypothesis, since it has no way of accounting for the origins of forms like does and did in the 19th century, as Bickerton (1988) pointed out. It seems indisputable that such forms must have originated in the earliest period of colonization in the 17th century, as the result of relatively close contact between Africans and speakers of English regional dialects (and perhaps Irish English) leading to language shift by the former toward the target provided by the latter. Hence we must trace contemporary mainstream Bajan back to the 17th century. At the same time, there is every reason to believe that more basilectal varieties of Bajan arose during the planta­ tion era, and existed side by side with the intermediate variety, whose character and development it undoubtedly influenced. Note in this connection that the likely source of the basilectal aspectual marker da may well have been English dialectal [dә], which, as noted earlier, was the common realization of present periphrastic do in the SW English dialects. This suggests that some features of the basilectal variety developed quite early, perhaps in the earlier plantation period between 1650 and 1700.15 Another weakness of the decreolization hypothesis is that it offers no clear rationale for the substitution of "mesolectal" Habitual does and Progres­ sive suffix -in for "basilectal" da. According to the decreolization model, these forms must be caiques on pre-existing basilectal categories, yet the basilectal system has no corresponding categories. Once more, a better explanation is offered by a shift scenario in which Africans acquired forms like does and -in from pre-existing varieties which they were attempting to learn. With regard to Relative Past did and Completive Perfect done, I have already acknowledged the possibility that their semantics may have been shaped by influence from both the West African substrates and the corresponding basilectal categories expressed by ben and done respectively.16 All of this, of course, leaves unanswered the question of how the "basilectal" variety arose, and what the sources of its TMA categories and other features were. Presumably its grammar was much more strongly influenced by West African substrates than that of the intermediate variety. Further clarifica­ tion of this would be a vital clue as to the sources of similar "basilectal" features in Caribbean English-lexicon creoles in general. But this question cannot be pursued here.

15) If such features were already established in an early 18th century plantation variety in Barbados and the Leewards, and then diffused from there as new plantation colonies were established elsewhere in the Caribbean, this might explain their widespread distribution throughout the Caribbean English-lexicon creoles — a fact that has eluded full explanation so far. 16) A likely source of creole Relative Past ben is English dialectal been which was used as a simple past form of be (often in the sense of "went" as in He been there). (Niles 1980: 123).

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3. Summary and implications The most important conclusion we can draw from the discussion above is that intermediate creole varieties are the result of creative adaptation and restructur­ ing in their own right. They are separate developments, independent of the socalled "basilects", and arose in situations of more intense contact between speakers of the relevant substrate and superstrate languages in the 17th to 18th centuries in Barbados (and elsewhere in the Caribbean). Intermediate varieties are neither replicas of the superstrate dialects nor "decreolized" versions of "basilects". I have tried to demonstrate this by arguing that the overall structure of the Bajan tense/ aspect system derives from restructuring of the tense/ aspect systems of 17th century (SW) English regional dialects under substrate influ­ ence from (a) West African languages and (b) more "basilectal" creole varieties that arose during the plantation period and came into close contact with already established 2nd language versions of English regional dialects. Further support for this view of the independent origins of intermediate varieties comes from the history of similar outcomes in urban Guyana and Trinidad (as well as other Windward islands). These owe their origin and general character to diffusion of intermediate varieties from Barbados in particular during the latter 19th century. In these cases, imported varieties of Bajan came in contact with basilectal creole varieties (including French creole in Trinidad and other Windward islands) and became a target of shift for speak­ ers of the latter (Winford 1997). Both the socio-historical and linguistic facts associated with these varie­ ties suggest that there is need for rethinking of notions such as "decreolization" and of the nature of the relationship between the intermediate varieties (some­ times referred to as "mesolects") and "basilects" in both past and contemporary Caribbean situations. We need to re-examine the origin of each creole, particu­ larly the chronology of its emergence and its development in its own peculiar contact setting. In addition, we need to examine the role of diffusion in shaping the character of both intermediate and more radical creole varieties across the Caribbean. Interesting questions also arise about the typology of the languages we refer to as "creoles", their relations to other outcomes of contact, and the appro­ priateness of notions like "restructuring" in accounting for their genesis. We need to rethink what we mean by terms such as "creolization" and "semi-creolization", which seem ill-suited to account for the actual linguistic processes which shaped the genesis of the diverse types of contact vernaculars called creoles. As I have argued elsewhere (Winford 1996, 1998a), the term "creoliza­ tion" suggests a well-understood and clearly defined process of language change which yields predictable structural outcomes that can then be charted and compared. The tendency has been to equate this process of change with "restructuring" of a superstrate variety or varieties, and to assume that different outcomes are due to different "degrees" of such restructuring. Yet all the

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evidence suggests that there are sharp differences between the processes by which "intermediate" varieties like Bajan come into being, and those which result in the formation of "radical" creoles like Sranan. There is very little to support the view that an outcome like Sranan is a "restructured" version of 17th century English. Creoles like Sranan are not the result of shift, but rather involve strong retention of L1 (substrate) grammar, onto which superstate phonetic shapes are grafted. The process is more complicated than that, since radical creole grammar is never an exact replica of substrate grammar, but this should be sufficient for us to see the distinction I'm trying to make here. By contrast, it would seem that "intermediate" varieties are the result of targeted shift, and are therefore quite comparable with other outcomes of communal shift such as Hiberno English, African American Vernacular English, or for that matter Singapore English, Taiwanese Mandarin and so on (Winford 1998a). Allowing for the problems associated with the use of the term, as noted earlier, it seems feasible to regard such outcomes as "restructured" versions of the target of shift. We are on much more solid ground when we attempt to compare such outcomes in terms of degrees of restructuring. Since these are the contact varie­ ties which are often referred to as "semi-creoles", perhaps we need to abandon the insistence on using radical creole formation as a reference point against which to measure them, and focus our attention more on what they share with other documented cases of shift. Holm's attempt to formulate a framework within which to study such outcomes (this volume) is a step in the right direc­ tion. This is not, of course, to deny that there are some respects in which radical creoles do resemble cases of shift, but they differ in degree as well as kind from the intermediate varieties. To sum up, the so-called "intermediate creoles" should be treated as cases of targeted shift, with regard both to the social contexts of their origins and the kinds of restructuring that gave rise to them. On the other hand, the notion of "restructuring" (of a target under shift) seems less applicable to radical creoles like Sranan, and appears problematic even for less radical creoles like rural Guyanese or Jamaican. All in all, we have some way to go in understanding the creative adaptation of substrate and superstrate inputs which shaped the gram­ mar of the languages called creoles.

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Barnes, William. 1886. A Glossary of the Dorset Dialect with a Grammar of its Word Shapening and Wording. London: Trübner and Co. (reprinted 1970, Guernsey: Steven Cox, The Toucan Press). Beckles, Hilary. 1989. White Servitude and Black Slavery in Barbados, 1627-1715. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. Beier, A.L. 1985. Masterless Men: The Vagrancy Problem in England 1560-1640. London: Methuen. Bickerton, Derek. 1975. Dynamics of a Creole System. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —. 1980. "Decreolization and the creole continuum". In A. Valdman and A. Highfield, eds. Theoretical Orientations in Creole Studies. New York: Academic Press, 109-28. —. 1988. "Creole languages and the bioprogram". In Frederick J. Newmeyer, ed. Linguistics: The Cambridge Survey. Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 268-84. Bliss, Allan J. 1979. Spoken English in Ireland 1600-1740. Dublin: The Dolmen Press. Bridenbaugh, Carl and Roberta Bridenbaugh. 1972. No Peace Beyond the Line: The English in the Caribbean 1624-1690. New York: Oxford University Press. Bruyn, Adrienne. 1994. "Some remarkable facts in Sranan". Paper Presented at the Confer­ ence of the Society for Caribbean Linguistics, Guyana, August 1994. Burrowes, Audrey. 1983. "Barbadian Creole: A note on its social history and structure". In Lawrence D. Carrington, ed. Studies in Caribbean Language. Trinidad: Society for Caribbean Linguistics, University of the West Indies, 38-45. Cassidy, Frederic. 1980. "The place of Gullah". American Speech 55: 3-16. —. 1986. "Barbadian Creole — possibility and probability". American Speech 61: 195-205. Curme, George. 1931. A Grammar of the English Language. Vol. 3. London: D.C. Heath. Curtin, Philip. 1969. The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. DeCamp, David. 1971. "Toward a generative analysis of a post-creole continuum". In Dell Hymes, ed. Pidginization and Creolization of Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 349-70. Ellegård, Alvar. 1953. The Auxiliary DO. The Establishment and Regularization of its Use in English. Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiskell. Elworthy, Frederic Thomas. 1877. An Outline of the Grammar of the Dialect of West Somerset. Illustrated by Examples of the Common Phrases and Modes of Speech Now in Use Among the People. London: Trübner and Co. —. 1886. The West Somerset Word Book: A Glossary of Dialectal and Archaic Words and Phrases Used in the West of Somerset and East Devon. London: Trübner and Co. Feagin, Crawford. 1991. "Preverbal 'done' in Southern States English". In Peter Trudgill and Jack K. Chambers, eds. Dialects of English: Studies in Grammatical Variation. London: Longman, 161-89. Fields, Linda. 1995. "Early Bajan: Creole or non-creole?" In Jacques Arends, ed. 1995: 89111. Hancock, Ian. 1980. "Gullah and Barbadian — origins and relationships". American Speech 55: 17-35.

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—. 1994. "Componentiality and the creole matrix: The southwest English contribution". In Michael Montgomery, ed. The Crucible of Carolina: Essays in the Development of Gullah Language and Culture. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 95-114. Harris, John. 1986. "Expanding the superstrate: Habitual aspect markers in Atlantic Englishes". English World-Wide 7: 171-99. Holm, John. This volume. "Semi-creolization: Problems in the development of theory". Ihalainen, Ossi. 1976. "Periphrastic do in affirmative sentences in the dialect of east Somerset". Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 11: 608-22. Jago, Frederick William Pearce. 1882. The Ancient Language and the Dialect of Cornwall. Truro: Netherton and Worth. Jondoh, Edina Elemawusi Ayaba. 1980. "Some aspects of the predicate phrase in Gēgbe". Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University. Kallen, Jeffrey. 1989. "Tense and aspect in Irish English". English World-Wide 10: 1-39. Klemola, Juhani. 1996. "Non-Standard Periphrastic DO: A study in variation and change". Ph.D. dissertation, University of Essex. Kós-Dienes, Dora. 1984. "Sketch of the TMA system of Akan". In Östen Dahl and Dora KósDienes, eds. Selected Working Papers from the Tense-Mood-Aspect Project. Institute of Linguistics, University of Stockholm, 82-7. Lefebvre, Claire. 1996. "The tense, mood, and aspect system of Haitian Creole and the problem of transmission of grammar in creole genesis". Journal of Pidgin and Creole Linguistics 11:231-311. LePage, Robert B. 1960. "An historical introduction to Jamaican Creole". In Robert B. LePage and David DeCamp, eds. Jamaican Creole. Creole Language Studies 1. London: Macmillan, 1-124. — and A. Tabouret-Keller. 1985. Acts of Identity: Creole-based Approaches to Language and Ethnicity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ligon, Richard. 1657. A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbados. London: Humphrey Moseley. Lowenthal, David. 1957. "The population of Barbados". Social and Economic Studies 6: 445501. Michael, Ian. 1970. English Grammatical Categories and the Tradition to 1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Migge, Bettina. 1998. "Substrate influence in creole formation: The origin of gz've-type serial verb constructions in the Surinamese plantation creole". Fc. in Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 13: 215-65. Mufwene, Salikoko. 1988. "Formal evidence of pidginization/creolization in Kituba". Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 10: 33-51. —. 1991. "Is Gullah decreolizing? A comparison of a speech sample of the 1930's with a sample of the 1980's". In Guy Bailey, Natalie Maynor and Patricia Cukor-Avila, eds. The Emergence of Black English. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins, 213-30. Mustanoja, Tauno F. 1960. A Middle English Syntax. Part 1: Parts of Speech. Helsinki: Suomalaisen. Niles, Norma A. 1980. "Provincial English dialects and Barbadian English". Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan.

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Rens, Lucien Leo Eduard. 1953. "The historical and social background of Surinam's Negro English". Academisch proefschrift. Amsterdam: North Holland. Rickford, John. 1986. "Social contact and linguistic diffiision: Hiberno-English and New World Black English". Language 62: 245-89. —. 1987. Dimensions of a Creole Continuum. Stanford: Stanford University Press. —. 1992. "The creole residue in Barbados". In N. Doane, J. Hall and D. Ringler, eds. Old English and New: Essays in Language and Linguistics in Honor of Frederick G. Cassidy. New York: Garland, 183-201. — and Jerome Handler. 1994. "Textual evidence on the nature of early Barbadian Speech, 1676-1835". Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 9: 221-55. Roy, John D. 1986. "The structure of tense and aspect in Barbadian Creole English". In Manfred Görlach and John Holm, eds. Focus on the Caribbean. (Varieties of English Around the World. G8.) Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins, 141-56. Scott, John. 1667. Description of Barbados (1667). Sloane Mss. 3662, BL. Singler, John Victor. 1992. "Nativization and pidgin/ creole genesis: A reply to Bickerton". Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 7: 319-33. Traugott, Elizabeth  1972. A History of English Syntax. New York: Holt. Visser, Fredericus Th. 1963-1973. An Historical Syntax of the English Language. 4 vols. Leiden: E.J. Brill. Weltens, Bert. 1983. "Non-standard periphrastic do in the dialects of south west Britain". Lore and Language 3: 56-74. Williams, Jeffrey P. 1987. "Anglo-Caribbean English: A study of its sociolinguistic history and the development of its aspectual markers". Ph.D dissertation, University of Texas at Austin. Winer, Lise. 1984. "Early Trinidad English Creole: The Spectator texts". English World-Wide 5: 181-210. —. 1995. "Penny Cuts: Differentiation of creole varieties in Trinidad, 1904-1906". Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 10: 127-55. Winford, Donald. 1993. Predication in Caribbean English Creoles. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. —. 1996. "Column: Creole typology and relationships". Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 11:313-28. —. 1997. "Re-examining Caribbean English Creole continua". World Englishes 16: 233-79. —. 1998a. "Creole formation in the context of Contact Linguistics". Paper Presented at the Conference of the Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics. Fc. in Glenn Gilbert, ed. Pidgin and Creole Linguistics in the 21st century. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. —. 1998b. "On the origins of African American Vernacular English: A creolist perspective. Part 2: Linguistic features". Diachronica 15: 99-154. —. fc. "Sranan TMA and creole formation: A substratist perspective". Ms. Dept. of Linguis­ tics, The Ohio State University.

246 Donald Winford Department of Linguistics Ohio State University Columbus, OH 43210 USA [email protected]

D O N A L D WINFORD

Differential creolization: Some evidence from Earlier African American Vernacular English in South Carolina

Alexander Kautzsch and Edgar W. Schneider University ofRegensburg

1.

Introduction: Some thoughts on "differential creolization"

"Differential creolization", a term coined by Vincent Cooper in his dissertation (1979), is a label which perhaps best captures the idea behind this conference and this paper — the assumption that with some varieties creolization, or restructuring, for that matter, may have occurred to a certain degree but not all the way through. In other words, a creolization process was triggered but perhaps interrupted, perhaps inhibited in substantial ways so that the resulting language shares some but only a restricted set of features or properties typically associated with creoles, and fails to fully qualify as "a creole language" on linguistic grounds. Terms such as "semi-creoles" or "creoloids" have hesitantly been applied to such languages, though such terms also suggest certain undesired associations and are found inappropriate by many. Part of the difficulty is that such languages resemble mesolectal creoles, which are assumed to result from decreolization and the emergence of post-creole continua, but this impres­ sion is incorrect because there has never been a basilectal creole stage. If any­ thing, such varieties are pre-creoles rather than post-creoles, "independent creations in their own right [...] rather than [...] the result of the gradual 'decreolization' of more radical creoles" (Winford 1996b: 325). In ways still insufficiently understood theoretically, the idea of partial restructuring, or differential creolization, is related to the assumption that creolization may be a gradual rather than a catastrophic process (Arends 1993; Singler 1995) and, in general, with recent attempts at disclosing and interpreting earlier stages of creole development (as exemplified, e.g., in Arends, ed. 1995). We feel that "differential creolization", or "degrees of restructuring", is a timely concept, one which has gained some prominence in recent years, although at the same time it is clearly a concept about which we need to learn a great deal more and the very existence of which is disputed; clearly, it is not (yet) accepted as standard wisdom in creole studies. On the other hand, except

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for the terminology the idea as such is certainly not new. In claiming a decent and widely accepted ancestry, we can cite respected early creolists such as Reinecke and Herskovits. In his dissertation, an early classic of creole studies, Reinecke (1937) explicitly assumed that there exists a difference between what he called "plantation creole" and "settlers' creole" dialects. In fact, he explicitly assumes that there existed an intermediate category of "creolized dialects", varieties in which "the plantation creole dialects that had begun to form never crystallized, never got beyond the makeshift stage" (1937: 61) — a statement which is perhaps the earliest accurate definition of what we refer to as "differ­ ential creolization". Remarkably, Reinecke explicitly lists the black dialect of the southern United States, the forerunner of present-day AAVE, as the variety which this description fits; at a very early stage he intuited what is now evolving again as the outcome of decades of scholarly debate about the prior creolization of AAVE. Melville Herskovits, another recognized early expert on the acculturation of Africans in the New World, held exactly the same position: in what Gilbert (1993) calls the "rainbow hypothesis", Herskovits states that "the degree of intensity of the African component decreases as one moves north in an arc beginning in Suriname and ending in the Northern states of the United States" (Gilbert 1993: 458), in fact assuming a drastic decline of hybridization between Gullah, rural Southern US AAVE, and urban northern US AAVE, respectively (see Gilbert 1993: 469-70).1 Schneider (1990) cites further refer­ ences to such ideas (83-5) and documents the existence of a "cline of creoleness" across the English-related varieties of the Caribbean (cf. 1998). John Holm has repeatedly written and lectured on semi-creoles (most recently in Holm 1998 and this volume) and had several Ph.D. students of his analyze such varieties. Sali Mufwene's recent series of papers on language contact and language ecology (e.g. 1996 and this volume) has even led him to conclude that creoles are dialects of their lexifiers, a claim which many will find extremely provocative but which accepts the reality that a great many, if not all, varieties in question are products of language contact to a greater or lesser extent. Similar thoughts have recently been propounded and discussed by Winford (e.g. 1996a: esp. 80-2, 1996b, 1997a: esp. 136-42). AAVE is a variety which, for better or for worse, has recently been frequently listed as a candidate for "semi-creole" or some other intermediate status, a fact which may fit in with the observation that after thirty years of research the question of its "prior creolization" is still under discussion. Without committing ourselves to one of the extreme positions in this debate (see Schneider 1989, 1993), we would like to show in this paper that the concept of "differential creolization" is able to account appropriately for some of the 1) Without giving any reason for this, Gilbert denies only this particular detail of Herskovits' thesis, calling "the gap for language between the Sea Islands and the rest of the United States [...] unjustifiably large" (1993: 469). Gilbert's position is indicative of a strong pressure in the American creolist community to accept the full version of the creole origin hypothesis of AAVE, but Herskovits himself very clearly sees the reality of differential creolization.

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variation and structure that we find in the emergence of this dialect.2 More specifically, we will focus upon evidence of Earlier AAVE from different regions within the state of South Carolina and will show that in three parts of the state (broadly, coastal, inland and upstate) we can observe varying degrees of creoleness which to a strong extent also correlate with demographic facts, i.e. the proportion of the black population in the respective counties. Holm (1998) suggested several factors that may support/determine the emergence of "semicréoles", including the changing ratio of superstrate to substrate speakers, the degree of intimacy of early social relations between them, the accessibility of education, communication patterns, etc.; the others are outside the scope of this paper, but we will attempt to take the relationship to population demographics seriously. In the following section, we will look at the relationship between Gullah and AAVE in South Carolina a little more closely. Subsequently, we will delineate our hypothesis and discuss the methodology applied in our testing of it, before proceeding to document the different degrees of creolization in idio­ lects of earlier African American speakers from that state.

2.

Gullah vs. AAVE in South Carolina

Except for relatively speculative positions on diachronic kinship, the relation­ ship between Gullah and AAVE is hardly ever explicitly addressed and queried in the literature; despite ongoing disputes and differences of opinion in detail, it is seen as pretty clearcut and relatively unproblematic. The traditional view and consensus entails (at least) the following points: 1. Gullah and AAVE are a) two distinct languages (or language varieties), though they are b) diachronically and synchronically related. 2. The differences between the two are a) geographic: Gullah is spoken on the Sea Islands off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia; AAVE is spoken elsewhere through­ out the mainland U.S. b) structural (see below), and c) sociohistorical/demographic: Due to differences in climate and economic structure, there used to be dramatic demographic differ­ ences between African and European Americans on the Sea Islands and in the mainland South: • The main crop on the Sea Islands was rice, whereas throughout the mainland South other agricultural products, including indigo and, later, cotton, were grown; 2) Winford (1997b, 1998) proposes a "shift scenario" which appears to be fairly similar to what we have in mind.

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• As a consequence of the economic structure and also climatic factors, very few whites resided permanently on the Sea Islands, a fact which led to limited access to the superstrate and thus to creolization, whereas elsewhere in the region the proportion of whites was considerably higher, generally con­ stituting a majority. 3. Synchronically, Gullah is a creole, a language in its own right distinct from English, with a set of structural features shared by many other creoles, mostly those of the Caribbean. Irrespective of popular prejudices and lay opinions (which linguists should be working to correct), AAVE is a variety ("dialect") of (nonstandard) English, comparable to and related to other nonstandard ethnic or regional varieties (dialects) of English, especially to Southern white vernacular English. It is set apart from white dialects by a) a (presumably small) set of features distinctive of the dialect and not shared by white dialects of English (but perhaps shared with Gullah and other creole languages), and b) a (presumably larger) set of features quantitatively preferred by but not qualitatively restricted to African American speakers, i.e. features used significantly more frequently, though not exclusively, by African Americans. 4. Diachronically, Gullah and AAVE are usually treated separately, and there are conflicting opinions on the way either of the two varieties has emerged. The alternative views can be summarized as follows: • Gullah: a) (traditional view): Gullah emerged as a fully-fledged basilectal creole and has remained one throughout its history; due to recent and ongoing social changes in this area ("development") it is currently undergoing decreolization, a process which accounts for the variation and the mesolectal varieties that can be found nowadays. b) (recent proposal by Mufwene and others): From its very beginning, there has been variation between basilectal and mesolectal varieties on the Sea Islands, depending on an individual's social situation and language contacts. • AAVE: a) (traditional creolist position): AAVE started out as a creole language very similar to present-day Gullah, but has undergone large-scale, almost complete decreolization, a process which accounts for the remaining similarities between Gullah and AAVE as traces of a creole past; b) (traditional dialectological position): AAVE has never been a creole; its structural characteristics can be accounted for primarily as retentions of archaic dialectal features acquired in earlier centu­ ries.

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)

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(recent compromise): Both positions are probably overstated. While the creole character of earlier AAVE was presumably exag­ gerated (as recent linguistic documentation of earlier texts, speech islands, etc. shows little or no support for such an assumption), it is clear that at least in some areas of the Southern U.S., on a number of large plantations, for instance, conditions which usually lead to creolization prevailed, and some restructuring of the speech of African slaves occurred, though this may have affected only part of the linguistic system, with the other part, nonstandard white dialect as superstrate, also exerting very strong influence (Schneider 1989, 1993). The exact amount of restructuring/prior creolization is still under dispute, but it is widely accepted that this is a matter of more or less (not yes or no), and answers should reasonably be sought for on smaller (i.e. regional, local) levels. Thus, Rickford (1997) and Winford (1997b) looked at regional demographics, arguing for some degree(s) of earlier creolization in AAVE on a per-state basis, including South Carolina; Winford (1997b, 1998) sketches a reasonable scenario of gradual language/dialect shift among Afri­ can Americans of various backgrounds.

In the present paper, we will be addressing the issue of the relationship between the two varieties in a novel way, breaking up the usual dichotomy. What needs to be reconsidered is the assumption of their geographical and historical distinctness. Assuming that differential creolization, dependent upon sociodemographic conditions, occurred in the state of South Carolina in the formative period, we believe that it is more realistic to postulate a range of varieties of African American English rather than just two distinct varieties. There is some evidence for the following supplement to the earlier list of assumptions, to which we choose to apply a label gleaned from Herskovits: (4.') Rainbow Hypothesis of Earlier AAVE in South Carolina: Historically speaking, the boundaries of Gullah were not as clearly delim­ ited as they appear today, either regionally or structurally. Apparently, during (at least) the 19th century, the African American population of the southernmost third of the state of South Carolina spoke a variety different from the rest of the country, and more closely related to present-day Gullah. In other words, Sea Island Creole was not sharply delimited from mainland earlier AAVE, but there was a form of "South Carolina Lowland Earlier AAVE" which formed a transition zone between Sea Island Creole and inland AAVE. The precise nature and spread of this intermediate variety remain to be investigated and accounted for in greater detail, historically, regionally and structurally.

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Preliminary support for the assumption outlined above under (4') comes from two sources, demographic data (which we will be sketching only very roughly here) and structural observations of texts from the respective region. Demo­ graphic data show that throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth century southern SC was the only part of the country where the black population con­ stituted a clear majority, i.e. the speaker proportions met the conditions con­ ventionally posited for (partial) restructuring to occur (cf. Schneider 1989: 34-6; Rickford 1997: 323-5; Winford 1997b: 322-5; etc.). Some anecdotal structural observations suggesting this hunch came from several observations of earlier AAVE, e.g. the speech of Ryer Emmanuel as recorded in Rawick (ed. 1972, vol. II. part 2, pp. 11-26) analyzed as "SC4" in Schneider (1989), and some analyses by Oomen (1985), Oomen and Lissewski (1989), and Viereck (1989). In a similar vein, Winford (1997b: 317, fn. 8; cf. 318, fn. 10) also assumes that It seems at least very probable that Gullah varieties were much more widely distributed through the Carolinas and Georgia up to the early 20th century than they are today

and Rickford (1997) speculates that in the 18th century a creole may have been "developed or maintained in this colony more generally, and not just on the coast" (323). Serious structural documentation will be presented below.

3.

Hypothesis and methodology

The aim of this paper is to substantiate the claim that differential creolization shaped varieties of AAVE in South Carolina, to provide empirical support for the "Rainbow Hypothesis" as outlined above, and thus, specifically, to docu­ ment correlations between demographic proportions on the one hand and linguistic facts on the other. Therefore, let us have a look at the demographics of South Carolina first. Map 1 displays the percentage of African Americans out of the total population of the counties of South Carolina in 1880 (The map is taken from SC Reference Room: Counties; the source of population statistics is: Department of Commerce. Bureau of the Census. 1969: 785-6).3 As is to be expected, there is some apparently random variation (for which there may be explanations in factors such as micro-topography, soil fertility, settlement history, traffic connections, etc.), but overall a division into three types of counties becomes apparent: • coastal counties with an African American population density of over 80 per cent; • a broad band of near-coastal and central counties with an African American population of 50 to 70 per cent; and 3) For some counties figures are missing, because they were formed after 1880 (Dept. of Commerce. Bureau of the census. 1969: 796).

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• interior and upland counties with an African American population of less than 50 per cent.

Map 1: African American population in South Carolina by county (1880)

The notion of differential creolization predicts that the degree of creoleness should correlate with the proportion of the African American population in a given region. Thus, our working hypothesis, derived from the main hypothesis outlined above, is as follows: We expect to find • a high degree of creoleness with speakers from (coastal) counties with a high AA population density (>80%); • an intermediate degree of creoleness with speakers from interior counties with an intermediate AA population density (ca. 50-70%); and • a lack of (many) creole features and a low degree of creoleness with speakers from upland counties with a low AA population density (<50%). On the basis of the data in Map 1 and the above considerations, we have selected Beaufort Co. to represent the coastal region, Hampton Co. for the intermediate category, and Spartanburg and Cherokee Counties from the interior and upland region. Table 1 shows that these counties fall exactly into the demographic range specified above.

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Table 1: African American population in South Carolina (per cent) 1880 1900 Beaufort 91,1 90,5 Hampton 66,4 65,3 Spartanburg 34,7 32,2 Cherokee4 34,6 Horry 31,7 27,1

In addition, in section 5 of this paper we will be looking at some data from Horry Co., which presents a unique and remarkable, seemingly contradictory case, being located on the coast but showing an extraordinarily low density of African Americans; this will be addressed below in a section of its own. To test the above hypothesis, we have chosen to select data from the exslave narratives collected by the WPA in the 1930s and published by Rawick (1972, 1977, 1979), which have been used widely for linguistic analyses by linguists with varying backgrounds and which we assume to be basically familiar (cf. Brewer 1974; Fasold 1976; Brewer 1980, 1991; Schneider 1989). This is the only body of data available for Earlier AAVE that is sufficiently large in scope to allow an analysis of regional differences as predicted by our hypothesis. Although the interviews in this collection fail to be distributed evenly across the state and tend to be concentrated around the homes of some of the most active interviewers, we do get sufficient data from different regions of the state and from several counties to allow us to proceed along the lines required for our purpose. Map 1 also shows the number of interviews from each of the counties in South Carolina, which of course affects our ability to select interviews for analysis. The linguistic reliability of these texts has been questioned and repeatedly discussed (e.g. Maynor 1988; Wolfram 1990; Montgomery 1991; Dillard 1993). In the most recent and most sophisticated investigation of this question available, Schneider (1997) concluded that, despite reasons for reservation and doubt in individual instances, overall the collection represents a reasonably useful and reliable source of earlier AAVE (cf. also Brewer 1997). Besides, whatever distorting factors may apply in the rendering of these quasi-verbatim narratives can be assumed to apply in equal ways to records from all over the state; thus, whatever differences we do find can be taken to reflect real linguistic differences. Following the considerations by Schneider (1989: 54-9), we have restricted our selection to interviews carried out by interviewers rated as reliable there. In addition, we have attempted to avoid "fieldworker isoglosses", differences in the record which may reflect differences in transcription practices of interviewers rather than in the performance of the interviewees, by selecting

4) There are no data for Cherokee in 1880 because it was formed only in 1897 (from parts of Union, York and Spartanburg; cf. SC Reference Room: Counties: Cherokee).

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several interviews by the same interviewer from different localities whenever possible. In presenting evidence in support of our hypothesis we follow a qualita­ tive, idiolect-based principle rather than relying on summary statistics. In a way, that touches upon a theoretical issue which has also remained underestimated in creole studies, the relationship between idiolectal competence and community grammar. As a language system, a creole must be the creation and property of a speech community; but on the other hand it is individuals who acquire language systems, restructure language systems, possibly go through a period of bilingualism (which must have played a role in creole genesis) and command, or switch between, co-existent linguistic systems, as recently claimed by Labov (1998). We do not want to move into these muddy waters here, except to argue that an individual's monostylistic record constitutes an obvious starting point for comparison, thus for thematizing the issues at stake. The boundaries between idiolect and community grammars appear to be extremely fuzzy; in our data we find both some consistency within regionally defined groups and variation within and between these groups. In the material presented below we will be classifying features into "typi­ cally creole" phenomena and non-creole, typically dialectal, features. We are aware of the pitfalls involved in this, as there is no generally accepted set of linguistic features which are found in all and only creole languages; all of the features listed below occur in non-creoles as well, and creoles are also charac­ terized by other patterns (on this problem, see, e.g., Winford 1996b: 319-20.) Still, we believe that despite the theoretical difficulties involved in assuming such a category, from a practical point of view it makes sense. Moreover, the notion is widely accepted; if it were not, we would have to refrain from comparative looks at (distinctly) creole grammar altogether. Of course, in indi­ vidual cases our decisions regarding classifications will demand justification or explanation and will be open to challenge, but we trust the overall picture that emerges will not be affected by any such minor modifications. Perhaps the most substantial problem is that we discuss forms rather than functional categories — but then, forms represent functions, and they are elements of performance and thus open to direct observation and analysis, whereas functional categories as such can only be argued for indirectly as a result of analytical steps and arguments, and are thus ill-suited for comparative approaches. Therefore, we are convinced that, despite some limitations, our approach is justified and justifiable. Our category of "creole features" contains obvious categories strongly and directly associated with creole languages, including preverbal (stressed) been, pre-adjectival zero copula, preverbal habitual does, ain't as a full verb negator, or functional conflations of pronoun forms (lack of a gender distinc­ tion, object form used as subject and vice versa, subject form used as posses­ sive). The lack of an overt passive (i.e. the use of active verbal structures with clearly passive meaning) and the lack of articles in noun phrases are perhaps

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less frequently discussed in descriptions of creole languages but are also clearly characteristic of creoles. The same applies to missing subjects, although this is a pattern which may in individual instances also be interpreted as just a collo­ quialism rather than a product of creole formation. In this category we have also accepted several features which typically occur in creoles but can be seen as less distinctive of this language type, as they do occur in non-creole dialects as well, though probably much less commonly. These include "invariant" be, the lack of a noun plural marker, of a verbal -s in the 3rd person singular, of past marking in verbs (which may result from phonological deletion processes or widespread preferences for individual nonstandard past forms such as run or come) and of a genitive suffix with nouns, as well as zero copulas before noun phrases and before verbal -ing forms.5 On the other hand, we have introduced a functional distinction whenever been occurs as a copula form, as this can be seen just as a nonstandard morphological variant of the verb be: we have accepted been before a predicative noun as a "creole" pattern (given that many creoles do have a formal expression of the copula in this pattern) but have not listed been before an adjective here, given the strong and characteristic association of preadjectival zero with creoles. On the other hand, when "finite" been occurs before a verbal -ing form, we have regarded this as an "intermediate" pattern which cannot be clearly assigned to either of the categories "creole" or "non-creole": When seen as an invariant predicate marker, it could be regarded as a creole pattern, but the very fact that a copula occurs together with a verbal -ing form is atypical of creoles. The other two structures classified as "intermediate" occur widely in creoles but also in nonstandard varieties of English. These are preverbal done {cotton done ), which fits the characteristically creole system of preverbal markers for aspect but on the other hand is also extremely common in Southern US English and other varieties of English,6 or double plural forms (such as mens) which may be seen as analytic creations due to a lack of familiarity with the details of English plural formation or as plainly dialectal forms, also documented else­ where as such. Our third category of features, labeled "non-creole", contains structures which clearly derive from or are characteristic of English and English dialects and which do not normally occur in basilectal creoles, including predominantly synthetic morphological markers: verbal -s in the third singular and in other 5) We have not included prelocative copula structures because they occur too rarely. The few examples that we do have confirm the mixed character of the variety in question: Adeline Grey from Hampton Co., an intermediate speaker, has both an instance of a prelocative zero copula {de house dere now) and one with the copula realized in the same function {Colored folks are in it now). 6) See Schneider (1989: 132-5, 277). This decision is consistent with Winford's observation (1996a: 75-6, 81) that there exist consistent semantic differences between done as used in Caribbean English creoles and in AAVE and, on the other hand, parallels between AAVE done and southern white done (81).

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grammatical persons; noun plural and genitive markers; verbal past marking; preverbal a-; standard negation with the dummy do and the use of ain't as a negator of be or have; morphological distinctions between functionally distinct pronoun forms; passive constructions; inflected copula forms and pre-adjectival been; English perfect structures with have + past participle and, even more interestingly, the characteristically dialectal "three-verb cluster" had done + past participle (cf. Schneider 1989: 123-4, 135-7). Our analysis will proceed in two stages. First, we will select one individ­ ual from each of the three regions and look at structural phenomena in this person's performance as representative of the respective "degree of creoleness", a stage in which we will cite sample structures and, if necessary, comment upon these. Subsequently, in section 5 of this paper, we will put together and compare several sets of idiolects in the form of an implicational scale, thus showing that the seemingly idiosyncratic facts pointed out before can be generalized to group/community grammars as well, disclosing an even more subtle order in the data, along the lines predicted by our hypotheses.

4.

Features in idiolects: Select samples

4.1.

A creole idiolect: Sam Polite

Sam Polite from Beaufort, S.C., claims to have been seventeen years old at the time of Emancipation, which implies that he must have been born around 1848. He was born on St. Helena Island, SC, on a plantation with "more than a hundred" slaves but soon moved to Beaufort together with thirty slaves from the original plantation, having been given to the owner's son to build a plantation of his own after marriage. Sam Polite worked as a field hand. His speech shows a strongly creole structure, including the following features, exemplified in (1) (a) through (j): (1) Creole features in Sam Polite's speech a) b) c) d) e) f) g)

preverbal been: One song we sing been go lak dis; de rest ob de nigger yere been hab Freedom four year befo' we! preverbal habitual does: I still does wuk 'till daa'k on Sattidy lack of past marking: he die; Slabe lib ...; I wuk infield; Wen hawn blow and mawning star rise, ... no copula before adjective: day clean; 'Ooman too old; Wen nigger sick; nigger dead; lack of passive: Wen cotton done , ...; I see my uncle sell; 'Ooman don't sell...; lack of article: hab brudder; kin wisit wife on odder plantation; Hab pass; maybe nigger steal hawg; of torch; infield; ... lack of plural -s: 17 year old; many slabe; Slabe lib ...; two row ob house; ...

258

ALEXANDER KAUTZSCH AND EDGAR W. SCHNEIDER h) i) j)

lack of gender distinction in pronouns: You carry dinner ... and leabe urn ...; 'Ooman don't sell widout he chilllun; if he [slabery] ain't lam me to wuk; prenominai copula form been: My f adda been Sam Polite; I been leetle boy; it been good fing; lack of subject-object form distinction in pronouns: we sing w'en us wuk; ... put we ...; she gib we ...

In Sam Polite's case, there are also isolated instances of forms which we have not included in the tabulations below because it is unclear how they are to be assessed in the overall grammatical context, and whether these are systematic parts of his linguistic behavior, interlanguage phenomena, or performance errors. This relates to an occurrence of a verbal -s on an infinitive (he don't 'members much) and a possessive 's appended to a personal pronoun (day's ['their'] tas'). On the other hand, Sam's performance also displays some phenomena that are not usually found in creole languages but rather characterize English and its dialectal varieties. For instance, a verbal suffix can be found both in the third person singular (slabe dat wuks gits ...) and also in other grammatical persons (You has ...; you gits (every year, habitual??); you wears (dto.); I does; slabe ... knocks off; w'ere I libs now; I goes; I hears).1 Clearly English phenomena that are also found in this record include a standard English negation pattern (If slabe don't do fas'), noun plural suffixes (sheets; worms; funerals; two more niggers) or an English form of a possessive pronoun (your can). 4.2.

Two semi-creolized idiolects: Ann Ferguson and Adeline Gray

Quite a number of speakers from Hampton Co. display a unique combination of creole and non-creole features that can best be accounted for by the notion of differential creolization. Unlike the coastal varieties, these speakers cannot be classified as creole speakers in a simple way, but on the other hand the creole elements are there and demand an explanation. Since in the present context this is the most interesting speaker type, we have chosen to illustrate it by portraying two speakers from this category, Ann Ferguson and Adeline Gray. Ann Ferguson, presumably born in 1863, was interviewed at Estill, S.C. She has an instance of a preverbal been (My mother been belong to ...), third singular -s lacking (dat make me; she always see ...), lack of past tense marking 7) A lot has been said and written on this feature in recent years. Schneider (1983), among others, showed that the formal pattern as such is closely related to inflectional patterns of British dialects. On the other hand, it is certainly also possible that for some speakers verbal -s has acquired specific, non-British functions (cf. Montgomery and Fuller 1996). For instance, among the non-third singular examples there are a few which clearly allow a habit­ ual reading (Ebery year in Christmas month you gits ... cloth ... You wears dat same clote till de next year. You wears hit winter and summer ...) and thus would make it fit into the creole framework.

DIFFERENTIAL CREOLIZATION

259

(My mother stay wid 'em; some ... treat 'em ...), personal pronouns as posses­ sives (me mother; dey own churches), and a missing subject (Been right here ...). On the other hand, there are also many dialectal features in the record: plural -s (two places), the possessive (my), distinct object pronoun forms (Dey tell me ...), preadjectival (I was sick; I... is glad) and prelocative copula (De old church is dere), past-marked verbs (was; searched; moved), a third singular suffix (anybody wat sees ghosts), verbal -s in the first person (7 knows), preverbal a- before present participles (asittin'; awaitin'), consistent article use (de house; de day; de police), and ain't used for negative have (I ain't never seen none). Adeline Grey was eighty-two at the time of the interview. In individual instances she shows lack of the passive (where all de chillun raise; De rice burn up), verbs unmarked for past (Dey burn; ole Missus ... say; dey shoot; dey kill de hog; She work; she marry again), preadjectival zero copula (she so scared; dey blessed), deleted subjects in main clauses (Didn't have ...; Had an oven...), no genitive suffix (Marse John carriage), no plural marker (One of de Yankee) and ain't as a plain negator (dey ain't have nuthin'). On the other hand, there are also a possessive pronoun (your Ma), preverbal a- (asittin'), a preadjectival copula (I is sorry; he was off), a genitive 's (my Ma's shawl), plural marking (ashes; two black dresses), a passive (it wuz dyed), standard English negation (7 don't think), and verbal past morphology (went; started; had; took). 4.3.

A non-creole idiolect: Is iah Jeffries

Out of several possible candidates from the inland, we have chosen Isiah Jeffries, a field hand from Cherokee Co., aged eighty-six at the time of the interview in 1937. In comparison to the above speakers, the interesting obser­ vations are essentially negative ones: no preverbal been or any other preverbal marker, no invariant be, no functional mixing of pronoun forms, no lacking plural marker, genitive markers, verbal endings, subjects, article, passives — core elements of the grammar in its English form are all there. The only features which are reminiscent of a creole AA grammar are adjectives used without a copula (he too proud) and verbs unmarked for past — but in both instances the record also holds numerous counterexamples. It is easy to find documentation for the dialectal English phenomena: past tense (7 lived; took, went; died),8 passive (She was sold— though also with structural deviances: Everything was give you), genitive (my mother's husband; Ma's other chilluns), plural (twelve years old), possessives (his name), negation (7 do not know), verbal -s (my chilluns has), ain't for the copula be (Land ain't soft).

8) In fact, the only verb which occurs without past marking is come, as in den he jest come to be our Pa; De other hands come with dem — and this is known to be a form found in some English dialects as well, so this piece of evidence is inconclusive at best.

260

5.

ALEXANDER KAUTZSCH AND EDGAR W. SCHNEIDER

Feature distributions in counties: An implicational approach

As was stated above, if our hypothesis is true, we may expect the data to pattern in some ordered fashion, with creole features decreasing and non-creole features increasing on moving from the coast to the upland — and this is precisely what we find, not just in selected idiolects but also on a larger scale. Given a few — though, we believe, unavoidable and acceptable — methodological limitations inherent in the data (reliability of the transcripts, comprehensiveness of the record, class assignment of the features), we may not expect a perfect implicational scale, but it is quite clear that some implicational patterning along the lines of our predictions describes the data quite adequately and will thus document the validity of our basic hypothesis. To that end, we have selected larger groups of speakers from the three regions and arranged our data and speakers in several implicational scales as follows. For the present analysis, we have selected the narratives of three speakers from Beaufort, fourteen speakers from Hampton Co., twelve speakers from Cherokee Co. and four from Spartanburg (taken together, these latter 16 repre­ sent the inland regions) as well as four speakers from Horry who, for reasons which will become obvious, will be treated separately. Table 2 identifies these speakers and provides source references. Table 2: Speakers analyzed in the present study Name

Init. County

Interviewer

Lucretia Heyward Sam Mitchell Sam Polite Silvia Chisolm Lucy Daniels Ann Ferguson Willis Gillison Adeline Grey Henry Pristell Mamie Riley Eliza Scantling Daphney Wright Ransom Beckett Henrietta Fields Lydia Floyd Anna Morgan Isaac Suits Bouregard Corry Elias Dawkins Alice Duke Emanuel Elmore W.M. Green Zack Herndon Isiah Jefferies | Anna Johnson

LH SM SP SC LD AF WG AG HP MR ES DW RB HF LF AM IS BC ED AD  WG ZH IJ AJ

Clothilde R. Martin Clothilde R. Martin Clothilde R. Martin Phoebe Faucette Phoebe Faucette Phoebe Faucette Phoebe Faucette Phoebe Faucette Phoebe Faucette Phoebe Faucette Phoebe Faucette Phoebe Faucette Phoebe Faucette Phoebe Faucette Phoebe Faucette Phoebe Faucette Phoebe Faucette Caldwell Sims Caldwell Sims Caldwell Sims Caldwell Sims Caldwell Sims Caldwell Sims Caldwell Sims Caldwell Sims

BEAUFORT BEAUFORT BEAUFORT HAMPTON HAMPTON HAMPTON HAMPTON HAMPTON HAMPTON HAMPTON HAMPTON HAMPTON HAMPTON HAMPTON HAMPTON HAMPTON HAMPTON CHEROKEE CHEROKEE CHEROKEE CHEROKEE CHEROKEE CHEROKEE CHEROKEE CHEROKEE

Vol./Part, (Rawick 1972/7) vol.2/part 2 (72) vol.3/part 3 (72) vol.3/part 3 (72) vol.2/part 1 (72) vol.2/part 1 (72) vol.2/part 2 (72) vol.2/part 2 (72) vol.2/part 2 (72) vol.3/part 3 (72) vol.3/part 4 (72) vol.3/part 4 (72) vol.3/part 4 (72) vol.11 (77) vol.11 (77) vol. 11 (77) vol.11 (77) v o l l i (77) vol.2/part 1 (72) vol.2/part 1 (72) vol.2/part 1 (72) vol.2/part 2 (72) vol.2/part 2 (72) vol.2/part 2 (72) vol.3/part 3 (72) vol.3/part 3 (72)

pages 279-81 200-4 271-6 199-200 238-9 72-3 117-9 203-8 281-2 23-4 78-80 266-9 59-60 124-6 141-2 252 301-4 227-8 313-8 336 7-10 200-2 271-5 17-9 40

1

261

DIFFERENTIAL CREOLIZATION

Table 2, continued Easter Lockhart Jesse Rice Alexander Scaife Silas Smith Sim Greely Cordelia Anderson Govan Littlejohn John Petty

EL JR AS SS SG CA GL JP

CHEROKEE CHEROKEE CHEROKEE CHEROKEE SPARTANBURG SPARTANBURG SPARTANBURG SPARTANBURG

Caldwell Sims Caldwell Sims Caldwell Sims Caldwell Sims Caldwell Sims Caldwell Sims Caldwell Sims Caldwell Sims

vol.3/part 3 (72) vol.3/part 4 (72) vol.3/part 4 (72) vol.3/part 4 (72) vol.2/part 2 (72) vol.3/part 3 (72) vol.3/part 3 (72) vol.3/part 3 (72)

108-11 13-6 76-7 119-20 190-4 5-7 105-7 263-7 |

In the following tables, checked cells (x) indicate the presence of the respective feature (creole, intermediate, or non-creole) in the record of the respective speaker. In order to provide visual clues to the degrees of creoleness in our data, cells which suggest creoleness are brought out by dark shading. This relates both to instances of creole features present (checked) and non-creole features absent (unchecked in the respective lines). In the case of the features classified as intermediate we have refrained from interpreting either the presence or the absence of these variants as an indication of creoleness; accordingly, to suggest their intermediate status, these cells are marked by light shading, irrespective of whether they are checked or unchecked. Each of the tables has been arranged in the manner of an implicational scale, i.e. the highest number of cells suggestive of creoleness appears to the left (for speaker idiolects, represented in the columns) and on top (for features, represented in the rows). Conversely, the rows and columns with the smallest number of creole phenomena appear to the right and at the bottom of the table. Tables 3, 4, and 6 are sorted by indicators of creoleness, i.e. the number of shaded cells; Table 5 is sorted by non-creolefeatures. Table 3 suffers a little from the fact that we have only three speakers from Beaufort, but nevertheless, even here it is possible to document a certain degree of internal differentiation. Structurally, it becomes perfectly clear that the grammars of these speakers are characterized by the dominance of creole features; more than fifty per cent of all cells are shaded, thus indicating strong creoleness. In addition, it is clear that the creoleness of these grammars is achieved by the presence of creole features rather than the absence of non­ creole features: Most of the creole items appear on top of the table. Several creole phenomena (preverbal been, prenominai been, zero copula before adjec­ tives and nouns, the lack of subjects, past tense marking, plural marking, of articles and passives, the negator ain't, and the failure to maintain a variety of distinctions in the pronominal system) can be detected in all speakers in this region, and certain elements of non-creole grammar (a copula before a verbal -ing form, genitive marking, passive constructions, and the three-verb-cluster had done pp) do not appear with these speakers. In addition, however, it is noteworthy that the grammar of these speakers is not exclusively creole: we do find dialectal superstrate features such as inflected copula forms, an English perfect, and verbal and nominal inflection.

262

ALEXANDER KAUTZSCH AND EDGAR W. SCHNEIDER

Table 3: Qualitative feature distribution with speakers from Beaufort County Beaufort preNP been preV been preAdj Ø cop. preNP Ø cop. lack of subject lack of past tense lack of pl. marker lack of article lack of overt passive obj/pron. as subj. 1 passive | had done + Ved lack of gender dist in pronouns ain't as full V negator subj v proa, as poss. subj. pron. as obj. lack of animate/inani, dist in pro. preAdj. inflected copula a-Ving lack of gen. -s 13rd sg. -s be/have + V(ed) for perfective ain't for be/have + neg. | preN inflected copula

LH

SP

X X

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x !

invariant be

| preAdj. been preV habitual does plural s \ vbl. -s outside 3rd sg. lac  oi 3rd. sg. -s 1 preVing 0 cop. 1 preV done 1 double plural forms 1 been Ving neg. don't/didn't st. poss. pron. ^ subj. form st. obj. pron.  subj. form morphologically marked past tense cop. + progr. 1 gen. -s

SM

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I

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H i  X

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X X X X X

1 I I I I

In Table 4, the linguistic features considered and the speakers from Hampton Co. are arranged in the same fashion. Two things become immediately apparent. First, a certain degree of implicational patterning can be applied to these speakers from within the same county, i.e. to a certain extent there are internal differences in the number of creole features. Second, in terms of creoleness the grammar is a mixed one, with a certain set of creole features (about a quarter of all cells are shaded) but a strong baseline of non-creole elements. Thus, this evidence is strongly indicative of the outcome of a process of differential creolization. Creole features which turn out to be fairly widespread are

263

DIFFERENTIAL CREOLIZATION Table 4: Qualitative feature distribution with speakers from Hampton Co.

Hampton had done + Ved

AG

sc

lack of past tense

X

X

be/have + V(ed) for perf. a-Ving preAdj. been 3rd sg. -s ain't for be/have + neg. lack of subject preNP been cop. + progr. gen. –s passive

X

MR LF AF AM WG LD ES HP DW RB HF X

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preNP Ø cop x preAdj. inflected copula X

X

x

|neg. don't/didn't

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lack of pi. marker lack of overt passive lack of gen. -s vbl.–soutside 3rd sg.

ain't as full V'negator lack of 3rd sg. -s 1 st. obj. pron. = subj. form been Ving preV done double plural forms plural –s st. poss. pro.≠subj. form preN inflected copula morph. marked past tense

x

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preAdj. Ø cop

preVing Ø cop preV been lack of 3rd sg. –s

X

IS

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x x x x

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preV habit. does subj. pron. as obj. subj. pron. as poss. subj. pron. as subj. invari. be lack of gender dist. lackof anim./inani. dist.

the lack of tense marking, the zero copula in several environments, and zero suffixes in noun morphology. In addition, some of the creole marking in this table also derives from the absence of English and dialectal, i.e. non-creole, structures, although even these do occur occasionally, with individual speakers and in a scattered fashion. Certain non-creole structures are, however, fairly general in this category, e.g. morphological distinctions between subject, object and possessive pronouns, prenominai copula occurrences, and, in addition to unmarked forms, the presence of past tense morphology — clearly a mixed grammar.

264

ALEXANDER KAUTZSCH AND EDGAR W. SCHNEIDER

In the upland, represented in Table 5 by speakers from two interior counties, the impact of creole grammar is noticeably weaker, although some of it can still be detected, and there is still a certain degree of ordered internal patterning discernible. Just about a fifth of all cells are shaded, and to a certain extent the appearance of creoleness in this table results from the absence of non­ creole features in addition to the presence of creole features. Amongst the latter, verbs unmarked for past, a mixing up of object and subject pronouns, lack of articles and zero copulas are relatively common. The evidence presented so far is strongly in line with our hypothesis, we believe. Still, we have rearranged our data in two more ways to underscore and document the effect of differential creolization in South Carolina. In both cases the data from all three regions (and four counties) is brought together to provide an immediate impression of the different degrees of creoleness that shape both community and idiolectal grammars, in a fashion which combines some systematicity and order with a considerable degree of variability. In Table 6, all features and speakers have been sorted on the basis of creole indicators. All speakers display some creole as well as some non-creole phenomena, but overall it is clearly possible to arrange them implicationally, and the resulting arrangement of speakers largely reflects the differences in regionality. As is to be expected, the speakers from Beaufort all appear to the left, being characterized by a higher degree of creoleness than all the others. Between Beaufort and the other counties — Hampton in particular — there is a noticeable decline but no categorical difference visible. In general, speakers from Hampton tend to appear further to the left than those from the two inland counties, although there is clearly some overlap: some individuals from Spartanburg and Cherokee have remarkably strongly "creolized" gram­ mars, while some from Hampton fail to show many creole traces. Thus, the difference between these two regions is not as substantial as the differences in demographic speaker proportions might suggest. A differential creolization model is clearly adequate to describe the data, but obviously there is no straight correlation between demographic proportions and the resulting degree of creoleness. Other factors may intervene, and perhaps threshold values (like the 80 per cent level proposed by Bickerton 1981) may play a role in determining the further course of linguistic evolution in a community. The interregional relationship between the grammars, and the ranges of idiolectal variation, become even more clearly visible in Figure 1. For this diagram, we have simply counted the number of creole and non-creole features recorded with each speaker separately; and the frequency of creole items has been plotted on the vertical axis and that of the non-creole features on the hori­ zontal axis; thus, each individual is assigned a position in this virtual creole/ non-creole two-dimensional space.9 9) Individual speakers are identified by the first letter of the respective county, to indicate their regional origin, and, following a colon, their initials, as in the tables.

DIFFERENTIAL CREOLIZATION

265

Table 5: Qualitative feature distribution with speakersfromCherokee and Spartanburg Counties Cherokee/Spartanburg GL ZH SG JP WG CA AD  AS AJ ED IJ X preAdj. been X X X X X X X lack of past tense - X X X X obj.pron. as subj. x X x X x X X X X X X 3rd sg. -s X X X X X be/have + V(ed) (perf.) X X X X had done + Ved X X X X X X X ain't for be/have + neg. X X X X X X X X a-Ving ■ x.'-.-. X X X X: X lack of article X X X X x preNPØcop. X X X X X X X X X neg. don't/didn't X X XpreVing 0 cop. X X X ain't as full V negator x X X préV been X preAdjØcop. x x X lack of subject X X X X X X X gen. –s x X X X X X X X X X X cop. + progr. x x X X X vbl.–soutside 3rd sg. x X X X X X X x X preNP been in vari, be lack of 3rd sg.–s X X X X X X preAdj. Infl. copula x X X X X X subj. Pron. as obj. x X X X been Ving X X X X X X preV done X X X double plural forms ? X X X X X X X X X X X X morph. marked past t. subj. pron. as poss. lack of overt passive lack of pl. marker lack of gen. –s preV habit does lack of gender dist. lack of ani/inani, dist. X X X X X X X X X X X X X plural —s st. poss. pron.≠subj. f. X X X X X X X X X X X X X st. obj. pron.≠subj. f. X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X preN inflected copula X X X X X X X X X X X X X Passive

JREL X

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SS X I X

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Note that an "ideal" creole grammar would have to be located at the top lefthand side (many creole, no/few non-creole features) while an ideal non-creole grammar could be expected at the bottom and towards the right (no/few creole elements, many non-creole structures).

Hack oí past tense had done + Ved preAdj been be/have + V(ed) for perfective 3rd sg. -s a-Ving ain't for be/have + neg. cbj, pron. assubj; lack of subject pîcNPbeen preÄdj 0 cop. lack oí article NP Ø gen. -s cop. + progr. preVbeen ain't as full Vnegator passive lack of pl. marker \ ' lack of overt passive préVíng Ø cop lack of gen. -s vbl. -s outside 3rd sg. neg. don't/didn't preAdj. inflected copula lack of 3rd sg-s invari.be -, subj, pron. as obj. süBj.prön. as poss. lacfcof gender dist - i : lack of ani/inani ;$st. .; preVhabit preN inflected copula plural -s st. obj. pron. \ subj. form been Ving preV done double plural forms morphol.marked past tense st. poss. pron \ subj. form

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C C H H AD  AS ED DW KB

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Table 6: An implicational scale of all features and speakers in this study

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266 ALEXANDER KAUTZSCH AND EDGAR W. SCHNEIDER

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Figure l: A graphic representation of the frequencies of creole and non-creole features in idiolects from three regions (four counties)

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In addition to the plotting of each individual, we have drawn lines around the most peripheral speakers from the three regions, thus suggesting something like the range of linguistic variability for "county grammars". The diagram suggests several things, even more clearly than the tables: • All grammars are mixed between creole and non-creole features. • The grammar of speakers from Beaufort is predominantly creole, with non­ creole features interspersed. • Conversely, the grammars of speakers from Hampton and Spartanburg/ Cherokee can be characterized as mixed, or even predominantly non-creole with individual creole features. • The difference between Beaufort on the one hand and Hampton and Spartanburg/Cherokee on the other is remarkable. • As predicted, Hampton stands closer to the creole end than the two inland counties. However, there is some overlap between these two regions — more than would have been expected based on demographic and regional background factors. The "rainbow hypothesis", as enumerated above, is clearly supported, though it must not be conceived of as a plain linear correlation.

6.

The special case of Horry County

The situation becomes even more complex (and, perhaps, interesting) when we supplement our investigation by introducing data from another area, which appears to be a special case on both linguistic and historical grounds, Horry County.1 On the one hand, Horry is located on the coast, which would lead us to expect a strongly creole grammar. On the other hand, Horry had a surprisingly low African American population of only 31.7 per cent in 1880, which should suggest a limited degree of creoleness. Interestingly enough, the linguistic facts appear to reflect the impact of both of these conflicting forces. Table 7 presents the data for the speakers from Horry in the same manner as for the previous counties. The degree of creolization to be observed is almost as strong as that found in Beaufort (more than half of all cells are shaded), and creoleness is again indicated by the presence of creole features, although some of these features are also conspicuously absent, and several non-creole phenomena can again be found. The intermediate stance of Horry becomes even more apparent when we place these four speakers into our feature frequency plot (see Figure 2). Without any overlap Horry speakers are positioned between those from Beaufort and Hampton — another stage in the ranges of differential creolization that we are looking for. 10) The peculiar status of Horry County as "an oddity" has recently also been realized and commented upon by Montgomery and Mishoe (1999: 242).

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Table 7: Qualitative feature distribution in speakers from Horry County Horry preNPØcop. lack of past tense lack of pl. marker lack of article lack of gen. –s subj. pron. as poss. 3rd sg. –s had done + Ved lack of gender dist. preAdj.Øcop. passive preVingØcop. preAdj. been ain't for be/have + neg. a-Ving obj. pron. as subj. be/have + V(ed) for perfective preAdj. inflected copula lack of animate/inanimate distinction gen. –s preNP been ain't as full V negator lack of overt passive vbl. -s outside 3rd sg. ptoV been cop. + progr. neg. don't/didn't subj. pron. as obj. plural -s been Ving preV done double plural forms invariant be preV habitual does lack of 3rd sg. –s lack of subjeet st. poss. pron.≠subj. form st. obj. pron.≠subj. form preN inflected copula morphologically marked past tense

SR

EG

MH

X

X

X

X

X

X X

WW

x

X

X

X

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 X

X

X

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They display a high frequency of creole features (though less so than Beaufort speakers) and a low to intermediate frequency of non-creole features: slightly more than speakers from Beaufort, slightly fewer than those from Hampton, noticeably fewer, with but little overlap with them on the horizontal value, than those from Spartanburg and Cherokee. We are unable to provide a straightfor­ ward explanation of the special situation that we find in Horry; basically, it

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Figure 2: A graphic representation of the frequencies of creole and non-creole features in idiolects from different regions, including speakers from Horry Co.

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certainly lends support to Holm's (1998) and others' suggestion that there is more to language contact and its effects than just population demographics (cf. also Parkvall, this volume). In the case of Horry, geographical and political factors may have played a major role. On the one hand, the overall population of Horry used to be quite low because settlers found the area "unsuitable" (Kovacic and Winberry 1987: 78) — and the farming that took place in the county was largely small-scale farming with few slaves (which explains the limited proportion of African Americans that the population statistics show): "some two thirds" of the farms there had no slaves at all, and of those that did more than fifty per cent of all had fewer than five slaves (Kovacic and Winberry 1987: 102). On the other hand, Horry appears to have been quite cut off from outside contacts: "This area of the state was isolated for many years by numerous rivers and swamps, and the inhabitants sometimes referred to themselves as the 'Independent Republic of Horry'" (SC Reference Room: Counties: Horry). Isolation, then, may have supported creole formation or the retention of creole features which are more likely to have been introduced here than in the interior because of the neigh­ borhood of strongly creole-speaking areas. In any case, this illustrates that the process of creolization or restructuring cannot be accounted for by monodimensional approaches but rather has to be addressed from various angles and by incorporating as many factors pertaining to language contact as possible. We have therefore attempted to re-introduce the notion of differential creolization, a concept which is open enough to incorporate a variety of heterogeneous factors and should suit a theory of semicreolization as proposed by Holm at this conference.

7.

Conclusion

In this paper we have tried to support the hypothesis that the varieties of earlier AAVE in South Carolina as recorded in the ex-slave narratives can be accounted for by the concept of "differential creolization", the assumption that the amount of creolization to be observed in sub-areas of the state correlates with the density of the black population proportion in the period after Emanci­ pation. We believe that we have presented evidence which supports this thesis quite strongly, although some of the data suggest that it needs to be modified to some extent, and some data or special phenomena appear to warrant further investigation. In particular, it has turned out to be true that the grammar of coastal speakers is predominantly creole and that of the inland speakers is predominantly non-creole, but that of the speakers from the intermediate region, still part of the coastal plains, has turned out to be less strongly creole than would have been anticipated, although basically its intermediate position has also been confirmed independently on the basis of the linguistic facts alone.

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Also, the fact that the interplay between demographic influences, regional proximity, and unidentified other factors can be extremely complex and requires the weighting of several constraints is suggested by the data from Horry, which stand between those from Beaufort and Hampton in terms of their creoleness. In general, we suggest that further linguistic evidence of such "rainbow" patterns of variability should be sought for in order to allow deeper insights into the nature of the process of differential creolization.

References Arends, Jacques. 1993. "Towards a gradualist model of creolization". In Frank Byrne and John Holm, eds. Atlantic Meets Pacific. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins, 37180. —, ed. 1995. The Early Stages of Creolization. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. Bailey, Guy, Natalie Maynor and Patricia Cukor-Avila, eds. 1991. The Emergence of Black English. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. Bernstein, Cynthia, Thomas Nunnally and Robin Sabino, eds. 1997. Language Variety in the South Revisited. Tuscaloosa, London: University of Alabama Press. Bickerton, Derek. 1981. Roots of Language. Ann Arbor: Karoma. Brewer, Jeutonne P. 1974. "The verb be in Early Black English: A study based on the WPA ex-slave narratives". Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. —. 1980. "The WPA slave narratives as linguistic data". Orbis 29: 30-54. —. 1991. "Songs, sermons, and life-stories: The legacy of the ex-slave narratives". In Guy Bailey, Natalie Maynor and Patricia Cukor-Avila, eds. 1991: 155-71. —. 1997. "Challenges and problems of recorded interviews". In Cynthia Bernstein, Thomas Nunnally and Robin Sabino, eds. 1997: 59-75. Cooper, Vincent. 1979. "Basilectal creole, decreolization and autonomous language change in St. Kitts-Nevis". Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University. Department of Commerce. Bureau of the Census. 1969. Negro Population 1790-1910. New York: Kraus Reprint Co. Dillard, J.L. 1993. "The relative value of ex-slave narratives: A discussion of Schneider's paper". In Salikoko S. Mufwene, ed. 1993: 222-31. Fasold, Ralph W. 1976. "One hundred years from syntax to phonology". In Sanford B. Steever et al., eds. Papers from the Parasession on Diachronic Syntax, April 22. Chicago: Chicago Linguistics Society, 79-87. Gilbert, Glen G. 1993. "Historical development of the creole origin hypothesis of Black English: The pivotal role of Melville J. Herskovits". In Salikoko S. Mufwene, ed. 1993: 458-75. Holm, John. 1998. "The study of semi-creoles in the 21st century". Paper given at the Symposium on Pidgin and Creole Linguistics in the 21st Century, New York. Kovacic, Charles F. and John J. Winberry. 1987. South Carolina: A Geography. Boulder, London: Westview Press.

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Labov, William. 1998. "Co-existent systems in African-American vernacular English". In Salikoko S. Mufwene et al., eds. 1998: 110-53. Maynor, Natalie. 1988. "Written records of spoken language: How reliable are they?" In Alan R. Thomas, ed. Methods in Dialectology. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 109-20. Montgomery, Michael. 1991. "The linguistic value of the ex-slave recordings". In Guy Bailey, Natalie Maynor and Patricia Cukor-Avila, eds. 1991: 173-89. — and Janet M. Fuller. 1996. "What was verbal -s in 19th-century African American English?". In Edgar W. Schneider, ed. 1996: 211-30. — and Margaret Mishoe. 1999. '"He bes took up with a Yankee Girl and moved up there to New York': The verb bes in the Carolinas and its history". American Speech 74: 24081. Mufwene, Salikoko S. 1996. "The development of American Englishes: Some questions from a creole genesis perspective". In Edgar W. Schneider, ed. 1996: 231-64. —, ed. 1993. Africanisms in Afro-American Language Varieties. Athens, London: University of Georgia Press. —, John R. Rickford, Guy Bailey and John Baugh, eds. 1998. African-American English. Structure, History and Use. London, New York: Routledge. Oomen, Ursula. 1985. '"I tell you just like I been know it' — Die Entwicklung einer kreolischen Konstruktion in Black English". In Manfred Pfister, ed. Anglistentag 1984. Vorträge. Giessen: Hoffmann, 105-14. — and Monika Lissewski. 1989. "Pronoun variation in South Carolinian 'Early Black English'". In Manfred Pütz and René Dirven, eds. Wheels within Wheels. Papers of the Duisburg Symposium on Pidgin and Creole Languages. Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang, 109-33. Rawick, George P., ed. 1972. The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography. 19 vols. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood. —, ed. 1977/9. The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography. Supplement. Series 1 and 2. 12 and 10 vols. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood. Reinecke, John. 1937. "Marginal languages: A sociological survey of the creole languages and trade jargons". Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University. Rickford, John R. 1997. "Prior creolization of African-American Vernacular English? Sociohistorical and textual evidence from the 17th and 18th centuries". Journal of Sociolinguistics 1: 315-36. Schneider, Edgar W. 1983. "The origin of the verbal -s in Black English". American Speech 58:99-113. —. 1989. American Earlier Black English. Morphological and Syntactic Variables. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. —. 1990. "The cline of creoleness in English-oriented creoles and semi-creoles of the Carib­ bean". English World-Wide 11: 79-113. —. 1993. "Africanisms in Afro-American English: Weighing the evidence". In Salikoko S. Mufwene, ed. 1993: 209-21. —. 1997. "Earlier Black English Revisited". In Cynthia Bernstein, Thomas Nunnally and Robin Sabino, eds. 1997: 35-50.

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—. 1998. "Negation patterns and the cline of creoleness in English-oriented varieties of the Caribbean". In Pauline Christie, Barbara Lalla, Velma Pollard and Lawrence Carrington, eds. Studies in Caribbean Language II Papers from the Ninth Biennial Conference of the Society for Caribbean Linguistics, 1992, 204-227. —, ed. 1996. Focus on the USA. (Varieties of English Around the World Gl 6). Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. Singler, John. 1995. "The demographics of creole genesis in the Caribbean: A comparison of Martinique and Haiti". In Jacques Arends, ed. 1995: 203-32. South Carolina Reference Room: Counties, (http://www.state.sc.us/scsl/cnties.html). South Carolina Reference Room: Counties: Cherokee, (http://www.state.sc.us/scsl/ cher.html). South Carolina Reference Room: Counties: Horry, (http://ww.state.sc.us/scsl/hor.html). Viereck, Wolfgang. 1989. "In need of more evidence on American Black English: The exslave narratives revisited". Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 92: 247-62. Winford, Don. 1996a. "Column: Common ground and creole TMA". Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 11: 71-84. —. 1996b. "Column: Creole typology and relationships". Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 11:313-28. —. 1997a. "Column: Creole formation in the context of contact linguistics". Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 12: 131-51. —. 1997b. "On the origins of African American Vernacular English — A creolist perspective. Part I: The sociohistorical background". Diachronica 14: 305-44. —. 1998. "On the origins of African American Vernacular English — A creolist perspective. Part II: Linguistic features". Diachronica 15: 99-154. Wolfram, Walt. 1990. "Re-examining vernacular black English". Language 66: 121-33.

Alexander Kautzsch, Edgar W. Schneider University of Regensburg Department of English and American Studies D-93040 Regensburg Germany [email protected] [email protected]

Restructuring in vitro? Evidence from Early Krio

Magnus Huber University ofRegensburg

1. Introduction In an earlier paper (Huber 1998) I examined the origins and genetic affiliations of Krio, the English-lexified creole spoken in Sierra Leone. The main findings were that Krio as spoken today was essentially imported from across the Atlan­ tic towards the end of the 18th century, and that the Nova Scotian settlers, who arrived in Sierra Leone in 1792, probably constitute the historical link that accounts for the close affinity between Krio and Gullah. It was also found that the relationship between the different population groups in the colony was characterized by a high degree of segregation until about 1830, and that conse­ quently contact and cross-influence between the different speech forms was minimal up to that time. Huber (1998) treated early Krio as a monolithic entity, i.e. for the purposes of that paper the fact was disregarded that there must have been several strands of restructured English on the Sierra Leone peninsula in the first half of the 19th century, spoken by the different settler groups. The present article takes a closer look at the internal development of Krio and analyzes one of the early restructured varieties spoken in the colony, that of the Liberated Africans, who constituted by far the largest population group. An attempt will be made to reconstruct where and how this variety developed and what its con­ tribution was in the formation of Krio. In order to determine the place of the Liberated African variety in the early linguistic ecology of the Sierra Leone colony,1 section 2 summarizes what is known about the major population groups involved in the settlement of the colony, while section 3 describes the sociolinguistic situation on the peninsula up to the middle of the 19th century. 1) Strictly speaking, the settlement on the Sierra Leone peninsula can only be referred to as a "colony" from 1 January 1808 on, when the settlement became a crown colony. Before that date the territory was administrated by the private Sierra Leone Company. However, for the present purposes I will use "colony" to describe British administration of the area from 1787, when the first group of settlers arrived from England.

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So far, little work has been done on diachronic aspects of Krio, but my own historical research on West African Pidgin Englishes (WAPEs) has brought together a large body of data, both sociohistorical and linguistic, that enables us to reconstruct earlier stages of WAPEs and Krio and the interrelations between them, as well as their affinity to other Atlantic English creóles (see Huber 1998, 1999a, b). With regard to the internal development of Krio, the discovery of texts dating from the early years of the Liberated African settlements on the Sierra Leone peninsula (1810s-20s) allows us to observe the kind of restructur­ ing that was going on in the early phases of Afro-European contact. Because life in the Liberated African villages proceeded in virtual isolation from that in the capital Freetown up to ca. 1830, it may be argued that what we can observe in the villages is a restructuring process in vitro, largely undisturbed by the other varieties current in the colony.

2. The colonization of the Sierra Leone peninsula: The main settler groups This section briefly summarizes the settlement of the Sierra Leone colony, from the arrival of the Original Settlers in 1787 to the coming of the Liberated Afri­ cans, who were settled in the colony between 1808 and 1863. For a more detailed account of the origin of the settler groups and the demographic devel­ opment of the Sierra Leone Colony from 1787-1850, see Huber (1999a: 59-69). Original Settlers. In May 1787, 377 settlers, comprising about 328 Black Poor and ca. 49 whites, arrived from England at the Sierra Leone peninsula and founded Granville Town, at the site of modern Freetown. Many of the blacks had worked aboard British ships during the American Revolution, others had fled from American plantations to the British side, and some had come from the British West Indies. By March 1788 the number of settlers in Sierra Leone had dwindled to about 130 due to high mortality and defection. In November 1789, Granville Town was burnt down and its inhabitants dispersed by a local king. When Alexander Falconbridge arrived early in 1791 he was able to gather only 64 of the Original Settlers. Nova Scotians. In 1783, several thousand blacks who had fought on the British side in the American War of Independence had been freed and trans­ ferred to Nova Scotia. The officials decided to offer them a passage to Africa, and 1 131 "Nova Scotians" arrived in Sierra Leone in February and March 1792. They founded Freetown, at some distance from the Original Settlers, who joined them in August. In December 1792, the Nova Scotians numbered 1 025. The Nova Scotians are also referred to as "the Settlers". My analysis of a list of 533 Nova Scotian emigrants indicates that 58.4% must have been familiar with some form of Virginian Black English, and 30% with a variety spoken in the Carolinas (Gullah?).

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Maroons. After their unsuccessful revolt in Jamaica, 556 Maroons from Trelawny Town were deported to Nova Scotia in 1796. In 1800, it was decided to transfer them to Sierra Leone where the climate was thought to be more favourable. On 30 September 1800, about 525 Maroons landed at Freetown, where they joined the European garrison in fighting the rebelling Nova Scotians. The rebellion was quenched and the Maroons first settled at Granville Town at some distance from the Nova Scotians. In 1803 they moved to Free­ town but still continued to live in segregation from the Nova Scotians. Relations between the Maroons and the Nova Scotians continued to be hostile for many years because of the Maroons' involvement in suppressing the latter's rebellion in 1800. Liberated Africans. When slaving became illegal for British subjects in 1808, a British anti-slave squadron started to patrol the West African coast to intercept slave ships. A Vice-Admiralty Court was established in Freetown on 16 March 1808 to adjudicate captured slave ships and liberate their human cargo. "Recaptives" or "Liberated Africans", as the freed slaves were called, were settled in villages on the Sierra Leone peninsula. In 1860, three years before the last slaves were freed, 38 375 Liberated Africans and their descen­ dants were counted in the colony. Europeans. Among the other population groups that may have left their linguistic imprint on Krio (Europeans, indigenous Sierra Leoneans, Krus from Liberia, and the soldiers from the West India Regiments), the most important in the context of the present study are the Europeans. Europeans never constituted a sizeable proportion of the colony's population and their number fluctuated greatly due to high mortality. As the black population increased steadily — first with the arrival of settlers from across the Atlantic and later through the stream of Recaptive Africans — the percentage of Europeans declined from 4.2% in 1792 to less than 1% in 1811, and continued below that mark throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. As colonial administrators, missionaries, and traders, Europeans occupied the socially most prestigious positions. Most Europeans were British, but there was also a substantial number of Germans among the missionaries and traders.

3. The sociolinguistic conditions in early Sierra Leone colony What role did the individual population groups play in the origin and develop­ ment of Krio? The influence of the Original Settlers cannot have been decisive, since in comparison to later arrivals their number was negligible and decreased dramatically. To the best of my knowledge, nobody has ever attributed much influence to the Nova Scotians either, although they arrived eight years before the Jamaican Maroons and in double their number. Those creolists who argue that Krio was introduced to West Africa from the New World generally claim

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that it was the Jamaican Maroons who exerted the main influence. Finally, another major group to be considered in the development of Krio is that of the Liberated Africans, who by about 1812 outnumbered the Nova Scotians and Maroons. Judging from their enormous numerical increase over the following decades, the Recaptives could well have dominated the linguistic scene in 19thcentury Sierra Leone by swamping any other variety that may have developed in the years prior to their arrival. Early Sierra Leone society was highly segregational (for details see Huber 1999a: 70-2). The black population at Freetown (Nova Scotians and Maroons) tended not to associate with the indigenous Sierra Leoneans nor with the Liberated Africans. In contrast to the more Western orientation of the Free­ town population, "the focal points of the Liberated African's life in the Sierra Leone village were similar to those of his environment before capture" (Peterson 1969: 197). Apart from the odd Recaptive being "apprenticed" in Freetown households or shops (see 4.1 and 4.5), there was little contact between the capital's population and the Recaptives. Thus, until about 1830, life in the villages on the peninsula proceeded in relative isolation from the Nova Scotians and Maroons at Freetown. The relationship between the different population groups on the peninsula in the 1807-30 period was strictly hierarchical, with Europeans at the top, followed — in descending order — by the Nova Scotians and Jamaican Maroons, the Liberated Africans, and the Tribal Africans (Porter 1963: 43, 48-9). Maps 1 and 2 show the location of the different population groups in Freetown and of the Liberated African settlements on the peninsula. The Recaptives, together with the indigenous Africans, were at the bottom of the social scale, and it was only from the 1830s on that opportunities for social advancement offered themselves. Economic achievement played a decisive role in the Liberated Africans' "emancipation" in Sierra Leone society, and basically this meant orientation towards Freetown. The supply of foodstuffs for the con­ sumption in the capital was one of the first domains where Liberated African women developed a quasi-monopoly. In 1830, Leonard (1833: 36) noted that The market-place is crowded with liberated African females [...]. The manumitted slaves, who chiefly supply the markets, arrive [in the morning] from the different villages within six or eight miles of Freetown, bringing baskets offrait on their heads [...].

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Figure 1 reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press. Figure 2 reproduced by per­ mission of  Hurst and Co. Publishers Ltd.

In the late 1830s, about 400 villagers migrated daily from the villages to the Freetown markets (Peterson 1969: 273). The first marriages between Settlers and Liberated Africans are reported from around the same time, but these were isolated cases and were not approved of by the Settler community (Fyfe 1962: 211-2). A surviving tax list of 1853 shows that seven of the 19 biggest house owners in Freetown were Recaptives (Fyfe 1962: 257). For the development of Krio, this means that up to about 1830 there must have occurred little or no blending of, or cross-influence between, the different speech forms current in the colony because of segregation and edgy relation­ ships between the different population groups. Kilham (1828: 7) noted in 1828 that a "barbarous broken form" of English prevailed among the Liberated Afri­ cans, whereas ("good") English was spoken in Freetown (the full quote can be found in section 4.1). As the Liberated African villages on the Sierra Leone peninsula were geographically and socially isolated, the influence of the Free­ town varieties on the speech of the Recaptives must have been minimal. For the

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years up to 1830, at which time some villagers started to move into Freetown, the English-lexicon speech in these settlements can therefore be assumed to have developed largely independently from the Freetown varieties. The next sections consider the nature and use of restructured English in the Liberated African villages.

4. The Liberated African variety 4.1.

The nature and domain of use of the Liberated African variety

Starting from March 1808, when the first 78 Recaptives were landed in Free­ town, Liberated Africans were enlisted in the army or "apprenticed", i.e. given as servants to Nova Scotians, Maroons, or Europeans in Freetown according to the provisions of the Abolition Act. This was intended as a first step in their acculturation to the ways of the settled colony population. An order-in-council of 16 March 1808 provided for enlistment of up to 14 years (Kopytoff 1965: 24). From 1825 on, newcomers were to remain with reputable citizens for a period of three years, and by 1835 they were retained on public works for three months before being sent on to the villages (Peterson 1969: 153, 163). The apprenticeship system was to remain one of the official policies towards Liber­ ated Africans until it was altogether abolished in 1850 (Fyfe 1962: 252). A total of 4 365 Recaptives were apprenticed for short periods from 1808 to 1833, while 3 443 (this includes the soldier's wives and children) were enlisted either as soldiers or as sailors on warships (Kuczynski 1948: 116). However, even in the earliest years of the Vice-Admiralty Court not all freed Africans were apprenticed or recruited: as early as 1808 Governor Thompson had proposed to settle freed slaves in rural communities surrounding Freetown instead of apprenticing them (Peterson 1969: 53). In 1809 a group of Bambaras and Jolofs was farming the slopes of Leicester mountain (Fyfe 1962: 107), Leicester thus being the first official settlement of Liberated Africans. Other Liberated Afri­ cans founded independent villages in the mountainous hinterland of the penin­ sula in the same year (Peterson 1969: 54-5). Because of the ever-growing number of Africans freed by the Vice-Admiralty Court, additional villages were founded on the peninsula (Wyse 1989: 3): Regent (previously known as Hogbrook) and Wilberforce (both 1812), Wellington, Hastings, and Waterloo (all 1819), Kissy (settled in 1812 but officially designated a Liberated African settlement in 1817). Other settlements were to follow in the 1830s, including Sussex, Tombo, and Benguema (Fyfe 1962: 209). The Liberated Africans came from a wide variety of places, principally on the Lower Guinea Coast, but the main groups among them were the Yorubas (called "Akus"), Igbos, and Gbespeaking Africans, the first two representing the dominant groups by the 1830s (Peterson 1969: 173-4). At first, Liberated Africans were distributed without

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reference to origin (Fyfe 1962: 138), but by 1830 settlement by tribe had become the accepted policy (Peterson 1969: 164). Once freed, Liberated Africans were brought to the so-called King's Yard in Freetown, where prospective masters selected apprentices. The rest was distributed among the villages on the peninsula (Fyfe 1962: 134, 138). Colonyborn children had a reputation of being lazy and difficult to manage, so Europe­ ans tended to recruit their domestic servants from the new arrivals in the King's Yard (cf. e.g. Melville 1849: 32, 255-6) or took indigenous Africans into their service (cf. e.g. Rankin 1836: 180). In the villages, newcomers were put under the care of the superintendent and/or the missionary. As Liberated Africans did not speak English but African languages when arriving in Sierra Leone, a third means of communication soon developed. As early as 1818, the Chief Justice noted the existence of a jargon when making a point to impress the [...] principal inhabitants and heads of families with the impor­ tants of the duty of instructing their native servants, and those captured negroes who may be in their employment, in the English language in a less imperfect manner than at present. That language was the medium through which all other instruction was communicated to those persons, and an adequate knowledge of it would be found highly beneficial in all matters of ordinary business, as well as in all cases when such persons have to give evidence in trials at law [...] At present it but too often happened that when a native was brought before the Court, who knew nothing of English, another was brought to interpret between the Court and him, who spoke such a jargon of English, that it became necessary to find another interpreter to make his language intelligible. (The Royal Gazette and Sierra Leone Advertiser 1 (31), 16 May 1818, p. 100)

Descriptions of verbal interactions between Liberated Africans and whites in the 1830s and 1840s have come down to us in the accounts of Peter Leonard (1833), who visited Freetown in 1830, Mary Church (1835), who was in Sierra Leone in 1833-34, and Elizabeth Melville (1849), who lived there in 1841-46. Their reports indicate that when whites communicated with Recaptives, they did not adopt the restructured speech of the Maroons or Nova Scotians but rather created a new medium, through simplification of their own variety of English and imitation of the imperfect approximations of the Liberated Africans. Leonard observed that Amid all the dialects spoken by the various Negro tribes and inhabitants in the colony, English is the language generally understood and made use of in every degree of imperfection. Poor Quamino, in giving utterance to our civilized dialect, falls into many diverting errors of style, as well as pronunciation, and our countrymen here seem to think that it is necessary he should not improve in this respect, as they all make use of the same defective and incongruous

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jargon in speaking to every one of dingy exterior, conceiving, no doubt, that the blacks understand better what is said to them when spoken to in their own broken imperfect English. The following is a specimen of this peculiar lingua franca jargon, which I overheard the other day between a European master and his black servant: — Master. "Why for you no take book to goberna man?" Man. "Me no get him, sa." Master. "Yes you did; you get rum, fum, palaver plenty." Man. "Me no like him, sa; me get rum fum palaver plenty too much." (Leonard 1833: 37-8; my emphasis) When Church and Melville first heard this "imperfect" English they decided never to use such "barbarous" language. But they soon realized that this was the only way to achieve successful communication. On her arrival in Sierra Leone in 1833, Church remarked about the Liberated Africans that it must be exceedingly difficult to make them comprehend any thing for I never heard such gibberish as they talk by way of English; it takes half an hour to make out what they mean to say, and yet they are quite indignant if you imply that they cannot speak our language. I believe the English make them worse than they would be otherwise, by imitating them, instead of speaking correctly, I have positively declared I will not follow this ridiculous custom, but the people say if I do not, the Africans will never understand me, however, I hope that by repeating my words a great many times, they will manage to do so. Amongst a population, composed as it is, of a number of different tribes, each speaking a different dialect, even this jargon must be very useful as a medium of communication, but a knowledge of the English language helps you but little in the attainment of it. (Church 1835: 11-2; my emphasis) Melville had a similar experience when she set up her household in the colony. Shortly after her arrival she wrote home in January 1841 that My directions are constantly mistaken. On asking one of the servants to bring me a breakfast-cup, he first brought a cream-jug, and then, on repeating slowly and distinctly that I wanted a large blue cup, he returned with a dessert-plate; and not till the command, "Go fetch big tea-cup, he live in pantry," had been issued by lips initiated in the mysteries of the African patois, did the boy understand and obey accordingly. There is no neuter in negro-grammar, and everything is endowed with animation: for instance, they say of dinner, "he live on table." (Melville 1849: 13) In the beginning, Melville, like Church, resolved not to adopt this jargon, but a little more than a year after her arrival we find her saying: I remember my wise reflections on hearing a European lady talk "country fashion" to a black servant one day very shortly after my arrival, and my mental resolve that I would never profane my mother tongue by adopting so

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283

extraordinary a mode of speech [...] But necessity has gradually taught me to think very differently, and I now give my household orders with perfect fluency, in a patois that would certainly puzzle both a linguist and grammar­ ian. (Melville 1849: 111) Apparently, one advantage of this jargon was that it was relatively easy to learn for Africans and that anglophone Europeans simply had to produce foreigner talk English or imitate the Africans' way of speaking to be understood. Rankin, who visited Sierra Leone in 1834, noticed the short time that Africans needed to become competent in the new language: English, or rather a jargon compounded of English and barbarous roots, is the medium of communication only when the native languages of the interlocutors are dissimilar. The negroes are gifted with a power of acquiring languages in an incredibly short space of time, many days are not required to enable them to become intelligible in a foreign tongue, and when acquired it is not soon forgotten. (Rankin 1836: 230-1) And Clarke (1843: 52), who spent five years in the colony around 1840, remarked that "They have the faculty or organ of language well developed, as they acquire in a few weeks a sufficient smattering of English to be able to communicate their ideas". The Liberated Africans generally seem to have believed that the language they were using in interaction with whites was metropolitan English. They do not seem to have been aware of the fact that the jargon common in black-white communication was not the language that whites were using among themselves. Compare, for instance, Church's (1835: 11) observation that "I never heard such gibberish as they talk by way of English; ... and yet they are quite indignant if you imply that they cannot speak our language". Similarly, when Melville (1849: 83) received a present from an African in 1841 but could not express her gratitude because she did not yet master the jargon, the African appeared "Evidently quite incredulous on being told (as an extenuation of what appeared so rude in the conduct of his benefactor's 'ma-amie') that she could not as yet very well speak, or even understand 'blackman's English' ...". It appears, then, that in communicative situations involving Liberated Africans and whites, English or the simplified version produced by anglophone speakers served as a target for the Africans. That is, the situation in which the jargon evolved was characterized by approximation on the part of the blacks and simplification on that of the whites. The situation must have been comparable in the Recaptives' settlements on the peninsula. In 1828, Hannah Kilham noted that a jargon was in use in the Liberated African villages:

284

MAGNUS HUBER

At present the Liberated African children are learning English under the same disadvantages, which English children would have in learning French, were French books only given to them, without any English translation. The chil­ dren in the villages have but little opportunity of hearing conversation in English, excepting in the barbarous broken form of it, which prevails in that district, and which consists but of a very limited number of words (some suppose not more than fifty): the written language of their English books of course appears quite as a foreign tongue in comparison with this; therefore, although many learn in time to read and to spell, those who are thus circum­ stanced cannot be expected to understand what they read. The children of the Free Town schools have superior advantages in this respect — their parents being chiefly from the American Continent or Islands, they are brought up by them in speaking as well as reading the English language. (Kilham 1828: 7)

Mission schools were established during the early years of the villages' exis­ tence, and instruction was carried out in English, but this did not mean that the jargon got out of use and metropolitan English gained wider currency. Rather, the jargon and English seem to have coexisted in a kind of diglossia, with English confined to more formal or western modes of expression, such as writ­ ing, while the jargon fulfilled the functions of everyday communication with whites. Just like the domestic servants in Freetown, the Liberated Africans on the peninsula developed their jargon in interaction with the few Europeans (missionaries, teachers, superintendents), rather than adopting the variety spoken by the Maroons or Nova Scotians in Freetown. As will be shown in section 5, the surviving samples of restructured English from the villages show strong signs of being different in kind from the varieties of the Maroons or Nova Scotians. Melville still encountered a similar diglossic situation in the 1840s. In 1841, her reaction to a note written by one of her servants, containing her instructions on how to lay the table, was as follows: "The diction was really most laughable; the handwriting, on the contrary, very good" (Melville 1849: 58). Again, when she took a Liberated African boy into her service in 1846, she observed: and really this boy does credit to the school (conducted by the Church Missionaries) at which he has been brought up. He not only can explain the meaning of what he reads, but every day fills a page of his "copy-book" with a story, usually out of the Bible, but written down from memory. The handwrit­ ing is good and the history always correct, but being composed in "black man's English, " it is really impossible not to smile sometimes at the language. (Melville 1849: 255; my emphasis)

It appears, then, that literacy and exposure to metropolitan English did not generally prevent competence in the jargon. In the 1820s, Africans were increasingly employed as teachers in the colony's schools (cf. e.g. Kilham 1828:

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285

11-2), and it can reasonably be assumed that some instructors used the jargon themselves when teaching fellow-Recaptives to write. At what time the jargon started to be used for communication with fellow-Africans is difficult to say, but the fact that tribalism was quite wide­ spread right into the second half of the 19th century (see section 3) suggests that this was uncommon at least during the 1810s and 20s. However, Rankin's (1836: 230) remark that "a jargon compounded of English and barbarous roots, is the medium of communication only when the native languages of the inter­ locutors are dissimilar" indicates that it began to be used for communication among blacks in certain circumstances in the first half of the 1830s. There is also one precious piece of linguistic evidence that the jargon underwent tertiary hybridization around that time: locative live (as in Go fetch big tea-cup, he live in pantry in the Melville quote, above), which was current all along the West African Coast in the 19th century, grammaticalized to a progressive marker in WAPEs around 1870, the first token known to appear in print dating from 1879 (I live for go 'I am going'; Liberian PE).2 Such grammaticalization processes are usually seen as evidence that a jargon was stabilizing and developing some autonomy and norms of its own. In Sierra Leone, progressive live did not become current as in the WAPEs, but in my corpus of Liberated African speech there is one single instance of live used as a progressive marker. The missionary Beal noted in his diary: May 11, 1841. Mrs. Beal and myself visited the man named in my last Quarter's Journal as one of the worst heathen's in the town, but who had been led to me to inquire after his soul's salvation. He was very glad to see us, as he always is; and welcomed us by placing at his door a little stool. I said, 'Well, how do you get on now?' 'Oh, Massa!' he replied, 'I live upon Him, I live for try' (Walker 1847: 454; my emphasis) Note that this token of progressive live predates the first occurrences in WAPEs by about 40 years. Assuming that an interval of some ten years is needed before a feature would appear in print, we get 1830 as the approximate date when live grammaticalized to a progressive marker in the Liberated African variety. This accords well with Rankin's observation, quoted above, that in 1834 the jargon started to be used among Africans. In sum, a jargon developed for communication between Liberated Afri­ cans and whites soon after the establishment of the first settlements on the Sierra Leone peninsula in the 1810s. This jargon started to undergo tertiary hybridization around 1830. However, the 1830s were also a period when Liber­ ated Africans began to advance economically and closer ties were established between the villages and the colony's political and economical centre Freetown 2) For a more detailed account of this grammaticalization process see Huber (1996: 64-8, 1999a: 86-91, 93-5).

286

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(see section 3). During this period some Recaptives would have been exposed more regularly to the varieties spoken by the population groups based in Free­ town, especially the Jamaican Maroons and, perhaps more importantly, the Nova Scotians and can be expected to have adopted these more prestigious and expanded varieties or at least to have incorporated some of their features into their own jargon. The 1830s and 40s, and maybe also the 1850s, may be characterized as a period when a jargon was still current among Liberated Afri­ cans, especially among those who had newly arrived in Sierra Leone, but also as a period of growing influence of the Freetown varieties. The latter may explain why grammaticalization processes that are indicative of the stabilization of a jargon, e.g. grammaticalization of the locative copula to a progressive marker, can only occasionally be observed in the Liberated African variety: they happened in individual cases but simply did not catch on because linguistic norms were increasingly provided by the Freetown varieties. 4.2.

A note on the corpus

We are fortunate in having social and linguistic documentation of the early years of the Liberated African villages in a number of missionaries' accounts, the most comprehensive being that of W. A. B. Johnson (1852), of the Church Missionary Society, spanning his years at Regent, 1816-22. Johnson moved to Regent in June 1816, only four years after it had been declared a Liberated African settlement. His posthumously published Memoir contains extracts from his journal and letters, in which he also noted down specimens of the "broken" English he encountered in Regent. Extracts from Johnson's diary have also been published in various other places, e.g. in the anonymous Remarkable Particu­ lars (1821) or in Walker's (1847) Church of England mission in Sierra Leone? The latter also contains quotations from the reports of other missionaries, from the 1810s to the 1840s. The missionary's William Davies experiences among the Liberated Africans from early 1815 to early 1818 are related in Davies (1835). As different varieties of restructured English were current in the colony, there is the danger that the language specimens that have come down to us were recorded by Europeans who were not able to distinguish between the different strands of restructured English and reproduce them adequately on the page, without confusion.4 However, the case of the Liberated African jargon is differ­ ent because it was written down by whites who lived in the villages, where the overwhelming majority were Recaptives. Thus, these whites would have had little acquaintance with other varieties. Also, Johnson and other missionaries 3) Extracts from Johnson's writings can also be found in the Boston Recorder of 28 April 1821 (see Roberts 1997). 4) The literature records at least one instance of a European mixing up the Maroon and Settler varieties (see Rankin 1836: 106-8).

RESTRUCTURING IN EARLY KRIO

287

wrote down their experiences on the spot rather than in retrospect. Thus, their portrait of the jargon can be taken to be relatively accurate. One reason why the missionaries recorded the speech of the Recaptives under their care was that the Church Missionary Society had instructed them to send "verbatim accounts of what the converts said, to print in the annual reports, that pious hearts be touched by their broken English" (Fyfe 1962: 130). Although only part of the examples of "broken English" in e.g. Johnson's Memoir derive from his reports to London, the desire to keep the Liberated Africans' variety comprehensible for readers in Britain may also have influ­ enced its representation in his diary or private/semi-official letters. Therefore, what we find in the missionary accounts is probably not a 100% faithful repro­ duction of the variety in use on the peninsula. Nevertheless, they contain a number of jargon/pidgin features that allow us to draw some interesting conclu­ sions about the nature of the restructuring process that went on. The following remarks are primarily made with Johnson's Memoir in mind, but they equally apply to the accounts of other missionaries in other villages. The variety recorded at Regent shows strong Standard English influences at times, e.g. in the area of verbal and nominal inflections. These influences may be due to a number of factors: (i) instruction or literacy in English among Regentonians (but see the remarks in section 4.1), (ii) inaccuracies in Johnson's perception and reproduction of the variety, and (iii) to a conscious effort on his part to render the variety intelligible to readers not versed in restructured English. While factor (i) is part of the linguistic scene of Regent in the 1810s and did not lead to a distortion of what was actually heard in the village, factors (ii) and (iii) with all probability contributed to a misrepresentation of the variety. However, there are some traits in Johnson's examples of "broken English" that are clearly not influenced by factors (ii) and (iii) but must have been perceived by Johnson (and other writers) as the variety's salient features. The following is a typical sample of the restructured variety current in Regent, noted down in 1818. The speaker is a school-girl of about 16 years of age: About three months past, you talk to the school-girls. When you done talk, plenty girls go and tell you what they been hear on Sunday. You pass me, and ask me what the matter that me no hear something. Me no answer: but me shame too much. You tell me that you think and be fraid, that me never pray to Jesus Christ; but be careless and prayerless, and going down to hell. When you say this, me no like it at all. You done. Me go home. Me begin to fear too much. Me try to pray; but my heart came like stone. Me consider all them bad things me done before. Me fear more, more. Me no sleep, me fear me die and go to hell. Since that time me no feel rest; me think nobody be bad past me; me worst, past all. But me think now that Jesus Christ be strong enough to save me. But me sorry too much that my heart is always against me: it will not let me serve the Lord Jesus Christ. Me no sabby what to do with my bad heart. (Johnson 1852: 93-4)

288 4.3.

MAGNUS HUBER

A case study: Regent

Regent, about 6.5 km from Freetown in the mountainous interior of the Sierra Leone peninsula (see Map 2), was founded in 1812, one of the first official villages for the settlement of Liberated Africans. By the time Johnson arrived in 1816, its population was estimated at 1 200 (Peterson 1969: 109). The July 1820 census lists 1 218 inhabitants ("Regent and vicinity": 1 210 Liberated Africans, 5 whites, 2 Nova Scotians, 1 Kru), while Johnson reports the population to be 2 000 in March 1823 (Peterson 1969: 113). Table 1: Regent population in 1818, 1820, 1827, and 1843 1818

1820

(Kuczynski 1948: 156) Σ

Liberated Africans Nova Scotians Krus Europeans

Liberated A f Nova S c K r u s 6 Europeans Indig. Africans

1

r o 2

177

(UBSC CA 1/019/1) men women boys

girls

Σ

578 2 1 2

130 -

1210 2 1 5_

346 3

156 -

1827

1843

(UBSC CA 1/019/3) men women boys

(UBSC CA 1/019/6) male female Z

i

c t

4

a i 411

n a 328

girls

Z

s

4

n 203

s 1566

2

9 -

757 1 1 3

1186 2 3_

*1 Joloff, 1 Soosoo, 1 Sherbro

On 14 June 1816, his first day in Regent, Johnson (1852: 27) wrote in his jour­ nal that "There are very few of these people who can speak broken English, the greatest part have lately arrived from slave-vessels, and are in the most deplor­ able condition". However, he found some people in almost every village in the neighbourhood of Regent who were able to understand English (p. 35), which means that a small number of residents in the parish must have stayed at Free­ town before. Johnson opened a school where children and adults were taught reading and writing. From its earliest days, the school must have been quite successful, judging by the returns he sent to London: on 14 February 1817 he reported 330 adults and children in school (attendance 291), while on 6 June of the same year there were 386 people (attendance 341) under some kind of tuition (pp. 51, 56). Thus, at least one third of the village's population was regularly exposed to metropolitan English during the early years of Johnson's activities. The command of English at Regent ranged from near-standard — as in the letters of "converted negroes" to the reverend while he was on home leave

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early in 1819 (pp. 184-5), which, apart from a lot of biblical diction, are in immaculate English — to "broken English", of which there are many examples in the Memoirs. In the following sections a closer look will be taken at the expression of TMA categories in the Liberated African jargon. Tense Past. A number of sentences in the Regent data encode a past-before-past context with been: (1) About three months past, you talk to the school-girls. When you done talk, plenty girls go and tell you what they been hear on Sunday '... what they had heard on Sunday' (p. 93; 1818)

From examples like (1) one might be tempted to conclude that the Regent variety featured an anteriority marker. However, sentences like the above are extremely rare; the majority of -tokens5 in the data occur in a (simple) past context: (2) Suppose me die, me go to fire: me been do had too much 'If I die, I will go to hell: I sinned a lot'

(p. 77; 1818)

In a sample of the 1817-20 Liberated African variety as represented in Johnson (1852), been marks 7.3% of 109 past contexts: 4.6% of the references to simple past (five tokens) and 50% of references to anterior contexts (three tokens, including two in conditional clauses). Although the percentages seem to indi­ cate that been is favoured in anterior contexts, they obscure the fact that there are actually more tokens of been (past) than there are tokens of been (ant.). It does not seem far-fetched to assume that if people use and hear been more often (in absolute numbers) in simple past contexts than they do in anterior contexts, been may well come to be associated with general past (i.e. simple past and past-before-past) rather than with anteriority only, even if it is (statistically!) favoured in the latter. According to Bickerton's (1980) prototypical creole TMA system the combination of bin + stative verb leads to a past interpretation, and bin + non­ stative verb to a past-before-past interpretation of the verbal complex. This is clearly not the case in the Regent data, where been apparently signals past irre­ spective of the [±stative] value of the following verb: four of the five verbs marked with been and referring to simple past are in fact action verbs, as in (2) 5) Been also occurs in the variant be: you be thief too much 'you stole too much' (1820) and We be tink these ting keep we from the big fire 'we thought these things would save us from purgatory' (1816 Kissey; Davies 1835: 34-5).

290

MAGNUS HUBER

above, where been precedes the non-stative verb do. This indicates that been encoded general past rather than anteriority and that lexical stativity played no role in past marking. 6 From the data it seems that anteriority was not formally marked but conveyed by the context, as in (1). From the majority of descriptions it would seem that modern Krio bin also encodes general past rather than anteriority. Fyle and Jones (1980: xlii) classify bin as a "historic auxiliary (indicating a time previous to the time under discussion)", but they do not consider the meaning of bin to be sensitive to verbal stativity (as in Bickerton's prototypical anterior marker; see Jones 1968: 87, n. 1). Thus, according to Fyle and Jones' approach, time locus rather than lexical stativity is the reference point for past marking in Krio. Similarly, Hancock (1969: 62) describes bìn as a past marker and gives two Krio variants for his "past action" sentence 'I walked along there yesterday': a bin waka go da sai eside and a waka go da sai eside (Hancock 1987: 292). In a like manner, Nylander (1999: 154-5) describes bin as the Krio past marker and provides sample sentences with bin that are clearly past, not anterior. 7 As in the Regent data, the meaning conveyed by bin + verb in modern Krio is apparently inde­ pendent of the [±stative] polarity of the latter. Apart from the phonetic similarity between Regent been and modern Krio bin, there is an obvious parallel in the functional domain covered by these two markers: both signal past tense rather than anteriority, and in this both varieties deviate from the supposed creole prototype. Mood Irrealis. It is not quite clear if restructured English in Regent had an irrealis mood marker (go in modern Krio and WAPEs). In the data, there is only one example of go which may be interpreted as expressing irrealis mood:

6) There are a few cases where been encodes perfect tense rather than past: Oh Lord, we been so long on the way to hell, and we no been saved, we been hear your good word so long, and we no been consider (p. 112; 1818) 'Oh Lord, we have been on the way to hell for so long, and we have not been saved, we have heard your good word for so long, and we have not considered it'. However, these seem to be influenced by metropolitan English and will not be discussed further here. 7) Although Holm (1989: 407) calls bin the Krio anterior marker, his sample sentences with bin (pp. 417, 418, 421) are past rather than anterior. My inspection of modern Krio texts corroborates Fyle and Jones' (1980), Hancock's (1969, 1987), and Nylander's (1999) inter­ pretation: bin often combines with a [-STATIVE] verb in uncontroversially simple past (not past-before-past, as the creole prototype predicts) contexts. Jones' (1990: 846-9) analysis also throws serious doubt on the classification of bin as an anterior marker. For a contrary opinion, see Corcoran (1997).

291

RESTRUCTURING IN EARLY KRIO

(3) God hear every time somebody go talk him 'God listens every time that somebody would pray to (?)/goes and prays to (?)him' (p. 242-3; 1819)

Apparently, this developed from lexifier going to + verb sequences; cf. the intermediate stage in This Girl no good - she go to die (1820; Anon. 1821: 30). Ability and habitualis. Other morphemes in the data whose functions as mood markers are equally unclear are can (> modern Krio kin?), possibly expressing ability (4) and maybe habitual aspect (5). There are no unambiguous examples of the former in the Johnson data and the habitual marker always occurs in the standard negative can't instead of *no can: (4) Jesus Christ can make me good 'Jesus Christ can amend me'

(p. 205; 1820)

(5) me want to do good but me wicked heart can't let me T want to do good but my wicked heart never lets me'

(p. 87; 1818)

The first unambiguous attestation of habitual can in Krio is from 1834: me can go for hear God-palaver 'I (usually) go to church', attributed to a Nova Scotian Settler (Rankin 1836: 62). Note that Grade (1889: 267), who believed that 19thcentury WAPE had its origins in Liberia and Sierra Leone, reported that standard will is replaced by can in late-19th-century WAPE: he can die 'he will die'. If this observation also applies to early restructured Englishes in Sierra Leone, an alternative gloss for (4) is '... but my wicked heart won't let me'. Can in the Johnson data only partly covers the functions of modern Krio kìn: Hancock (1987: 274, 288), Jones (1968: 88-9), Fyle and Jones (1980: xl), and Nylander (1999: 155-7) all agree that kin signals both ability and habitualness in modern Krio,8 whereas Liberated African can could apparently only encode the former. Modern Krio also has a separate, if marginal, form for habitual past, blant (cf. Hancock 1987: 288; Holm 1989: 407, who calls it habitual anterior), which does not occur in the Regent variety. Deontic modality is marked in the standard English way in the Regent data, i.e. with must: (6)

I what we must do 'I don't know what we must do'

no sabby (p. 87; 1818)

By contrast, modern Krio has its own marker to express obligation,fɔ.

8) Note that Jones (1968: 88-9), Fyle and Jones (1980:xl), and Nylander (1999: 155) call kin a marker of "possibility". From the examples they give, however, it is clear that this is identi­ cal with what I call the ability marker.

292

MAGNUS HUBER

Speaker certainty. Sabby, derived from the homophonous verb meaning 'know; understand' (ultimately of Portuguese origin) can be interpreted as marking speaker certainty in some contexts:9 (7) suppose he no save me, me sabby lost for ever 'If he [Jesus] does not save me, I will (definitely) be lost for ever' (p. 87; 1818) (8) Suppose, massa, you no come in this country, we sabba [sic] go fire '...we now know that we should have perished' (p. 88; 1818; Johnson's translation)

Philip Baker (p.c.) objects that he "can't believe that such an important lexical item as sabby could acquire the meaning 'will (definitely) be'" and suggests instead to derive sabby in the above examples from English shall be which is phonetically confusable by learners. Note also that contexts in which sabby might be interpreted as expressing speaker certainty are rare in the Regent corpus. It may thus have been used only by a small number of speakers. In modern Krio speaker certainty can be overtly marked, although the form employed (mɔs) is apparently derived from a different lexifier etymon {must). To my knowledge, speaker certainty cannot be conveyed by sabi + verb con­ structions in contemporary Krio. Aspect Nonpunctuality. While Krio, like WAPEs, has a nonpunctual marker which covers both progressiveness and habitualness, the Regent variety apparently lacked such a particle. Nonpunctual contexts are unmarked in Johnson's data, and this in spite of the existence of a locative copula (live for), which in many

9) There is one instance where a variant of sabby expresses ability (in the sense of'know how to ...'): Massa, me feel more than me savah talk (p. 127; 1818) '... more than I can say'. Clarke (1843: 11 fh.) reports the following sentence from the Sierra Leone peninsula: he no savay heary Ingliss 'he does not understand English'. Note that Holm (1989: 407) lists sabi (in variation with fit) as the WAPE habitualis marker, and Todd (1984: 142-3) reports sabi in this sense from contemporary Cameroonian PE: i sabi chop fish 'he's always eating fish'. Habitual sabi also occurs in Nigerian PE, before 1966: girls for this una part sabifine-o 'girls in our area are beautiful' (Achebe 1966: 16). It occurs quite early in other Atlantic English creóles, e.g. in Sranan around 1765: a sabi leij, lit. 'he knows how to lie' (Arends and Perl 1995: 79), i.e. 'he is a (habitual) liar'. In this sense it is also attested in the Pacific, e.g. in the western dialect of Torres Strait Creole em no sabe dring 'he never touches alcohol' (Shnukal 1988: 51). However, habitual sabi is rather marginal in WAPEs, this function being usually taken by dè: a dè go skul 'I go to school/1 am going to school'. Personally, I can not recall having ever come across habitual fit as attested by Holm (1989: 407). Fit + verb generally expresses ability in WAPEs: a fit du am 'I can do it'.

293

RESTRUCTURING IN EARLY KRIO

Atlantic English creóles was grammaticalized to a nonpunctual marker (see 4.1). There is only one sentence where habitual aspect is expressed by do: (9)

Massa! God do keep me, for true! 'Sir, the Lord truly keeps me'

(p. 257; 1820)

Completivity is expressed by done, as can be seen in (1) above and (10): (10) Suppose somebody beat rice, when he done beat, he takes the fan and fan it '... when he has finished threshing, he takes the fan and fans it' (p. 206; 1820)

This again parallels modern Krio usage, where the completive marker is don. Optative mood and imminence. Want expresses optative mood and, by extension, imminent action or ingressiveness: (11) The house want to fall 'The house is about to collapse'

(p. 298; 1821)

Wan(t) + verb to convey imminent action or ingressiveness is likewise attested in modern Krio. Table 2 summarizes the TMA systems of modern Krio and the early Regent variety as represented in Johnson's data. With the exception of nonpunctual aspect (prog., hab.: de, blant) and possibly habitualis (kin) and futurity (go) the Regent system had markers for all categories that can be overtly marked in modern Krio. In addition, a number of markers are obviously derived from the same superstrate words, the exceptions being the markers for optative (más) and deontic modality (fɔ). Table 2: Comparison of early Regent and modern Krio TMA systems Tense Regent Krio been bin

Mood Regent Krio go (go) can kin (sabby)? mos must fɔ

Aspect Regent Krio done don want wàn (can't)! kin dè

Other salient features of the Liberated African jargon are identified in Table 6 (cells outlined in bold). Although there are a number of features in the Regent data that appar­ ently derive from the superstrate (e.g. -s-pluralization, verbal inflections, relativization with that or zero in object positions, etc.), an inspection of Table 2 and the list of other salient features confirms that the Regent variety shows

294

MAGNUS HUBER

many of the characteristics usually associated with pidgins or creoles. As mentioned above, some of the superstrate features found in the data were possi­ bly introduced by Johnson. We may therefore assume that the spoken variety was not as close to metropolitan English as the examples in the Memoir suggest. 4.4.

Interpretation of the Regent data

In the light of the sociolinguistic characterization of the early 19th-century Sierra Leone colony given in section 3, the very existence of a restructured variety in Regent of such a comparatively high degree of elaboration as outlined above is astonishing, given that the variety is unlikely to have been modelled on the speech of the Nova Scotians and Maroons at Freetown. Regent had merely existed for four years when Johnson arrived in 1816, and accordingly he found "very few" Africans who were able to express themselves in "broken English", many Regentonians having in fact been liberated from slave-ships not long before. New Recaptives continued to arrive in the village throughout the period of the missionary's stay,1 and contact with Freetown, where Creole was spoken by the Maroons and the Nova Scotians, was minimal until 1830. Still, by 1820, we find an astonishingly elaborate TMA system on the peninsula — and this in spite of the Regent variety having had a maximum of just six years to develop. Regent does not seem to have been an exception in this respect: the samples of restructured English from Kissey and Leopold (from 1816 and 1817, respec­ tively) reported by Davies (1835) show the same features as those from Regent. By the mid-1820s, the jargon was apparently well-established in the Liberated African settlements. Note that children could not have played a major part in the restructuring process because of two related reasons: first, with only one or two exceptions, what Johnson reports in his Memoir is the speech of adults, for whom the variety was a second language; second, it is out of the question that adult Recaptives could have adopted a variety previously creolized by Regent-born children for the simple reason that the latter were too young at the time under discussion (three years on average, with the oldest just six). The 1820 census only lists 286 children (i.e. a mere 23.6% of the Liberated African population in Regent), and many of these would have been born elsewhere in Africa, before enslavement. Anyway, in the 1810s, most if not all village-born children would still have learnt an African language as LI, and those who spoke Yoruba or Igbo probably got along quite well, as these were the languages of the dominant ethnic groups in the village. In 1828 Kilham (1828: 9) estimated that "Aku" (i.e. Yoruba) was spoken by more than half the Liberated Africans in the colony. As newly liberated slaves continued to be settled in the villages until the 1860s, 10) In 1821 Johnson took 117 newly-liberated Igbos and Calabaris from Freetown to Regent where they were welcomed by their countrymen (Peterson 1969: 191, 194).

RESTRUCTURING IN E A R L Y K R I O

295

African languages were current until well into the second half of the century (Fyfe 1962: 292). The need for a lingua franca was certainly made less urgent by ethnic segregation: Recaptives tended to settle by tribe and in different sections of the villages. In his description of Kissy, Clarke (1843: 27) said that "part of the Town is called Eboe, part Akoo, indeed, the desire to live separately is strongly manifested by the liberated Africans". Peterson (1969: 163) reports with refer­ ence to the 1830s that Because of this tendency to settle with one's countrymen, each village in the rural areas developed definable sections within its limits. People of one particular tribal or sub-tribal group lived in these sections. The area was usually known by the name of the group's tribal origin. Hastings comprised Aku-Town (Yoruba, Oyo), Egba-Town (Yoruba, Abeokuta), Ijesha-Town (Yoruba), Mocca-Town, and Crabba-Town (Calabari). Regarding the relationship between the different ethnic groups among the Liberated Africans in 1830, Leonard (1833: 68) remarked that "the latent animosity which subsists among the different tribes, as well as the difference of language, must, for an indefinitely long period, prevent any co-operative union among them". In Waterloo and Hastings serious rivalries between the different ethnic groups nearly turned into open riot in 1839, 1843, and 1851 (Peterson 1969: 221). It seems, therefore, that the need for a linguistic medium for interethnic contact was certainly minimal during the early years of the villages. Even in the early years at least one-third of the Regent population was regularly exposed to English through schooling. A high schooling rate is not in itself an argument against creolization — there are a number of cases where schools did not prevent pidgins or creoles to flourish in the homes (e.g. N e w Caledonean Tayo, see Corne 1995) — but the case of Regent is bewildering because the indications are that the variety developed in interaction with whites, and partly in a formal L2 acquisition context (exposure to metropolitan English in schools or during religious instruction): 11 There was little function for the jargon in Regent except for that of communicating with whites (of which there were five in 1820); in fact, Johnson's examples of "broken English" are all from Africans that received religious instruction or attended his school. Some of the superstrate features in the data (e.g. s-pluralization, that-relativization) may be 11) This may be further confirmation of Baker's (1995: 10) suspicion that the rapid emer­ gence of the core TMA system in Hawaiian Creole had to do with the fact that children in Hawaii attended school during the crucial period of creolization. Note, however, that in the case of Regent it is adults who played the decisive role in restructuring English; but these too received formal education in (whatever version of) English. It thus appears that the important factor in the rapid emergence of a TMA system is not so much the fact whether children or adults are the primary agents of language restructuring but rather whether or not education in the lexifier is widespread or not.

296

MAGNUS HUBER

further indications pointing to a formal second language acquisition context. At the period under discussion, the Liberated African jargon had not yet nativized; it was probably exclusively spoken as a second language and did not have much, if any, currency among Liberated Africans themselves but was used for the sole purpose of addressing whites in religious and administrative contexts. It is interesting that such a functionally reduced variety shows so high a structural expansion. Given that the colony's early sociohistory, outlined in section 3, indicates that the Regent variety could not have been imported from outside and that its structure had a maximum of six years to develop in the village, we must conclude that a good number of its features result from imperfect L2 acquisi­ tion. Another important factor in the genesis of restructured English on the peninsula must have been the whites' foreigner talk: many of the unexpected features in the Regent variety may have been introduced by superstrate speakers who simplified their language and relied on certain words and constructions because these were perceived as belonging to the register that one had to use when talking to indigenous people (see 4.1). The Regent data provide some counter-evidence to the Bickertonian theory that creolization is the result of "catastrophic" restructuring of input languages by children. At least in the case of the Liberated African settlements on the Sierra Leone peninsula the demographic data tell us that the role of chil­ dren in the restructuring process was minimal,12 while linguistic evidence proves that a functionally reduced jargon can already exhibit a relatively high degree of complexity. That is, in the case of Sierra Leone a number of the features whose origin universalists usually attribute to "catastrophic" restruc­ turing during creolization by a generation or two of children can be shown to have already existed in a pre-creole jargon that developed in an extremely short time and in virtual isolation from the Freetown varieties. This means that we may have to revise current theories of creole genesis which argue for rapid restructuring during creolization: a substantial proportion of what are com­ monly assumed to be "creole features" can apparently come into existence dur­ ing jargonization or pidginization by adults (even if variation is still consider­ able) and at least some of the features must be due to foreigner talk strategies. 4.5.

Liberated African apprentices — a possible counter-argument?

It may be objected that the over 1 500 Recaptives apprenticed by 1820 present an important obstacle to my argumentation as they may have picked up some­ thing of the Nova Scotians' or Maroons' speech in Freetown, and diffused it to 12) This bears out Singler's (1996) findings for early plantation societies in Haiti and Martinique: he shows that the smaller the percentage of children the more radical the result­ ing creole, which suggests that the primary agents of creolization are second language-learn­ ing adults.

RESTRUCTURING IN EARLY KRIO

297

the villages when they settled there after their apprenticeship was over. The apprentices may thus constitute a possible link between restructured English in the capital and the varieties developing in the villages. Of the 6 406 Liberated Africans in 1818, 1 500 (23.4%) lived in Freetown; in 1820, their number had increased to 1 836 (22.7% of a total of 8 076); and in 1822 they numbered 1 947 (24.4% of 7 969). Seasoned Recaptives represented about one-fourth of the colony's ca. 15 000 Liberated Africans in 1830 (Kuczynski 1948: 118, table 4). However, on average only about half of these were apprentices or servants, and of these only a small fraction may actually have left Freetown and settled in the villages after they had served their term because opportunities for employment were much better in the capital than in the rural hinterland. The censuses of 1818 and 1820 do not specify the number of erstwhile apprentices in the villages, but include them in the column "Captured Negroes". However, the number of Recaptives apprenticed in individual years are set out in Kuczynski (1948: 116). They are given under "Recaptives apprenticed" in Table 3, below. Although few new apprentices are recorded from 1815 on­ wards, there were still 609 apprentices in Freetown in 1818 (Kuczynski 1948: 118), and at least 486 in 1820 (UBSC CA 1/019/1). Even if we neglect mortality and assume that no apprentice left his employer, this means that the average period of apprenticeship was at least seven years.13 Thus, for our calculation of the distribution of apprentices in the different settlements we have to allow for a time lag of 7+ years. For example, the 29 apprentices of 1808 would not have been settled until 1815, when their seven-year-term was over (see arrow), and so on. The number of apprentices settled in individual years is set out in the column headed "apprentices settled". In calculating the number of apprentices settled in the individual villages in 1818 or 1820 we would get skewed figures if we simply divided their total number in 1818 (i.e. 1 146) among the settlements. This would unduly favour villages with a high number of inhabitants in 1818 and neglect the fact that not all settlements had existed from the time the first apprentices were settled. An inspection of the above table shows that by far the highest number of appren­ tices available for settlement is found in 1817, at a time when villages like Bathurst, Charlotte, and Kent did not yet exist. Clearly, the 598 settled appren­ tices of 1817 could only have been distributed between Freetown, Leicester, the hamlets, Kissey, Regent, Wilberforce, Gloucester, and Leopold. To arrive at reliable figures it is therefore important that we distribute the number of apprentices only among those settlements that actually existed in the respective periods of settlement. This is done in Table 4. 13) This figure is obtained by adding up the number of apprentices in individual years of column 3 of Table 3, counting from 1818 or 1820 backwards until the total sum of 609 or 486 is reached. For the 609 apprentices counted in Freetown in 1818, this takes us back to the year 1811, i.e. Liberated Africans that had entered their apprenticeship seven years earlier still lived in Freetown in 1818.

298

MAGNUS HUBER

Table 3: Liberated Africans apprenticed and settled in individual years Recaptives apprentices apprenticed settled Freetown (1792) 29 Leicester, hamlets 180 598 339 Kissey, Regent, Wilberforce 141 10 100 11 29 Gloucester 70 180 Leopold 21 598 Bathurst, Charlotte, Kent 16 339 Hastings, York, Waterloo, Wellington 31 141 19 10 1565 1297

Year Settlements founded 1808 1809 1810 1811 1812 1813 1814 1815 1816 1817 1818 1819 1820 Total

Note that Table 4 rests on a number of idealizing assumptions: • As detailed population data for the villages prior to 1818 are lacking, the proportions between settlements as expressed by the population figures of 1818 are taken to be essentially the same as in earlier years. Thus, as Free­ town had 1 510, Leicester 68, and the various hamlets 1 068 Liberated Afri­ cans in 1818, these are taken to represent 30.9%, 1.4%, and 21.9%, respec­ tively, of the total number of Recaptives in all the villages existing in 1815, when the first 29 apprentices were settled. • Apprentices were evenly distributed among the settlements existing at a certain date, according to the percentage that the Liberated African popula­ tion in the settlement represented of the total number of Recaptives in the colony. • There was no population movement between the different settlements once the apprentices had been settled.

1510 68 1068 860 1 177 203 356 308 222 205 167

Freetown Leicester Hamlets Kissey Regent Wilberforce Gloucester Leopold Bathurst Charlotte Kent Hastings Waterloo Wellington York

6 144

recaptives in 1818

settlements founded

30.9 1.4 21.9 17.6 24.1 4.2

%

1815 (29)

28

9 0 6 5 7 1

28.8 1.3 20.4 16.4 22.5 3.9 6.8

181

52 27.2 2 1.2 37 19.2 30 15.5 41 21.2 7 3.7 12 6.4 5.5

598

163 24.6 7 1.1 115 17.4 93 14.0 127 19.2 22 3.3 38 5.8 33 5.0 3.6 3.3 2.7

338

83 4 59 47 65 11 20 17 12 11 9 203 19.1 20.3 20.3 20.4 20.2 19.7 16,2 5.4 5.4 5.4

1145

307 13 217 175 240 41 70 50 12 11 9

17.9 1.0 14.1 13.6 16.0 5.4 7.4 6.2 6.1 3.5 2.9 3.5 1.6 0.4 0.3 149

27 2 21 21 24 8 11 9 9 5 4 5 2 1 0

Apprentices as distributed among the settlements in different periods 14 1817 Total 1816 1818 1819-20 (180) (598) (339) in 1818 (151) no. % no. % no. % no. % no. no. % 15 18.2 19.2 22.3 19.0 21.8 12.1 14.5 12.6 4.5 6.0 5.9 0.5 0.8 0 0

1294

13 5 2 1 0

16

334 15 238 196 264 49 81 59 21

Total in 1820 % no.]

14) Percentages in the shaded columns show the proportion of apprentices among the Liberated Africans in the individual settlements. 15) Percentages based on the 1820 census. 16) Due to rounding, figures do not always add up to the figure given in brackets at the top of the columns.

(Total) 16

1819

1816 1817 1818

1815

period up to and including

Table 4: Former apprentices settled in Freetown and the villages in 1818 and 1820

RESTRUCTURING IN EARLY KRIO 299

300

MAGNUS HUBER

Although the figures in Table 4 can of course only be approximate, I believe that they present a fairly accurate overall picture of the proportion of appren­ ticed Recaptives in the villages. From Table 4 the total number of apprentices in Regent in individual years can easily be inferred: Table 5: Total number of former apprentices resident in Regent year apprentices

1814

1815

1816

1817

1818

1820

0

7

48

175

240

264

It appears that the influence of the restructured Freetown varieties that appren­ tices undoubtedly came into contact with during their service in the households of Nova Scotians, Maroons, and Europeans in Freetown could not have started much earlier than 1817, when their number in Regent began to rise considera­ bly. Table 4 shows that even in 1818 and 1820 apprentices made up a maximum of only 20.4% or 21.8%, respectively, of Liberated Africans at Regent.18 Add to this the fact that Johnson expressly attributed many of his specimens of "broken English" to unseasoned Recaptives.19 We are therefore left with the conclusion that the Regent variety is essentially a local phenomenon, largely independent from the speech of the Maroons and Nova Scotians at Freetown.

5. Conclusion: Liberated African jargon as "Traders' English" In my analysis of 94 diagnostic features found in present and earlier stages of WAPEs and Krio (Huber 1998) I proposed a classification of these items into three categories: items that originated in Krio (class 1, with many of these 17) It is possible that e.g. the role of the hamlets without superintendent is overemphasized in my calculations, as it is imaginable that apprentices, once "westernized" in Freetown, would prefer to stay in villages under superintendence. Note, however, that the figures in Table 4 represent the maximum number of apprentices as they are based on an average seven-year apprenticeship, while the indications are that it probably lasted longer than that. 18) The percentages of apprentices among the Liberated Africans calculated in Table 4 are much higher than the number specified in later censuses. The 1843 "Census of the Mountain District" (UBSC CA 1/019/6) specifies the number of apprentices: Leicester 3/125 (2.4%); Gloucester 10/851 (1.2%); Regent 55/1186 (4.6%); Bathurst 49/744 (6.6%); Charlotte 19/541 (3.5%); Wilberforce 12/810 (1.5%). Again it seems, that the percentages calculated for 1818 and 1820 in Table 4 represent the maximum. The actual number of apprentices in the villages was probably much lower. 19) On 27 March 1818 Johnson (1852: 86, 88) writes "I visited several of the female commu­ nicants. I will mention in their own simple language, some of the expressions which I noted down: ... These women are amongst the communicants last received, and are all, one excepted, of the Ebo nation, which is the most savage of the tribes that arrive in the slavevessels."

RESTRUCTURING IN EARLY KRIO

301

ultimately deriving from New World creoles), items that originated in WAPE (class 3), and items that are attested in both without the possibility of substrate speakers having introduced them from one to the other (class 2). The rationale behind this classification is the following: in West Africa, large-scale migration of population groups proficient in restructured English only began in the 1840s, with the emigration of Liberated Africans from Sierra Leone to Nigeria. If we allow for some ten years between the first use of an item and its actual occur­ rence in print, we get 1850 as an approximative dividing line. Only if a given feature is attested in Krio before this date but later than 1850 in any of the WAPEs could it have been diffused from Sierra Leone to other places on the West African coast. Compare, for example, copular (s) tan like 'resemble, be like' in Table 6, below. This feature is first attested in Krio in 1820, while its first occurrence in Cameroonian Pidgin English is as late as 1960. Therefore, (s)tan like is taken to have originated in Krio (class 1) and to have been diffused to WAPE. Conversely, if a feature is found in WAPEs earlier than 1850 but only later than 1850 in Krio, it must have originated in the former and later spread to Krio. This is the case with e.g. chop 'eat; food', which has duly been assigned class 3 status. Finally, class 2 subsumes all features that are attested before 1850 both in Krio and WAPE. These items could not have been diffused from one to the other by West Africans but must have come into existence inde­ pendently. It was found that this last class contained features that are attested not only in restructured Englishes in West Africa, but also in the Atlantic and even the Pacific regions. I tentatively proposed the term "Traders' English" for early restructured Englishes characterized by a high number of such features and concluded that such items must have been diffused by superstrate rather than substrate speakers. In section 4.1, I proposed that superstrate speakers were involved to a considerable degree in the creation of the Liberated African jargon. In the light of the above taxonomy this means that if the jargon really owed many of its salient features to anglophone foreigner talk, we should find a high number of class 2 features in it. Table 6 gives the earliest and latest attestations in Krio of 100 features characteristic of restructured English in West Africa (six features have been added since Huber 1998).20 I have also given the first WAPE attesta­ tions where applicable. Cells containing features that are attested in the Liber­ ated African jargon before 1830, i.e. before the varieties of the Nova Scotians or Maroons could have influenced it (see 3.), are outlined in bold.

20) Because of restrictions in space, data sources are not given here. Readers wishing to identify sources are referred to Huber (1999a).

302

MAGNUS HUBER

Table 6: Attestations of 100 diagnostic WAPE class

1 2 2 2 1 1 2

KRIO

Copular space deiy) (cop. loc.)

1882 1995 1817 live (for) (cop. l o c . existential4) (1980) (s) top (locative verb) 1820 1987 1817 be (cop. equ.) 1980 (s)tan like (cop. equ.) 1820 1987 'resemble, be like' -1840na (cop. equ.) 1995 0 ("predicative cop."; 1817 1995 i.e. adiective=verb)

d Krio features

WAPEs

class

NIG 1931 NIG -1795NIG 1828 NIG 1785 CAM 1960 FER -1938 NIG 1773

3 3 2

2 1

for (modal)

2

go (tut.)

3

fit (to) V (ability)

1

kin (ability)

1

blant (hab.)

1

NIG (1982) for (inf.) NIG 1773 GHA de, di (prog.) 1931 LIB live for (prog.) 1879 NIG done V (completive) 1818 1997 1785 1882 clause-final done 1987 (completive) -1858- CAM make (causative, imperative) 1990 -1908 GHA no (preposed neg.) 1816 1686

2 1 3 2 1 1 2

kin (hab.)

1816 1997 1882 1997 1817 1997 -1916 1980 1855 1997 1969 1987 1834 1997 1817 1995 1855 1997 (1841)

NIG 1785 CAM 1969 NIG 1807 CAM 1884

1987

WAPEs

Verb Phrase never (neg.1966 KRU completive) 1987 -1886say 1860 NIG (complementizer) 1995 1857 pass (comparative) 1817 NIG 1807

1995

2 2 2 3

Verb Phrase been (past, ant.)

KRIO

2 1 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 2 3 2 2

one 'a'

1818 1980 preposed dem (def. 1818 1995 art: demonstr) preposed dem (pl.) 1820 1995 postposed dem (pl.) 1939 1995 (anaphoric pronoun) 1834 1995 we(y) (relativizer) 1882 1995 1960 NP1 pron. NP 2 1998 'NP 1 *sNP 2 ' 1816 NP 1 NP 2 NP 1 's NP 2 ' 1998 me 'I' 1816 1963 me 'my' 1818 Î971 him 'he, she' 1820 1860 1820 (h)im 'his' 1980 -1840he 'his' -1902 una 'you, your (pl.)' 1882 1987 we 'us' 1816 1987 we 'our' 1855 1995 dem 'they' 1820 1995 dew 'their' 1846 1995

NIG 1786 NIG 1785 NIG 1785 FER -1938 NIG 1786 FER -1938 CAM 1884 NIG 1785 GHA 1721 NIG 1791 NIG -1795KRU -1840NIG -1800FER -1938 NIG 1785 NIG 1785 NIG | 1786 NIG 1807

RESTRUCTURING IN EARLY KRIO class

KRIO

1

Noun Phrase na (loc. prep.)

3

for (loc./temp. prep.)

1

Lexical and functional items all about 'everywhere'

2

all same 'as, like'

3

blant 'belong'

3

bob 'palaver, advice; advise' -1840bobo 'little boy' -1984 boku 'abundant, many' -1954 1995 book 'written material; 1817 knowledge, literacv' 1845 born 'give birth' 1980 -1984 1882 bra 'brother; term of 1980 respect for elder male' 1882 broke 'break' 1995 1830 bubby 'breast' 1980 by and by 'soon' 1817 1987 catch 'reach, obtain, -1827 1987 eet (in trouble) have' Chigger/jigger 1884 1980 'chigoe' chop 'eat; food' (1980) chuck(chuck) 'sharp; 1845 pierce; thorn; etc.' 1980 copper 'money' 1817 1998 dash 1861 'gratuitv: to present' 1980 dat time 'when' 1820 (introd. adv. clause) 1882 enty (neg. question particle) 1980

1 3 2 3 1 1 1 2 2 2 3 1 2 3 2 1

WAPEs

-1858- FER 1995 -1938 NIG 1773

1818 1817 1848 1971 1980 (1861)

FER -1938 NIG 1773 KRU -1886NIG 1785 FER -1938 FER -1938 NIG 1773 CAM 1884 CAM 1960 KRU 1887 CAM -1908 NIG 1773 GHA -1795KRU 1884 NIG 1682 CAM -1908 NIG 1773 GHA -1600NIG 1807 FER

-19381

class KRIO Lexical and functional items 2 fash(ion) 'custom, 1820 state, manner, wav' 1980 2 for true 'truly, indeed' 1820 1980 2 fufu 'starch food boiled 1845 1980 and pounded' 2 good 'well' 1818 1963 2 grande 'big' 1834 1846 1841 1 hungry 'hunger' 1987 1884 3 juju 'idol, charm, witchcraft' 1980 1834 2 lilly 'little' 1987 3 look 'see, find' -1916 1980 2 no more 'merely' 1822 1987 1 nyam(nyam) 'eat; food' 1834 (1980) 1 nyanga 'vain; pride' -18401980 2 one time '(at) once; 1820 suddenlv' 1987 2 palaver 'speech, 1818 1987 contention, trouble' 2 piccaninny 'child; 1817 1845 small: a little' 1 pikin 'child' 1841 1987 2 plenty 'very, most, 1817 many. a lot' 1980 1 potapota 'mud, swamp' -18401980 2 sabby 1818 'know, understand' 1995 1 self'even'/(emphasis) 1907 1995 1 sissy 'sister; girl' -1911 1980 3 small(-small) 'a little, little by little (adv.)' 1995 1 so so 'only, always, -1858nothing but' 1980

303 WAPEs

NIG 1807 LIB 1850 NIG -1786GHA 1686 GHA 1721 CAM 1891 NIG 1699 NIG 1807 GAB 1825 NIG 1773 KRU 1861 FER -1938 NIG 1773 GHA 1686 KRU -1840GHA -1905GAB 1825 CAM -1908 GHA 1686 GHA 1931 NIG -1971 GHA -1905KRU -1932

304

MAGNUS HUBER

KRIO Lexical and functional items 1882 1 (so)te 'until', (intensifier) 1987 2 suppose 'if 1817 -1875-1902 1 sweet 'tasty, nice; be agreeable. please' 1980 2 tief'steal' 1817 1980 -18401 titty 1980 'little sister, voune girl' 2 too much (superlat.) 1817 1997 'verv. plenty. a lot' -18401 tote 'carry' 1980

WAPEs CAM -1908 GHA -1795GHA 1931 NIG 1787 FER -1938 LIB 1726 CAM 1884-

KRIO 2 1 2 2 1 1

WAPEs

Lexical and functional items tother 'other'

1817 NIG 1846 1807 wh place 'where?' 1820 GHA 1931 what for 'why?' GAB 1822 1842 1825 wowo 'silly, ignorant, 1816 NIG ugly. worthless, bad' 1980 1807 yai 'eye' FER 1834 1980 -1938 yerry 'hear' -1858- FER 1980 -1938

Earliest attestations occur in the top left corner of a cell, latest attestations in the bottom right corner. Hyphens indicate, e.g -1908 'not later than 1908', -1800- 'in or around 1800', 1884'1884 or later'. Brackets indicate that the feature is marginal or infrequent and therefore not considered part of the variety in question. Abbreviations used are: BEN-Benin, CAM-Cameroon(ianPE), FER-Fernando Póo, GAB-Gabon, GHA-Ghana(ianPE), KRU-KruPE, LIB-LiberianPE, NIG-Nigeria(nPE).

Among the 100 items in Table 6, 35 are class 1 features (35%), 48 are class 2 features (48%), and 17 are class 3 features (17%). The latter are of no interest for the present purposes, because by definition class 3 features do not occur in Krio before 1850 and can thus not be attested in the speech of the Liberated Africans in the period under discussion here. 45 of the 100 features are attested in the Liberated African variety. If distribution were random, we would expect 19 of these to be class 1 features and 26 to be class 2 features, However, the actual results are quite different, as can be seen from Table 7: Table 7: Expected and actually attestedfeatures in the Liberated African jargon

expected attested

19 4

class 1 (42.2%) (8.9%)

26 41

class 2 (57.8%) (91.1%)

Table 7 shows that among the items attested in the Liberated African jargon the actual number of class 1 features is much lower than expected, while that of class 2 features is considerably higher. In fact, over 90% of the items are class 2 21) The figures for random distribution are obtained on the basis of the 35:48 ratio between class 1 and class 2 features. Thus, the expected number of features in the Liberated African variety in class 1 is 35/(35+48) x 45, i.e. 19, while that of class 2 is 48/(35+48) x 45, i.e. 26.

RESTRUCTURING IN EARLY KRIO

305

features, whereas only 57.8% were expected. That is, the jargon shows a clear class 2 bias: it is characterized by a high number of features that are generally characteristic of English-lexicon pidgins and creoles world-wide, rather than by idiosyncratic features found in only a subgroup of these (e.g. class 1 = New World features or class 3 = West African features). Thus, linguistic evidence corroborates the above sociohistorical findings that superstrate speakers must have played an important role in the genesis of this variety by adopting foreigner talk strategies and resorting to a "Traders' English" register, i.e. words and phrases that seemed useful in dealing with indigenous people who did not understand English. The conclusion to be drawn from the above is that the Liberated African jargon as used by Recaptives settled on the Sierra Leone peninsula in the 1810s and 20s contributed very little to the development of modern Krio (if it did, we would expect the proportion of class 1 features to be much higher). It was a separate development, one of the several strands of restructured English that existed in the early years of the colony. Other than the Nova Scotian and Maroon varieties, which were imported as creoles from the New World, this jargon grew in loco. After about 1830, it increasingly came under the influence of the Freetown varieties and can assumed to have died out in the 1850s. Krio, as it is spoken today, is basically a continuation of the varieties introduced to Sierra Leone from across the Atlantic.

References Achebe, Chinua. (1966) 1988. A Man of the People. Reading: Heinemann. [Anon.]. 1821. Some Remarkable Particulars Concerning the Rapid Civilization of the Negroes, in the Colony of Sierra Leone, West Africa: Wherein the Power of the Gospel is Strikingly Displayed. Retford: J Taylor. Arends, Jacques, and Matthias Perl, eds. 1995. Early Suriname Creole Texts. A Collection of 18th-Century Sranan and Saramaccan Documents. Frankfurt:Vervuert. Baker, Philip. 1995. "Motivation in Creole genesis". In Philip Baker, ed. 1995: 3-15. —, ed. 1995. From Contact to Creole and Beyond. London: University of Westminster Press. Bickerton, Derek. (1974) 1980. "Creolization, linguistic universale, natural semantax and the brain". In Richard R. Day, ed. Issues in English Creoles. Papers from the 1975 Hawaii Conference. Heidelberg: Groos, 1-18. [Church, Mary]. 1835. Sierra Leone; or, the Liberated Africans, in a Series of Letters from a Young Lady to her Sister, in 1833 & 34. London: Longman. Clarke, Robert. (1843) 1969. Sierra Leone. A Description of the Manners and Customs of the Liberated Africans .... London: African Publication Society. Corcoran, Christine. 1997. "An 1820 Krio text". Contribution to CreoList e-mail discussion, 12.8.1997, http://www.ling.su.se/creole. Corne, Chris. 1995. "How Melanesian is Tayo?" In Philip Baker, ed. 1995: 121-48.

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Davies, William. 1835. Extracts from the Journal of the Rev. William Davies, 1st, when a Missionary at Sierra Leone .... Llanidloes: Wesleyan Printing Office. Fyfe, Christopher H. 1962. A History of Sierra Leone. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fyle, Clifford N. and Eldred D. Jones, eds. 1980. A Krio-English Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Grade, Paul. 1889. "Bemerkungen über das Negerenglisch an der Westküste von Afrika". Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen 83: 261-72. Hancock, Ian F. 1969. "A provisional comparison of the English-based Atlantic Creoles". African Language Review 8: 7-72. —. 1987. "A preliminary classification of the anglophone Atlantic Creoles with syntactic data from thirty-three representative dialects". In Glenn G. Gilbert, ed. Pidgin and Creole Languages. Essays in Memory of John E. Reinecke. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 264-333. Holm, John. 1989. Pidgins and Creoles. Vol. 2: Reference Survey. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Huber, Magnus. 1996. "The grammaticalization of aspect markers in Ghanaian Pidgin English". In Philip Baker and Anand Syea, eds. Changing Meanings, Changing Functions. Papers Relating to Grammaticalization in Contact Languages. London: University of Westminster Press, 53-70. —. 1998. "The origin and development of Krio: New linguistic and sociohistorical evidence". Paper delivered at the Meeting of the Society for Pidgin and Creole Languages, New York City, 9-10 January 1998. (Published in chapters 3 and 4 of Huber 1999a). —. 1999a. Ghanaian Pidgin English in its West African Context. A Sociohistorical and Struc­ tural Analysis. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. —. 1999b. "On the origin and diffusion of Atlantic English Creoles: First attestations from Krio". In Philip Baker and Adrienne Bruyn, eds. St Kitts and the Atlantic Creoles. London: University of Westminster Press. Johnson, W. A. B. 1852. A Memoir of the Rev. W.A.B. Johnson, Missionary of the Church Missionary Society, in Regent's Town, Sierra Leone. A.D. 1816-1823. London: Seeleys. Jones, Eldred. 1968. "Some tense, mode and aspect markers in Krio". African Language Review (Sierra Leone Language Review) 3: 86-9. Jones, Frederick C. V. 1990. "The grammatical items bin,fo, and mos in Sierra Leone Krio". Linguistics 28: 845-66. Kilham, Hannah. 1828. A Recent Visit to the Colony of Sierra Leone. London: Harvey and Darton. Kopytoff, Jean Herskovits. 1965. A Preface to Modern Nigeria. The "Sierra Leonians" in Yoruba, 1830-1890. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press. Kuczynski, Robert René. 1948. Demographic Survey of the British Colonial Empire. Vol 1: West Africa. London: Oxford University Press. Leonard, Peter. 1833. Records of a Voyage in the Ship Dryad, in 1830, 1831, and 1832. Philadelphia: Edward C. Mielke.

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Melville, Elizabeth Helen. 1849. A Residence at Sierra Leone. Described from a Journal Kept on the Spot, and from Letters Written to Friends at Home. By a Lady. Ed. the Hon. Mrs. Norton. London: John Murray. Nylander, Dudley K. 1999. "The structure of Tense Phrase in Creole languages: A case study (Krio)". In Magnus Huber and Mikael Parkvall, eds. Spreading the Word. The Issue of Diffusion among the Atlantic Creoles. London: University of Westminster Press, 15361. Olu-Wright, R. J. 1968. "The physical growth of Freetown". In Christopher Fyfe and Eldred Jones, eds. Freetown: A symposium. Freetown: Sierra Leone University Press, 24-37. Peterson, John. 1969. Province of Freedom. A History of Sierra Leone 1787-1870. London: Faber and Faber. Porter, Arthur T. 1963. Creoledom. A Study of the Development of Freetown Society. London: Oxford University Press. Rankin, F. Harrison. 1836. The White Man's Grave: A Visit to Sierra Leone, in 1834. Vol. 1. London: Richard Bentley. Roberts, Julianne. 1997. "An 1820 Krio text". Contribution to CreoList e-mail discussion, 7.8.1997, http://www.ling.su.se/creole. The Royal Gazette and Sierra Leone Advertiser. Freetown, Sierra Leone. Shnukal, Anna. 1988. Broken. An Introduction to the Creole Language of Torres Strait. Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies. Singler, John Victor. 1996. "Theories of Creole genesis, sociohistorical considerations, and the evaluation of evidence: The case of Haitian Creole and the Relexification Hypothesis". Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 11: 185-230. Todd, Loreto. 1984. Modern Englishes: Pidgins and Creoles. Oxford: Blackwell. UBSC = University of Birmingham, Special Collections. Walker, Samuel Abraham. 1847. The Church of England Mission in Sierra Leone; Including an Introductory Account of that Colony, and a Comprehensive Sketch of the Niger Expedition in the year 1841. London: Seeley, Burnside and Seeley. Wyse, Akintola. 1989. The Krio of Sierra Leone. An Interpretive History. London: C. Hurst &Co.

Magnus Huber University of Regensburg Department of English and American Studies D-93040 Regensburg Germany [email protected]

Phonological restructuring in creole: The development of paragoge in Sranan

Ingo Plag and Christian Uffmann Universität Siegen and Philipps- Universität

1.

Marburg

Introduction

It has frequently been observed that many creole languages tend to add nonetymological vowels to words that end in a consonant in their lexifier language (e.g. Holm 1988). A few examples from different creoles are given in (la), accompanied in (lb) by a number of examples from the language that is in the focus of this article, Sranan: (1)

a.

b.

FORM

ETYMON

LANGUAGE

dioso hopi dipu cleary dancee kipi bikasi nofo taki pramisi waka wasi

dios hoop diep clear dance keep because enough talk promise walk wash

Palenquero Papiamentu Berbice Dutch Kittitian(18th c.) Bajan (19th c.) Liberian English Sranan

This phenomenon is known as vowel paragoge, or paragoge for short. Although paragoge is widespread, there are few systematic studies available (Smith 1977; Tinelli 1979; Singler 1996a, 1996b; Singh and Muysken 1995; Lipski fc). The most common explanation for the emergence of paragoge in creoles is substra­ tum influence, as suggested unanimously by the authors of the aforementioned studies. But things are not as straightforward as they seem to be. By and large, the relevant substratum languages favor consonant-(consonant)-vowel (henceforth CV) syllable structure. However, CV is the universally unmarked syllable structure (Blevins 1995), so that in principle a universal

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explanation is also conceivable. Another fact unexplained by the substratum transfer account is that French-based creoles uniformly do not exhibit paragoge, although very often the same substratum languages were involved as with their English-based relatives, which, strangely enough, seem to have been much more prone to the addition of word-final vowels, at least in their early stages (e.g. Plag 1999). Furthermore, it may be asked why the final consonant was not simply deleted in order to achieve substratum-like syllable structure. Singh and Muysken (1995) take the preference for paragoge as against deletion as the chief argument against the universalist explanation because deletion is univer­ sally unmarked, both in terms of synchronic phonological rules and diachronic developments. Paragoge is therefore the marked case, which is a powerful argument for substratum influence. However, a closer look at the substrate languages reveals that paragoge is not part of their inventory of phonological rules. Advocates of substratum transfer (e.g. Singler 1996a, 1996b; Lipski fc.) have therefore suggested that it is not rules that are transferred, but constraints. Thus, there might be a constraint against the occurrence of coda consonants in the substrate languages. If this constraint is transferred to the creole, consonantfinal words from the lexifier language either have to lose their final consonant, or a final vowel has to be added to the word in order to satisfy the no-codaconsonant constraint. These considerations illustrate another area of research to which the study of paragogic vowels can potentially contribute, namely the concept of "rule" in phonological theory. In this paper we will shed some new light on these issues by investigating the historical development of paragoge in Sranan. Smith (1977) describes the distribution of paragogic vowels in Modern Sranan and reconstructs the earliest system of Sranan (what he calls Proto-Sranan) on the basis of comparative evidence from the modern varieties of Sranan and its neighboring relatives Saramaccan, Ndjuka and Boni. For the present investigation we use the earliest available Sranan sources dating from 1718 onwards (Herlein 1718; van Dyk 1765; Nepveu 1770 and Stedman 1790 [1773-1777]) to test Smith's claims about Early Sranan. It turns out that Smith's reconstruction of the Early Sranan syllable structure is quite accurate but that the qualities of the paragogic vowels in the early sources substantially differ from those predicted by Smith. On the basis of these results we reconsider the question of possible substratum influ­ ence. It is shown that paragoge (as such and as against deletion) is a wide­ spread phenomenon in loanword adaptation and second language acquisition and that only constraint-based phonological theories can adequately account for this fact. Syllable structure, loanword integration and quality of epenthetic vowels in Sranan's substrate languages are examined and compared with the Early Sranan patterns. Recent findings in phonological theory, a detailed analy­ sis of substratum phonology and the diachronic Sranan data converge on a substratum-induced account of paragoge in Sranan (and, by implication, in other creoles). It will be shown that paragogic vowels are inserted to satisfy

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constraints on syllabic structure and that in Sranan these constraints are prima­ rily transferred from the substrate languages, with universals of second language acquisition and dialect mixing and dialect leveling playing an impor­ tant role.

2.

The historical development of paragoge in Sranan

For the early grammarians of Sranan as well as for the modern observer, para­ goge is a pervasive feature of the language. Consider the statement on this topic by Wullschlägel (1856: viii): It is often impossible to recognize the origin of a word because the negroes did not adopt the words as they were found, but tried to adapt them to their speech organs as far as possible. In particular, [...] they add a final vowel to most words that originally end in a consonant. (Wullschlägel 1856: viii, our translation)

Before we take a look at Modern Sranan and present our analysis of the 18th century data, a few remarks are in order on the historical background. Surinam was colonized in the middle of the 17th century by British planters from St. Kitts, Nevis and Barbados, who brought an unknown number of slaves with them. Within a few decades some form of an English-based pidgin or creole emerged as the main medium of communication in the colony (see, for example, Plag 1993; Arends 1995b for some discussion of the sociohistorical back­ ground). The sources used for this study are the earliest known documents in Sranan and date from 1718 to 1777. But let us first look at the modern language. 2.1.

Paragoge in Modern Sranan

Modern Sranan has five different vowels, which also form the inventory of possible paragogic vowels (see (2a) below). The syllable structure allows for certain kinds of complex onsets (cf. the word for the language itself, Sranan), but codas are restricted to underlying nasal consonants, which often surface as nasalization on the preceding vowels (see (2b), cf. Smith 1977; Adamson and Smith 1995): (2)

a.

b.

front i e

back u o

a Only nasal codas are permitted

As already mentioned above, words that etymologically end in a consonant surface in Sranan with an added vowel. Based on Koefoed (1973), Smith devel-

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ops an account of the divergent quality of the paragogic vowels which is roughly summarized in (3) below. The default vowel is /i/, which, however, surfaces only if none of the preceding rules in (3) intervenes. Thus if a given stem has the vowel /e/ and ends in /t/ or /d/, the paragogic vowel is /e/ (cf. frede). If the stem vowel is /u/ the paragogic vowel is also /u/. Paragogic /u/ also emerges after a labial stem-final consonant (as in tompu), a kind of place assimilation known as labial attraction. Words with a stem-final dorsal conso­ nant and the stem vowel /a/ receive paragogic /a/, and the stem-vowel /o/ triggers paragogic /o/: (3)

PARAGOGIC V

CONTEXT

EXAMPLE

ETYMON

a. b.

/e/ /u/

after /e/ and /t,d/# after /u/

. d. e.

// /o/ /i/

frede musu tompu waka noso lasi (e.g. Koefoed

afraid must stump walk nose loss 1973; Smith 1977)

after C i a b i a l

after /a/ and C drsal after // elsewhere

In more general terms then, /i/ paragoge is the elsewhere case, with vowel copying, and assimilation to the final consonant as additional processes. How­ ever, as mentioned by Smith (1977), there are numerous counterexamples to the generalizations in (3). I have listed some of them in (3') in corresponding order. The form in (3'a), for example, shows that contrary to the prediction in (3), /i/ surfaces as the paragogic vowel. Similar examples of violations of the predic­ tions in (3) are the words in ('b-3'e): (3') a. b. c. d. e.

ETYMON

PREDICTED

ATTESTED

bed bush have talk dog roast rub ring god fat

*bede *busu *habu *taka *daga *loso *lobo/*lobu *lini *gadi *fati

bedi busi habi taki dagu losi lobi lina gado fatu

The large number of counterexamples suggests that the paragogic vowels are underlyingly present and not inserted via some kind of phonological process. In other words, paragoge is lexicalized to a large extent. The variability of the lexicalized paragogic vowels is striking, however, and calls for a historical explanation. As we will see, the analysis of the earliest sources provides this explanation.

PHONOLOGICAL RESTRUCTURJNG: PARAGOGE IN SRANAN

2.2.

313

Paragoge reconstructed: Smith (1977)

As already mentioned in the introduction, Smith (1977) reconstructs the paragogic system of Proto-Sranan through a comparative analysis of the modern varieties of Sranan, Saramaccan, Ndjuka and Boni, all of which are closelyrelated creole languages spoken in Surinam. The reconstructed Proto-Sranan syllable structure is identical to Modern Sranan (see Smith 1977): (4)

a. b.

Only nasal codas are permitted and /i/ is inserted as the default paragogic vowel after non-nasal word-final consonant. Smith also proposes a number of rules that change the quality of the paragogic vowel from /i/ to one of the other vowels. In essence, Smith's rules for Proto-Sranan are largely the same as those proposed for Modern Sranan (see (3) above). As we will show in the next section, the analysis of the historical sources does not fully support Smith's scenario. 2.3.

Paragoge in the earliest Sranan sources

2.3.1. Methodology For the study of the development of paragoge we have chosen the four earliest available Sranan sources: Herlein (1718; 110 types, 194 tokens), van Dyk (1765; part 2: 733 types, 7028 tokens ), Nepveu (1770; 262 types, 615 tokens) and Stedman (1790 [1773-1777]; 108 types, 172 tokens). The original manu­ script by Stedman is based on observations made between 1773 and 1777 and we will therefore use this date in this paper. The oldest text, Herlein (1718), is a small collection of Sranan words and phrases, aimed at the traveler to Surinam. Nepveu (1770) is designed as a revision and extension of Herlein's list. Van Dyk (1765) provides the largest corpus of all, consisting of two parts, a list of words and phrases in part 1 and a fictional play which describes the life on a plantation in part 2. Only part 2 has been included in our corpus so far while the first part is still waiting for an analysis. Stedman (1790) is a narrative in English with some Sranan utterances scattered throughout the text. A collection of all Sranan utterances in this source is provided by Arends (1996), the other sources are published in Arends and Perl (1995). Apart from van Dyk, the sources are quite small and vary considerably in size, but we will see that with regard to paragoge it is nevertheless possible to arrive at significant results. All sources have been used in a number of largescale studies (Arends 1989; Bruyn 1995; Plag 1993; Smith 1987) and they have

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been found to be linguistically reliable (see Arends 1995a; Bruyn 1995; Plag 1993 for detailed discussion). First the texts were computerized, using a regular word processor, and then analyzed with a standard text retrieval program (TACT 2.1), which pro­ vided concordances, word lists, and some lexical statistics. On the basis of the word lists, pertinent forms were coded according to relevant features and sub­ jected to a statistical analysis, using the software packages SPSS and S-Plus.1 2.3.2. When paragoge? The first question we want to answer is when paragoge occurs. We then turn to the problem of which kind of vowel is chosen under which circumstances. The Sranan words from the sources were categorized according to the final segment of their etyma, assuming that this has an effect on the occurrence vs. the non­ occurrence of paragoge. We created three lists of words with three kinds of etyma: vowel-final, nasal-final, and consonant-final (non-nasals). We only classified words as featuring paragoge if this could be done rather unambiguously. For the vast majority of items classification is unproblematic, but a small minority of words proves difficult to judge. Thus, there are a few verbs in the early records that are derived from Dutch verbs and which have final /e/. In these cases, it is impossible to decide whether the consonantfinal Dutch stem received a paragogic vowel, or whether the verb was simply borrowed into Sranan in its infinitive form, since the Dutch infinitive ending -en is frequently realized as schwa. Second, there are cases in which it is not clear whether we are dealing with paragoge or metathesis, e.g. masra < 'master'. Third, there are some cases such as wanto, which could be want plus paragogic vowel or want plus infinitival marker to. For all these doubtful cases we took the more conservative decision not to treat them as paragogic items. Having clarified some of the methodological problems we may now turn to the results of our analysis. The first firm generalization that emerges for vowel-final etyma is that, across sources, vowel-final stems from the input languages never end up with a paragogic vowel. With consonant-final stems, the distinction between nasals and non-nasals also proved significant. Let us first consider the latter group of words. The tables in (5) list what happens to etymologically non-nasal-consonant-final words in Sranan. (5a) lists the results of the type count, (5b) the results of the token count. Due to rounding, the percentages in all tables given below do not always add up to 100%.

1) We would like to thank Harald Baayen for his help with the S-Plus analyses.

PHONOLOGICAL RESTRUCTURING: PARAGOGE IN SRANAN

(5)

315

a. Behavior of C-flnal etyma (excl nasal-final), types source Herleinl718 van Dyk 1765 Nepveu 1770 Stedman 1773-77

total number of types 32 290 16 36

total % 100 100 100 100

paragoge % 77 83 85 83

C-final % 21 14 14 17

deletion % 3 2

C-final % 30 8 11 8

deletion

| -

b. Behavior of C-final etyma (excl. nasal-final), tokens source Herleinl718 van Dyk 1765 Nepveu 1770 Stedman 1773-77

total number of tokens 50 2221 142 50

total % 100 100 100 100

paragoge % 68 80 89 92

% 2 12

-

Both type and token analysis basically yield the same results. Overall, conso­ nant-final words are strongly disfavored, and paragoge is clearly the prevalent repair mechanism used to adapt etyma to the syllable structure constraint that demands vowel-final words. Deletion, in contrast, is marginal. The empirical results thus support Smith's reconstruction. Note, however, that a non-negligible percentage of words retain their final consonant without any further adaptation. Interestingly, the majority of all consonant-final forms are of Dutch origin. It is likely that these words were recognized as loanwords by the original authors and therefore transcribed in their "correct" spelling while words derived from the English superstate were treated as fully nativized words. Prime examples of this effect are the 15 tokens of the Dutch name Hendrik in Van Dyk (1765) and borrowed function words such as of, wel, wil. Furthermore, there are some cases where the following word begins with a vowel or /h/, which suggests that we can have resyllabification instead of paragoge (cf. kil hem in Herlein (1718), where kill is attested as well). In sum, the attested consonant-final Sranan words seem to have the status of non-nativized words.2 Let us turn to the behavior of nasal-final etyma. Consider the following tables:

2) In many languages different lexical strata can be characterized by their differences in the application of native phonological constraints. See Ito and Mester (1995b) for discussion.

316

(6)

INGO P L A G AND CHRISTIAN U F F M A N N

a. Behavior of nasal-final etyma, types source Herlein 1718 van Dyk 1765 Nepveu 1770 Stedman 1773-77

total number of types 18 105 58 10

total % 100 100 100 100

paragoge %

total % 100 100 100 100

paragoge %

4

10

N-final % 89 90 93 50

deletion % 11 7 7 40

N-final % 81 90 86 67

deletion

b. Behavior of nasal-final etyma, tokens source Herle in l718 van Dyk 1765 Nepveu 1770 Stedman 1773-77

total number of tokens 31 1308 151 15

2

7

% 19 8 14 27

Again, both token and type analyses yield roughly the same results. Nasals are largely tolerated in word-final position, paragoge is extremely marginal. It is restricted to only four types in van Dyk (1765, boni < bon, homi < come, snyboni < snijboon, wini < wine) and one type in Stedman (ini < in). But what about the proportion of words that do not seem to tolerate the final nasal and remedy this by deleting it? A qualitative investigation of these forms shows that in all sources deletion of word-final nasals occurs systematically if the stem is (a) polysyllabic, and (b) not stressed on the final syllable. For illustration, consideraos/ (< fashion) and ope (< ópen) while final nasals are not deleted in krien (< clean) or dinatem (< dinnertime). This pattern has already been noted in Smith (1987). We have to add a final word on the behavior of word-final angma, i.e. [ŋ], because angma-final etyma present a curious paradox. In unstressed word-final syllables, angma is deleted, whereas in stressed syllables it takes a paragogic vowel. In other words, in unstressed syllables it behaves like the other nasals, whereas in stressed syllables it behaves as if consonant-final. For the purposes of setting up the four tables above, we have therefore assigned angma-final etyma to the nasal-final etyma, if angma is deleted or no paragogic vowel is added, and to the consonant-final words, if there is paragoge (see below for more discussion). In sum, the constraints on syllabic structure as we find them in Modern Sranan already hold for 18th century Sranan. Paragoge is the prevalent repair mechanism if stems end in a non-nasal consonant. Hence, the diachronic sources confirm Smith's (1977) reconstruction.

PHONOLOGICAL RESTRUCTURING: PARAGOGE IN SRANAN

317

2.3.3. Which vowel is chosen? Let us now turn to the second problem, which is whether the quality of the paragogic vowel is determined by the same mechanisms that operate in Modern Sranan (as described above). In what follows we focus on the analysis of tokens, because the observable variation strongly suggests that patterns of para­ goge were not fully lexicalized in Early Sranan. Furthermore, the token analysis has the advantage of reducing the statistical weight of isolated idiosyncratic forms. As a first step we analyzed the overall distribution of the different para­ gogic vowels in the early sources. The result is given in the following table: (7)

Quality of paragogic vowels in the early sources (tokens) Source

Herlein 1718 van Dyk 1765 Nepveu 1770 Stedman 1773-77

total number of tokens 34 1787 126 47

total % 100 100 100 100

III

% 18 57 71 53

/e/ % 82 41 5 15

/a/ %

/o/ %

-

-

2 9 9

1 9 23

lul

% 7

-

The distributional analysis brings out clear differences between the sources. In Herlein, /e/ is chosen frequently, with only very few instances of/i/ and no other paragogic vowels occurring. A similar pattern emerges in van Dyk, where lil and /e/ account for no less than 98 percent of all paragogic vowels, with a difference in distribution between the two kinds of vowel: whereas in Herlein /e/ is the default choice, van Dyk prefers lil. In contrast, Nepveu and Stedman have only relatively few examples of /e/-paragoge attested, up to 71% of all paragogic vowels are /i/, and the remaining vowels also occur in non-negligible quantities. Overall, there is a remarkable diachronic increase in the use of /a/, /o/, /u/ as paragogic vowels. In order to investigate the factors that govern their choice, each form showing paragoge was coded with regard to the following variables: paragogic vowel, stem vowel, manner of articulation of the final consonant, and place of articulation of the final consonant.3 Following Smith's analysis, one would expect that the independent variables place and manner of articulation of the final consonant and the stem vowel have a significant influence on the choice of a particular paragogic vowel (i.e. the dependent variable). To test the interaction of the independent variables we ran a cross-validation analysis and a subsequent classification and regression analysis on all paragogic items in all sources. The 3) We also coded the forms according to part of speech, but this turned out to have no effect on paragogic vowels.

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results of these analyses can be plotted as so-called classification trees, which show the predictive power of the independent variables and their interaction with regard to the dependent variable.4 The trees should be read as follows. Below each node we give the preva­ lent paragogic vowel, its percentage among all paragogic vowels of this node, its frequency, and the percentages of all the other paragogic vowels of this node. "0.82", for example, means 82%. The top node of the tree, the so-called root node, thus gives the overall number of tokens with paragogic vowels. To the left and to the right of each node, above the branches, we give the predictor variable and its relevant values. Consider, for example, the classification tree in (8) for all paragoge tokens in Herlein (all of the trees below concern the analysis of tokens, for the reasons outlined above). (8)

Classification tree for Herlein Final CM: fricative, liquid

Final CM: nasal, stop

Of all paragogic vowels in Herlein, /e/ is the most frequent one (see root node, 82%), and /i/ covers the remaining 18%. The manner of the final consonant is the best predictor for the distribution of/e/ vs. /i/, since of all stems which end 4) Classification trees of van Dyk, Nepveu and Stedman have been cost complexity-pruned where the cross-validation function has a clear minimum. For reasons of space, the crossvalidation functions are not given here, but can be provided upon request.

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in nasal or stop (the right branch spreading from the root node) 100% take /e/ (i.e. 17 tokens). The left branch of the tree in (8) shows us the interaction of the two types of independent variables (stem vowel and final C): of all stems ending in a fricative or liquid, 65% prefer paragogic /e/. If the stem vowel of the fricative/liquid ending stems is also taken into account, a more important effect comes to the fore. If the stem vowel is /i/ or /a/, /i/ can be predicted to be the paragogic vowel (83%), whereas other stem vowels trigger paragogic /e/ (91%). The place of articulation of the stem-final consonant has no significant influ­ ence on the stem vowel. Let us turn to the largest source, van Dyk. The large amount of observa­ tions (N = 1787) allows a much more fine-grained analysis. The stem vowel emerges as the best predictor in this source, followed by the manner of the final consonant, and again the stem vowel. Just as in Herlein, the place of articulation does not play a role in the choice of the paragogic vowel. Consider (9): (9)

Classification tree for van Dyk

The majority choice is /i/ which is chosen in 57% of the cases. As is already clear from the table in (7) above, /a/ and /o/ play only a marginal role as para­ gogic vowels and their numbers are too small to make any predictions about their occurrence. The stem vowel, however, allows for the most important classification of the data. Of all tokens with back vowels (i.e. /o/ and lui) in their stems, a clear majority takes /e/ (74%), and only 25% take lil. Words with nonback stem vowels (i.e. /i/, /e/, /a/) have a clear preference for /i/ as their para­ gogic vowels (69%). If these words have also an obstruent as their final conso-

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nant, the chances to take paragogic /i/ increase to 82%. However, if they end in a sonorant instead of an obstruent the choice of the paragogic vowel depends again on the kind of stem vowel. If it is /i/, almost all words (92%) have para­ gogic /i/, whereas words with the stem vowels /a/ and /e/ in their majority take /e/ (75%). The third source, Nepveu, again shows that the stem vowel is the best predictor for the quality of the paragogic vowel. In addition, we find manner effects of the final consonants and, for the first time, a place assimilation effect. Consider the following tree: (10)

Classification tree for Nepveu:

The most important effects that can be gleaned from this tree are the following: like in van Dyk, /i/ is the default vowel with an overall percentage of 71%. Table (7) and a comparison of the above trees show that this is the first source in which there are significant proportions of paragogic /a/, lol and lul. Paragogic /e/ is the least frequent choice in Nepveu. The tree also shows that the occur­ rence of the paragogic vowels /a/, /o/ and /u/ can be interpreted as instances of vowel copying: /a/ only occurs after stem /a/, paragogic /u/ occurs almost exclu­ sively after stem /u/, and /o/ almost exclusively occurs after /o/. Furthermore, almost all /i/ stems take paragogic /i/. However, the occurrence of/a/, /u/ and /o/ cannot be predicted (solely) on the basis of the stem vowel. Thus, /u/ is only the majority choice (86%) if the /u/ stem also ends in a liquid or stop. Paragogic /a/ is only preferred if the stem containing /a/ also ends in a dorsal or labial conso-

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321

nant. Paragogic /o/ only occurs if the stem, in addition to the stem vowel /o/ also features a fricative or a liquid as its final consonant. The paragogic vowels in Stedman include /a/, /e/, /i/ and /o/ (no /u/), with a strong preference for /i/ (53%). The classification and regression analysis of this source yields the tree in (11), which shows again that the stem vowel is the best (and in this case: the only) predictor for the type of paragogic vowel. With stem /i/ and /e/, only /i/ and /e/ are chosen as paragogic vowels (with a ratio of 65% to 35%), whereas the back stem vowels also permit 41% /o/ paragoge and 15% /a/ paragoge. The final consonant exerts no significant influence. (11)

Classification tree for Stedman

Stem Vowel: e, i

Stem Vowel: a, o,u 1

0.53 47 a: 0.09 e: 0.15 i: 0.53 : 0.23

i 0.65 20 a: 0 e: 0.35 i: 0.65 : 0

1

0.44 27 a: 0.15 e: 0 i: 0.44 : 0.41

Let us summarize the findings across sources. In the earliest two sources, /e/ and /i/ predominate as paragogic vowels, and there is no evidence for significant vowel copying effects (which would lead to the pattern of vowel paragoge similar to that in Modern Sranan). With the later sources this pattern changes significantly in the direction of Modern Sranan: /i/ acts as the default vowel, and stems with other vowels have a certain tendency to take paragogic vowels of the same kind, subject to the additional influence of the final consonant. Labial attraction is not at work in either of the sources. (12) shows in a comprehensive form the different mechanisms that are responsible for the choice of paragogic

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vowels in the four sources. Note that the effects mentioned are not categorical in nature, but have the character of variable rules. (12)

Mechanisms determining paragogic vowel quality

default V Stem V effect

Herlein /e/ no

C-place effect

no

C-manner effect

yes

van Dyk Nepveu /i/ and /e/ I'll HI, /e/, /a/ → V copying /i/ lol, lul→/e/ no /a/ and dorsal C→/a/ yes yes

Stedman /i/ [± front] V harmony no no

What do these findings mean? We claim that our results can be interpreted as evidence for two things. First, there was considerable variability in the system of vowel paragoge in Early Sranan. Second, the sources show that there was ongoing diachronic change in this system during the 18th century. As just mentioned, the earliest two sources show /e/ and /i/ as default paragogic vowels, whereas in later sources and in Modern Sranan, /i/ is the only default vowel. Furthermore, the earliest two sources show no evidence of vowel copying effects, whereas in the later sources and Modern Sranan vowel copying plays a significant role. Herlein and van Dyk thus show strong similarities, and differ from the two later sources. However, there is some similarity between van Dyk and Nepveu, namely the existence of manner of articulation effects. The differences between van Dyk and Nepveu may be irritating because of their close temporal proximity. However, the fact that these sources have been written within a period of less than a decade does not run counter to our claim of diachronic development. It has been noted by previous authors (e.g. Arends 1995a; Schuchardt 1914) that the variety recorded by van Dyk is a con­ servative inland plantation variety whereas Nepveu refers to the more progres­ sive variety of Paramaribo in his description of Sranan. Thus, although written in roughly the same period, the systematic differences between the two sources can be said to represent diachronic variation. Another general argument for diachronic development comes from the fact that the investigation of these sources with regard to other linguistic sub-systems (see e.g. Arends 1995a on articles, copula, verb serialization, periphrastic constructions, question words, clefting, comparatives) has led to the same conclusion that "numerous develop­ ments have taken place during the second fifty years (roughly 1700-1750) after the beginning of slave importation into Suriname in the 1650's" (Arends 1995a: 57). The results of the empirical diachronic analysis contradict Smith's (1977) reconstruction of Early Sranan, which was based on present-day varieties of

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Sranan, Saramaccan, Ndyuka and Boni. In the early sources, there are no meas­ urable effects of place assimilation (such as labial attraction), and the two earli­ est sources in particular display patterns not only different from Smith's account, but also different from any present-day variety of the Surinamese creoles. A measurable effect of labial assimilation is first attested in Schumann (1783), i.e. shortly after the last sources in this paper, as the explorative analysis by Köhler and Stöhr (1998) suggests. There is, of course, the general problem of the reliability of the data. It has already been mentioned above that different authors have used the sources successfully for different kinds of studies — syntactic, semantic and phonological. Most notably, the reconstruction of the segmental developments in Early Sranan by Smith (1987) is based on the same sources (and later ones). It would be strange to assume that the very same authors represented all kinds of sounds and sound contrasts in a reliable and consistent fashion, but failed to do so with paragogic vowels. Let us consider this problem in more detail, i.e. the exact nature of the paragogic vowels, especially that of/e/, in the early sources. Following previous authors, Arends (1995a: 22) has put forward that /e/ is to be interpreted as a reduced vowel, i.e. as schwa. This is, however, highly unlikely because there is no evidence whatsoever for the existence of schwa in the vowel system of (Early) Sranan: English schwa regularly surfaces as /a/ in Sranan (as in liba < river).5 Smith (1987: 378) also rejects the schwa analysis and argues that "the frequent use of e in early records of Sranan to represent epithetic [i.e. para­ gogic] and epenthetic vowels represents not schwa as various researchers have interpreted it, but a vowel of the same quality as the preceding vowel". In other words, Smith proposes that <e> represents /e/ after stem /e/, <e> represents /i/ after stem /i/, <e> represents /a/ after stem /a/, <e> represents /u/ after stem /u/, and <e> represents /o/ after stem /o/. In our view Smith's interpretation of <e> is unconvincing because there is no reason why the authors should not have used to represent /a, i, o, u/, if they used these graphemes with non-paragogic vowels. Furthermore, Smith's interpretation presupposes that the early records are not reliable in the representation of clear phonetic contrasts. How­ ever, his own large-scale diachronic phonological study shows that this presup­ position is incorrect, because he convincingly can trace all kinds of segmental phonological developments on the basis of these early records. Therefore, the only remaining option for the interpretation of the phonetic quality of the vowels as given in the early records is to take them very much at their face value, i.e. as quite accurate and natural representations of the underlying

5) It should be added that the development to /a/ only holds for monophthongal schwa. If schwa is part of a diphthong in the etymon, it does not leave a trace in the Sranan word. See Smith (1987) for details.

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phonological contrasts. Following the conventions of the Latin script, most likely represents /a/, <e> represents /e/, represents /i/ etc. The reality of the variability of paragogic /i/ and /e/ is further substanti­ ated by the fact that there are many doublets with a paragogic /e/ ~ /i/ alterna­ tion in almost all sources (bosse/bossi, drinke/drinki, haffe/haffi, hedde/ heddi, wakke/wakki etc.). Only in later sources do some of these items show vowel copying or assimilation effects on the paragogic vowel (e.g. hafu, waka). Furthermore, the same kind of /e/ ~ /i/ variability is observable even with stem vowels in a number of words in van Dyk und Nepveu (e.g. pikin/pekin, kwetti/ kwitti), and a number of English and Dutch stem /e/'s end up as /i/, both in stressed position (ibri < E. every), and in unstressed position (country > kondre, company > kompe, belly > bere). In addition, in modern Ndjuka and Boni we find a number of forms ending in /e/ which end in /i/ in Sranan: teke, leke, fénde vs. teki, leki,feni (< take, like, find). All these facts strongly suggest that Early Sranan, the common ancestor of the modern varieties, must have had /e/ ~ /i/ variability to some extent. In sum, the patterning of HI and /e/ is consistent in its variability across many early sources (i.e. not only the ones dealt with in this paper), which is an additional indication for the reliability of the orthographic representations in the early sources under discussion. Taking all these facts into account, the conclusion is inevitable that Early Sranan was characterized by a considerable variation in its vowel system, in particular with regard to paragogic vowels. We came across our final piece of evidence for this position when, somewhat disturbed by our own unexpected findings, we searched 18th and 19th century descriptions of Sranan for some information on paragogic vowels and found the following comment by the 19th century Sranan grammarian Wullschlägel, who writes in the preface of his Sranan dictionary of 1856: The unstressed final vowels are often pronounced differently and are often confused by the negroes. Thus, one time they may say zwaka, the next time zwake or zwaki. In particular, e and i;  and oe are often used one for the other. (Wullschlägel 1856: viii, our translation)

Wullschlägel's observation constitutes independent evidence for our claim that the variability is not only not an artefact of the sources but must have indeed lasted until at least the mid 19th century. Note that in practically all studies of Early Sranan, variation has been found to be a central property of the language system, no matter which grammatical subsystem was investigated. Under the assumption of early variation in paragogic vowels, the frequent exceptional forms as they occur in Modern Sranan (and as illustrated in (3')) appear in a new light. These forms can now be interpreted as remnant, lexicalized forms. Of the different variants present at earlier stages of the language,

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325

only some survived in the process of dialect mixing and levelling that must have characterized the history of Sranan. Although we hope to have convinced the reader that our findings are quite robust, they nevertheless raise a number of problems. For example, the sources suggest a rather late development of the paragoge effects described by Smith. If true, it is somewhat strange that the different Surinamese creoles developed similar paragoge patterns independently of each other. However, it will be argued below that substratum influence has played a major role in the development of paragoge. If so, parallel independent developments are not so unlikely, but further research is certainly called for to clarify this point. Another problem raised by our analysis is one of phonological theory. The observed front/back effect created by the stem vowel in van Dyk and the manner effect created by the final consonant in van Dyk and Nepveu do not lend themselves to any straightforward explanation in terms of phonological feature spreading or similar devices. A solution might be thought of in terms of sonority effects along the lines suggested by Pulleyblank (1998) for Yoruba, but this issue will not be pursued here. Leaving these problems for further investigation, we now turn to the next section, in which we relate the observed patterning of the data to the substrate vs. universals debate.

3. Substrate and Universals in phonological restructuring 3.1.

The issues

In order to account for the emergence of a particular creole feature, two major approaches can be taken. One is to adduce creole features to one or more of the languages involved in the contact situation in which the creole was formed. The other approach stresses the role of universal tendencies or principles of human language which are more or less directly reflected in the creole structures. Framing the problem of paragoge in terms of these two opposing theoretical approaches, the following picture emerges. CV is the universally unmarked syllable structure (e.g. Blevins 1995), which seems to speak for a universalist explanation of paragoge. However, CV is also prominent in many substrate languages, which suggests that paragoge might well be a transfer phenomenon, perhaps supported by universal prefer­ ence laws (Vennemann 1988). What speaks against the universalist explanation is that paragoge as a phonological rule is universally marked, whereas deletion is universally unmarked (e.g. Vennemann 1988; Singh and Muysken 1995). Hence, a strictly universal approach would predict deletion of the final conso­ nant instead of insertion of a vowel. This is Singh and Muysken's central argu­ ment for their claim that paragoge must be substratum-induced. However, in the

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native phonologies of the substrate languages paragoge rules are unknown, and other vowel epenthesis rules seem to be marginal at best. In order to solve the problem of contradictory theoretical arguments pro and contra substratum or universal influence, we want to draw attention to the decisive fact that in loanword adaptation and SLA there is a universal prefer­ ence of epenthesis to deletion, given pertinent constraints on syllabic structure in L1. In other words, in SLA and loanword adaptation we are confronted with what looks like a markedness reversal. Whereas in regular language develop­ ment epenthesis is marked and deletion unmarked, in language contact epenthe­ sis is unmarked and deletion is marked. For illustration of this point consider the following cross-linguistic data from loanword adaptation and interlanguage. Consider first the loanwords in (13-16): (13)

(14)

(15)

(16)

FRENCH

FULA (West Africa)

carde force course

[karda] [forso] [kursi]

ENGLISH

CANTONESE

file bus inch

[failow] [pasi] [intsi]

(Paradis 1996; Paradis and Lacharité 1997)

ENGLISH

SHONA (Zimbabwe)

bus inch map

bhazi inji mepu

ENGLISH

JAPANESE

full-time fight festival

furutaimu faito fesutibaru

(Silverman 1992; Yip 1993)

(Uffmann 1997)

(Ito und Mester 1995a, 1995b)

Whenever we look at borrowing languages with tighter syllable constraints than the donor language, we find a strong tendency to adapt the loanword to the native syllable structure not by deleting segments but by inserting vowels, especially at the end of words.6 A similar picture emerges from interlanguage data. A few examples are given in (17-19) below. (17)

English tag tub his

Mandarin [tæg ~ tægo] [tob ~ toba] [hiz ~ hizo]

(Eckman 1981)

6) In general, it seems that if deletion occurs at all, it is restricted to complex onsets or com­ plex codas, but does not affect singleton coda consonants. See Alber and Plag (fc.) for more detailed discussion.

PHONOLOGICAL RESTRUCTURING: PARAGOGE IN SRANAN

(18) English food zip-code disc (19)

Japanese /rudo/ /zippuko:do/ /disuku/

ENGLISH

SPANISH

spring truck switch

/espringe/ /tróka/ /suítje/

327

(Hancin-Bhatt and Bhatt 1997)

(Hancin-Bhatt and Bhatt 1997)

Let us consider why loanword adaptation and SLA should display similar patterns. Roughly speaking, loanword adaptation involves the imposition of native phonological rules and restrictions on new words (e.g. Itô and Mester 1995a, 1995b; Paradis 1996; Paradis and Lacharité 1997; Silverman 1992; Yip 1993). If the phonological effects of loanword adaptation are very similar to the phonological effects that can be observed in SLA, one can assume that the same kind of imposition of native phonology on non-native word material is at work. In other words, in both cases we are confronted with transfer effects. We hypothesize that the difference between loanword adaptation and SLA is that in SLA the interlanguage system may start out with more or less complete transfer and then gradually moves towards the target language, whereas in loanword adaptation the imposition of native phonological constraints is more or less static, so that even advanced second language speakers of the donor language adapt loanwords by imposing native phonology on them. How can this transfer effect be formalized? In the past, SLA researchers have proposed interlanguage rules such as the one in (20), for Mandarin: (20)

0 -> ә / [-sonorant, + voice]#

(Eckman 1981: 206)

The problem with this kind of rule is that it is neither universal nor transferred. Although schwa as epenthetic vowel is widespread in the world's languages it is by no means universal, as the Sranan data and the loanword and interlanguage data above show. Neither is rule (20) part of the native phonology of Mandarin. Hence it is unclear how the transfer effect can be modeled in terms of insertion rules such as (20). However, the replacement of linear insertion rules by prosodic principles and constraints, as suggested in recent phonological theory (cf. e.g. Piggott and Singh 1985; Itô 1989; Prince and Smolensky 1993 on epenthesis) can help to solve the puzzle. A constraint-based approach to SLA means that we can conceptualize transfer as transfer of constraints, and not as transfer of rules.7 A welcome consequence of the constraint-based view is that the theoretical argument against substrate influence (i.e. no paragoge rules in the substrate languages) collapses. It is the tight syllabic constraints that are 7) Hancin-Bhatt and Bhatt (1997) and Broselow et al. (1998) implement this idea success­ fully for SLA, Singler (1996a, 1996b) for substrate transfer in creole varieties.

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transferred and which ultimately lead to the insertion of epenthetic vowels as the preferred means to satisfy these constraints. Given that the substrate languages had tighter syllable constraints than English, we can hypothesize that the syllable structure constraints of the sub­ strate language are responsible for the observed Sranan patterns. In the follow­ ing section we will take a close look at the pertinent West African languages Kikongo, Gbe and Twi to see whether this hypothesis is tenable. 3.2.

Syllable structure in Sranan's substrate languages

Three major substrate languages have been discerned for Sranan: Kikongo (Bantu), Gbe and Twi (Kwa). According to the most accurate account of the early Surinamese demographic development, Arends (1995b), Kikongo and Gbe influence must have been the most important, because Twi speakers only occurred in significant numbers after ca. 1720, whereas Kikongo and Gbe speakers were predominant among the slaves during the first century of the colony (roughly 1650-1740). Unfortunately, we do not know exactly what these languages looked like in the 17th and 18th centuries, but in order to accumulate the most relevant and accurate information about their syllabic structure we have used the earliest sources available to us, the oldest of which dates back to 1875 (Christaller on Twi). In addition to the phonological properties of native words we have also looked at loanwords, if available. The hypothesis was that, if transfer deter­ mines syllable structure in Early Sranan, we should find the same or at least similar effects with the loanwords in the African languages as with the English and Dutch words in Early Sranan words. We will discuss each language in turn. From the Kikongo sources (Bal 1964; Bentley 1887; Bontinck 1978; Chatelain 1888-89; Daeleman 1966; Laman 1936; Seidel and Struyf 1910; Spa 1994; Wing and Penders 1928) the following picture emerges. Kikongo only has open syllables and a [± high]-vowel harmony in some dialects. There is no clear evidence in the sources about epenthesis as a phonological process, but the attested loanwords with consonant-final etyma consistently show paragoge. The quality of the paragogic vowel is variable, with a preponderance of paragogic /-i/ and vowel copying. A few examples of the earliest attested loanwords in Kikongo are given in (21):8

8) The spelling of the African words in (21-23) has been adapted to standard Latin script under avoidance of phonetic symbols and diacritics, which tend to vary a great deal between different sources. Hence our spelling does not adequately represent tones and secondary articulations.

PHONOLOGICAL RESTRUCTURING: PARAGOGE IN SRANAN

(21)

Pt. mai'z Pt. parasol Pt. cal E. letter E. book E. boat

> > > > > >

masa palasola nkala eletela ebuku boota

329

(Bentley 1887:539-40)

Speaking of the modern language, Spa (1994) argues that /i/ surfaces after the coronals /t, d, n, s, z, j / , and vowel copying elsewhere. In his investigation of French loanwords in Kintandu, which is an inland lect of the Kikongo cluster, Bal (1964) observes the frequent use of epenthetic /i/, but /u/ and /a/ may also occur, and without harmony with preceding vowels. Bal's findings indicate that this dialect does not so much resemble the Sranan data, which is in line with claims by previous authors that speakers of this lect were not so numerous. In Gbe (see Abaglo and Archangeli 1989; Bole-Richard 1983; Capo 1991; Da Cruz and Avolonto 1993; Henrici 1891; Lafage 1985; Westermann 1930, 1961), we find again only vowel-final words. Labial attraction is frequently observable as a phonological process, as well as a [± round]-vowel harmony. In one pertinent dialect, Fongbe, the default epenthetic vowel is /i/, which is, for example, used in reduplication. In another dialect of the Gbe cluster, Gengbe, the default epenthetic vowel is /d/. Etymologically C-final loanwords obligatorily display paragoge in Gbe. The quality of the paragogic vowel in loanwords is variable, but it seems that paragogic /i/ is preferred (22a), with labial attraction (22b) and vowel rounding harmony (22c) as additional processes. The following loanword data from Capo (1991: 130-1), Lafage (1985: 195) and Westermann (1930: 23-5) illustrate this: E.bed E. belt E. clerk E. college E. electric F. la glace G. Käse Fr. grève Fr. gomme E. force E. ball E.cook

> > > > > > > > > > > >

bele beleti klake koledzi litriki laglasi kesu glevu gomu fosu bolu kuku

The Twi sources we consulted (Christaller 1875; Hess 1992; Schachter and Fromkin 1968; Warren 1976) draw a picture that is somewhat different from that of the other two substrate languages. In Twi it is possible to have conso­ nants in the coda, provided that they are nasal. There is an [± ATR]-vowel harmony (often cited in the literature on harmony systems), and there is no

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conclusive evidence for vowel epenthesis as a native phonological process. Again, paragoge is obligatory with borrowed words that do not satisfy the nasal coda constraint. The quality of the epenthetic vowel is variable, but /e/ seems to be the default. Occasional vowel copying effects are also observable. Consider the loanword data in (23) for illustration. (23)

glass copper book tub

> > > >

girase kobere buku topo

If we compare the syllable structure constraints of the substrate languages, the following facts strongly speak for substratal transfer effects. First, the preva­ lence of /i/ and /e/ (the latter only in the first sources) as default vowels can be attributed to the fact that all substrate languages favor either of these vowels as default vowel. Second, the strong preference for C(C)V and C(C)VN as the only possible syllable structures is a reflection of the constraints operative in the substrate languages. Perhaps the strongest argument for substrate influence comes from the behavior of loanwords in the pertinent substrate language, for they show properties that are very similar to Sranan words. An independent argument for substrate influence is the variation in the quality of the paragogic vowel itself both in Modern and Early Sranan. The numerous exceptions to the generalizations in (3) are best explained as the result of dialect mixing and leveling. Of the competing variants of earlier stages, certain variants were dropped, and others survived. Thus, a Twi speaker may have preferred paragogic /e/ with a given word, whereas speakers of other backgrounds used other paragogic vowels with that word. Finally, one of the variants dropped out of use. That these mechanisms are rather common in language contact situation is shown, for example, by Siegel (1997a, 1997b), who proposes similar scenarios of mixing and leveling for many developments in different kinds of contact languages. Our final argument for substrate transfer comes from the integration of the velar nasal [ŋ] into Sranan. As already mentioned above, coda /n/ and /m/ survive in stressed syllables without paragoge (man < man), but are deleted in unstressed word-final syllables (fashion >fasi). Word-final [ŋ], to the contrary, leads to paragoge in stressed syllables {singi < sing) and is deleted in unstressed syllables {noti < nothing). In other words, in stressed syllables, word-final angma behaves like non-nasal consonants, in unstressed syllables like a nasal consonant. This paradox can be resolved in the following way. Unstressed English word-final -ing has been realized in many dialects of English by final [n] (e.g. nothin', talkin'). Under the reasonable assumption that the alveolar nasal was the input nothing needs to be explained about angma in unstressed syllables. It surfaces as [n] in the input and behaves accordingly.

PHONOLOGICAL RESTRUCTURING: PARAGOGE IN SRANAN

331

In stressed syllables in English, angma can never be realized as [n], as evidenced by the impossibility of, for example, *thi[n] for thing. The question now is how word-final [ŋ] can be integrated into the emerging creole system. We suggest the following account. English angma is adapted by Kikongo speakers as prenasalized /g/, i.e. [ŋg], which is, however, only allowed in onset positions (cf. Ki.ko.ngo). Hence, we would predict that a word like sing is adapted as [si.ŋgi]. Interestingly, Smith (1987) reconstructs the stages of devel­ opment given in (24) independent of any substrate explanation: (24)

sing > si [ŋg]i > si[ŋ]i

Gbe speakers do not tolerate coda consonants, but syllable-initial angma occurs in the pertinent Ewe and Gen lects (e.g. Capo 1991: 53). Therefore, si[ŋ]i would be the optimal form for these speakers. Twi has syllable and word-final angma, so that no syllabic adaptation would be expected. Of course paragogic forms would be easily pronouncable for these speakers. In sum, segmental adaptation and syllabic adaptation work in tandem with regard to the integration of angma into Early Sranan. Paragoge helps both to integrate and preserve the nasal and to satisfy the constraints on syllabic structure at the same time. The integration of angma thus constitutes another piece of evidence for substrate influence on Sranan syllable structure. Having established that paragoge is a clear substratum feature, one question remains to be answered. Why did the speakers not simply delete stemfinal consonants instead of adding a vowel? This would have equally well satis­ fied the syllabic constraints imposed by the substrate languages. At least two explanations can be offered. First, there might have been a constraint in the substrate languages that only disyllabic words are permitted. If this were true,, we would expect deletion of the final consonant with disyllabic etyma, and paragoge with monosyllabic stems. This is the pattern in Liberian English, where this substratal constraint plays a dominant role (Singler 1996a, 1996b). In Sranan, however, disyllabic etyma generally receive paragogic vowels too (cf. bikasi < because, pramisi < promise etc.). It seems that we need another expla­ nation for the preponderance of epenthesis over deletion, which brings us to the second possible explanation. As already argued above there is a universal tendency in SLA and loan­ word adaptation to preserve the segments of the non-native input as far as possible (e.g. Paradis 1996; Paradis and Lacharité 1997). Only in special kinds of environment (e.g. certain types of complex onsets) do we find deletion instead of epenthesis (e.g. tronga < strong, see Alber and Plag fc). The reason for this tendency is presently unclear but it may be another case of "the emer­ gence of the unmarked" (Broselow, Chen and Wang 1998; McCarthy and Prince 1994). That is, in loanword adaptation and SLA we notice the influence of certain constraints whose effects are unobservable with native words. Future

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research will show whether this explanation for the observed universal tenden­ cies is feasible.

4. Remaining problems We have seen that substrate transfer does not solve all problems. There are a number of facts that are not easily explained by transfer. For example, it is un­ clear why Sranan permits nasal codas at all, since such codas are only allowed in one out of three substrate languages, Twi. Above all, this is the language whose influence has been considered as rather marginal, because its speakers arrived rather late on the scene (e.g. Arends 1995b). Furthermore, it is unclear why stem-final nasals are systematically preserved in stressed syllables (as in man), but systematically deleted in un­ stressed syllables (as in fasi < fashion). Although such effects are well-known cross-linguistically (see e.g. Beckman 1998), we do not see how this effect can emerge through substratal transfer. The reader is referred to Alber and Plag (fc.) for a more detailed discussion of this problem. Finally, one would like to have an explanation for the different assimila­ tion and copying effects that influence the quality of the paragogic vowels. It seems that substrate transfer cannot explain the observed patterns in a straightforward way. A more careful study of pertinent phenomena in the African languages involved is certainly needed before any firm conclusions can be drawn.

5. Conclusion The empirical analysis of the earliest Sranan sources has confirmed major parts of Smith's (1977) reconstruction of Early Sranan, but disconfirmed other parts. In accordance with Smith's reconstruction, Early Sranan adds paragogic vowels to nearly all words that end in a non-nasal consonant. Unexpectedly, however, the sources show a great deal of variation concerning the quality of the para­ gogic vowel. This variation disappears only very slowly in the history of Sranan in a process of mixing, leveling and lexicalization. On a more abstract level, we have provided new evidence for the signifi­ cance of transfer and universals of SLA in phonological restructuring in creole languages. Both the coda restrictions and the quality of the paragogic vowel are strongly influenced by the substrate languages. The variation in Early Sranan can be largely attributed to the differences between the different substrate languages, the preference for paragoge instead of deletion as the prevalent repair strategy reflects a universal tendency in SLA and loanword integration.

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Lipski, John. fc. "Epenthesis vs. elision in Afro-Iberian language: A constraint-based approach to creole phonology". Papia. McCarthy, John and Alan Prince. 1994. "The emergence of the unmarked. Optimality in prosodic morphology". Proceedings of the Northeast Linguistic Society 24: 333-79. Nepveu, Jean. 1770. "Annotatien op de Surinaamsche Beschrijvinge van A 0 1718, pp. 274282". Ms., Municipal Archives, Amsterdam. Paradis, Carole. 1996. "The inadequacy of filters and faithfulness in loanword adaptation". In Jacques Durand and Bernard Laks, eds. Current Trends in Phonology: Models and Methods. Vol. 2. Salford: European Studies Research Institute, 509-34. — and Darlene Lachanté. 1997. "Preservation and minimality in loanword adaptation. Journal of Linguistics 33: 379-430. Piggott, Glyne L. and Rajendra Singh. 1985. "The phonology of epenthetic segments". Canadian Journal of Linguistics 30: 415-51. Plag, Ingo. 1993. Sentential complementation in Sranan. On the Formation of an Englishbased Creole Language. Tübingen: Niemeyer. —. 1999. "Where did Sranan's English base come from? Some phonological evidence from 18th century St. Kitts and Barbados texts". In Philip Baker and Adrienne Bruyn, eds. St Kitts and the Atlantic Creoles. The Late 18th Century Texts of Samuel Augustus Mathews in Perspective. London: University of Westminster Press, 173-91. Prince, Alan and Paul Smolensky. 1993. "Optimality theory. Constraint interaction in generative grammar". Ms., Rutgers University and University of Colorado at Boulder. Pulleyblank, Douglas. 1998. "Yoruba vowel patterns. Deriving asymmetries by the tension between opposing constraints". Ms., University of British Columbia. ROA. Schachter, Paul and Victoria Fromkin. 1968. A Phonology of Akan: Akuapem, Ashante, Fante. (UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics 9). Los Angeles: University of California. Schuchardt, Hugo. 1914. Die Sprache der Saramakkaneger in Surinam. Amsterdam: Johannes Müller. Schumann, C. L. 1783. "Neger-Englisches Wörterbuch. Editio Tertia". In Andre Kramp, ed. Early creole lexicography: A study of  L. Schumann's Manuscript Dictionary of Sranan. Leiden: Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden dissertation, 44-358. Seidel, August and I. Struyf. 1910. La langue congolaise: Grammaire, vocabulaire systématique, phrases graduées et lectures. Heidelberg: Groos. Siegel, Jeff. 1997a. "Dialectal differences and substrate reinforcement in Melanesian Pidgin". Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics, London. —. 1997b. "Mixing, leveling, and pidgin/creole development". In Arthur K. Spears and Donald Winford, eds. The Structure and Status of Pidgins and Creoles. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 111-49. Singh, Rajendra and Pieter Muysken. 1995. "Wanted: A debate in pidgin/creole phonology". Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 10: 157-69. Silverman, Daniel. 1992. "Multiple scansions in loanword phonology: Evidence from Cantonese". Phonology 9: 289-328.

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Singler, John V. 1996a. "Optimality, the minimal-word constraint, and the historical sequencing of substrate influence in Pidgin/Creole genesis". Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics, Chicago. —. 1996b. "An  account of pidgin phonology: Coda consonants in Vernacular Liberian English". In Jan Johnson, Matthew L. Juge and Jeri L. Maxley, eds. Proceedings of the 22nd Berkeley Linguistics Society. Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society, 37586. Smith, Norval S. H. 1977. "Vowel epithesis in the Surinam creoles". Amsterdam Creole Studies 1: 1-54. —. 1987. "The genesis of the Creole languages of Surinam". Ph.D. dissertation, Universiteit van Amsterdam. Spa, Jaap J. 1994. "Les emprunts français en Kikongo". In L'emprunt. Aix-en-Provence: Centre de Sciences du Langue, Université de Provence, 63-78. Stedman, John Gabriel. 1790. Narrative of a Five Years' Expedition against the Revolting Negroes of Surinam, in Guiana on the Wild Coast of South America; from the Year 1773 to 1777. London: Johnson. Tinelli, Henri. 1979. "Afro-European syllabic patterns and structural stability in Romance and English creoles". Orbis 28: 267-76. Uffmann, Christian. 1997. "The phonology of English loanwords in Shona". M.A. thesis, Philipps-Universität Marburg. Vennemann, Theo. 1988. Preference Laws for Syllable Structure and the Explanation of Sound Change. Berlin, New York, Amsterdam: Mouton de Gruyter. Warren, Dennis M. 1976. Bibliography and Vocabulary of the Akan (Twi-Fante) Language of Ghana. Bloomington: Indiana University. Westermann, Dietrich. 1930 (repr.1960). A Study of the Ewe Language. London: Oxford University Press. —. 1961. Die Ewe-Sprache in Togo: Eine praktische Einführung. Berlin: De Gruyter. Wing, J. van and  Penders S. J., eds. 1928. Le plus ancien dictionnaire Bantu. Het oudste Bantu-Woordenboek. Vocabularium P. Georgii Gelensis. (Original manuscript by P. Joris von Gheel, 1896). Louvain: Kuyl-Otto. Yip, Moira. 1993. "Cantonese loanword phonology and Optimality Theory". Journal of East Asian Linguistics 2: 261-91. Wullschlägel, H. R.. 1856. Deutsch-Neger englisches Wörterbuch. Amsterdam: Emmering. (republished 1965) Ingo Plag English Linguistics / Fachbereich 3 Universität Siegen D-57068 Siegen Germany [email protected]

Christian Uffman Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik Philipps-Universität Marburg Wilhelm-Röpke-Str. 6D D-35032 Marburg Germany

The development of the life form lexicon of Tok Pisin

Peter Mühlhäusler University ofAdelaide According to this classification of environmental influences, we may expect to find two sets of environmental factors reflected in language, assuming for the moment that language is materially influenced by the environmental back­ ground of its speakers. Properly speaking, of course, the physical environment is reflected in language only in so far as it has been influenced by social factors. The mere existence for instance, of a certain type of animal in the physical environment of a people does not suffice to give rise to a linguistic symbol referring to it. It is necessary that the animal be known by the members of the group in common and that they have some interest, however slight, in it before the language of the community is called upon to make reference to this particular element of the physical environment. In other words, so far as language is concerned, all environment influence reduces at last analysis to the influence of social environment. (Sapir 1985: 90)

1.

Introduction

Pidginists and creolists have tended to focus on syntax and language-internal semantic relations — for instance, those linguists looking at the bioprogram hypothesis have identified a small range of sentence internal features such as TMA (Tense, Modality, Aspect), interrogative pronouns and so on as core structures. The question of why Pidgins and Creoles have the structures they have at a given point in time and why these structures change over time has commonly been answered as follows: a) b) c)

there are universal forces that lead to certain grammars, elements of particular substratum and superstratum languages are incorpo­ rated/ borrowed from time to time, structures are reinterpreted which gives rise to new structures.

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Common to such explanations is that they subscribe to the independency hypothesis of language which claims that linguistic developments are different from other cognitive developments, that there is a clear boundary between language and non-language. In this paper I shall explain the alternative eco-linguistic viewpoint (Mühlhäusler 1996; Fill 1993, 1998) which asserts that language restructuring is an adaptive process, i.e. determined in parts by external environmental condi­ tions. My claim is that pidgin and creole structures and changes in structures are the result of a drawn-out process of their users adapting their ways of speaking to changed external conditions. To test this claim I shall single out a small sub­ part of language structure, i.e. that part of the lexicon which involves the classi­ fication and labelling of life forms.

2.

The issue

I am concerned with the notion of folk systems of biological classification and, in particular, the conflicting claims that such distinctions are either governed by universal constraints (as claimed for instance by Berlin 19921; Brown 1984) or by human utilitarian factors (Hunn 1977, 1985; or in Buhner's writings, see Pawley 1991). The literature on this topic is vast, and a survey would be far beyond the scope of a paper such as the present one. We note that this debate is part of a wider debate between universalists and relativists and as such undoubt­ edly of interest to creolists concerned with the structured lexicon. My impression after a prolonged period of studying the relevant literature on this debate (aptly summarized in Foley 1997) is, that cognitive anthropology has made its job unnecessarily complex by concentrating on the highly devel­ oped classificatory systems of very old languages. My claim is that studying the language of ethnoclassification in pidgins and creoles not only dramatically reduces the number of terms one needs to consider but also, and perhaps more importantly, allows one to study genuine developments in real time. After all, postulated implicational patterns of the type: tree

implies bush implies grass implies herbs

are synchronic statements of developmental processes: The classificatory terms on the right imply an earlier presence of those on the left. My question is: does

1) "Human beings are drawn by some kind of innate curiosity to those groupings of plants and animals that represent the most distinctive chunk of biological reality". (Berlin 1992: 230)

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pidgin and creole development follow this postulated universal path for unfold­ ing classification systems? If not, can one explain the developing structures and changes in these structures in terms of speaker's adaptation of their language to changing environmental conditions, where "environment" stands for both natural and cultural environment, for, as Sapir's statement reminds us, the objective presence of entities in the world is no warranty that people will refer to them. Our problem is thus not only why certain forms get names but also why others do not get named, why the lexicon is restructured by additions and subtractions from time to time, and why certain available substratum and superstratum terms are only very selectively incorporated into Tok Pisin.

3.

Some technical points

Creolists on the whole are not familiar with the language of cognitive anthro­ pology and it would seem necessary briefly to introduce some key concepts and terms here: Ethnoclassifications are hierarchically structured with terms at the top of the hierarchy maximally general and abstract and those at the bottom maximally specific. We can distinguish five levels or layers i.e. FLORA plant

Kingdom levels tree

Life form level Generic level Subgeneric level Varietal level

oak

vine

beech palm

pine cork red oak oak oak Northern red oak

FAUNA animal

grass

fish

bird

mammal

sparrow

kingfisher

eagle

blue winged kookaburra

great European kingfisher kingfisher

Northern blue winged kookaburra

The relationship between the levels is one of hyponymy (inclusion, kind of): a blue winged kookaburra is a kind of kookaburra; a kookaburra is a kind of king­ fisher; a kingfisher is a kind of bird and a bird is a kind of animal. Languages differ considerably in many aspects including: 1. the number of labels at each level 2. membership of generic names in life form names (e.g. an eel is a fish in English but a snake for most Tok Pisin speakers).

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Ultimately it is a matter of criteria for samenesses and differences: The natural environment of all languages is more diversified than the cognitive labels avail­ able. What is of particular interest is not only the number of labels but the criteria employed for grouping life forms under a particular label.

4.

The development of the life form lexicon of Tok Pisin

4.1.

Some initial observations

The present paper is part of an ongoing study of the adaptation of selected pidgins and creoles to new environments. The data I shall consider here are drawn primarily from published and unpublished sources on Tok Pisin but shall be complemented with data from other creoles from time to time. Tok Pisin would seem to be an ideal test case for hypotheses about restructuring as: a) the glossonym Tok Pisin covers a wide range of different language types: rudimentary and elaborated pidgins, creoles, post-pidgin and post-creole varieties as well as foreigner talk, b) there is a reasonably comprehensive longitudinal documentation of the language, c) a good deal is known about the socio-historical context of the language. I have distinguished in a number of places (Mühlhäusler 1979) between devel­ opment in the sense of complexity-changing processes and restructuring in the sense of changes in the language without change in overall complexity, and I have shown in detail that the history of the derivational lexicon of Tok Pisin is a complex mixture of both. It is hypothesised that this is not dissimilar where the focus is on a particular lexical domain such as names for life forms. On the one hand we have a developmental pidgin manifesting itself in increasingly more detailed distinctions between life forms and on the other a restructuring process reflecting changes and biases in the external circumstances of the language. 4.2.

The data

This paper draws on three types of data: 1) Published descriptions and lexicons of Tok Pisin. The first comprehensive accounts date back to World War II when the language became important for strategic reasons (Murphy 1943; Hall, Bateson and Whiting 1942), followed by a number of missionary publications (Mihalic 1971; Steinbauer 1969 etc.).

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2) A large body of additional resources, word lists, vocabularies and data compiled by missionaries. 3) Fieldwork totalling fifteen months between 1972 and 1976. The quality of the sources is mixed though the majority were written by writers with some training in phonology and most of them were long-term residents of Papua New Guinea. Whilst numerous ethnological studies of folk taxonomies exist (see Pawley, ed. 1991) none of these focussed on Tok Pisin, as their purpose was to elicit the richness of knowledge in one of the local languages rather than in the very much reduced lexicon of Tok Pisin. Detailed talk about life forms was not a popular topic for Tok Pisin speakers and its documentation in some instances was not of great concern to the compilers of dictionaries. The poverty of lexical entries in the domain of biological life forms is not a product of sloppy lexicography, however, as a number of explicit statements on this point by competent observers demonstrate: Scholars with considerable knowledge of ethnoclassification and Tok Pisin such as the late Don Laycock (1975), for instance, were not able significantly to add to the list of terms in Mihalic(1971). 4.3.

Tok Pisin naming of nature

The languages of the New Guinea area are known for their highly complex classification systems of life forms; knowledge of the natural environment has been essential for survival and management. The basic principle here is that one can only manage what one knows, and one can only know what one can talk about or label. The number of labels in Tok Pisin is considerably smaller than that of the indigenous vernaculars — this would seem unproblematic if it is used side by side with an indigenous language but problematic for monolingual first language speakers of Tok Pisin. The principle that cultural focus is reflected in label proliferation obtains for both vernaculars and Tok Pisin, with the difference that many vernaculars exhibit a number of densely populated semantic fields (e.g. cordyline leaves in Kewa; Franklin 1972) whereas Tok Pisin labels abound in only a very small number of instances, notably, coconut terminology (needed in the plantation context) and introduced food plants used in expatriate households. As early as in Borchardt (1926: 78) the following items in the semantic field of coconuts are listed:

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New Guinea Pidgin kokonas kulau drai kopra, kabora drip nok, pangal bombom bilo munum kru milis milisim wara bilong kokonas grisim mit bilong kokonas laplap bilong kokonas kok bilong kokonas skin bilong kokonas sel bilon kokonas stik bilong kokonas

gloss 'coconut palm and fruit' 'green drinking nut' 'dry nut' 'copra, meat of dry nut' 'very young coconut' 'midrib of coconut leaves' 'coconut fronds' 'half coconut shell, used as ladle' 'flowers of coconut' 'shoot of nut' 'coconut milk made from shedding coconut meat in the water of a ripe nut' 'to cook in coconut milk' 'water of ripenut' 'to cook in water of ripe nut' 'coconut meat' 'coconut leaf sheath' 'unopened flower sheath' 'husk of coconut' 'coconut shell' 'stem of coconut tree'

A similar list compiled by van Baar (1938) is given in Appendix III. Tok Pisin names encompass introduced and local life forms to roughly the same extent, an indication of its being a contact language and of the impor­ tance of exotic plants and animals in the contact situation. There is considerable dialectal variation resulting from factors such as the relative importance of German and Malay influence, different vegetation zones, differences between coastal fisher people and agriculturalists of the interior, etc. There is little longitudinal stability with names for fauna and flora, suggesting that this domain was not central to most Tok Pisin users. The com­ pilers of Tok Pisin dictionaries exhibit on the whole a poor knowledge of the PNG environment: Translations such as 'a kind of tree' or 'a kind of fish' abound, and the identification of genera and subgenera is not consistently achieved. This contrasts with great precision in the domain of Christian doctrinal terms, something the predominantly missionary lexicographers were much more concerned with. 4.4.

Power and social context in pidginization

There is no doubt that Tok Pisin initially developed as a means of social control and that its use, spread and development was shaped very significantly by expatriate interests. Its initial name Tok Waitman reflects its primary use of a means for vertical (masta-boi) communication, though from the 1920s onwards its role as a means of horizontal communication (the language is now called

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Tok Boi, the language of young men in European employment) became more significant and this trend has continued to date with Tok Pisin being a national language, a symbol of Papua New Guinean identity and means of social and technological development of an independent Pacific nation. However, languages have long memories and Sankoff (1980: 21) observes that although: [...] Tok Pisin is now a common denominator, even a language of equality, among Northern New Guineans of diverse linguistic groups, it has retained its associations with and connotations of power and authority at the village level, learned by each generation in the context of giving orders and shouting at people, as well as its playful imitation of such contexts. The memory of unequal power distribution is very much in evidence in the domain of talking about agriculture, as documented in a very perceptive study by a former agricultural officer (Scott 1977: 723): When foreign explorers first ventured into the bush areas of Papua New Guinea to contact its native people, communication between the discovered and the discoverers was of a simple, concrete nature. The people's rhythm of life was inevitably entwined with the progress of the seasons and the growth of food crops — whilst the European visitor's movements were dictated by the weather and the availability of food. The conversations between indigene and European therefore centred mainly around what was visible, concrete and of importance to the daily needs of each party. The Europeans were especially interested in carbohydrate foods and thus they learned native names for these, whilst the indigenes were interested in learning the white man's names for such things as axes. Thus commenced the vocabulary of the agricultural worker — from the concrete things of farming — and, unfortunately, thus it remained to hinder agricultural development for many years. For whilst farming techniques were to develop over the years, the pidgin language was not to develop parallel to it and communication between the farmer and the agricultural field officer was to remain at an unsophisticated level until the most recent years. Scott (1977: 724) continues: The attitude of expatriates towards the agricultural production methods, products and techniques of the indigenous farmer was one of utility and not education. Except in isolated instances, the expatriates were not concerned with the indigenous viewpoint and therefore limited the development of agri­ cultural terminology to the naming and description of crops, tools, etc. The Germans, Americans and Australians gave pidgin many words and the people naturally seized on learning such words as being necessary to their trade with foreign planters and officials and to their employment as indentured labour. Movement of labour from the Sepik and Highlands areas to coastal plantations accelerated the spread of an 'acceptable' Pidgin terminology — acceptable to the expatriate who needed a limited vocabulary to utilise his suppliers in the

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food trade, or to utilise labourers in his form of production; and acceptable to the indigene who could see advantages in trade and employment.

The language of agriculture thus grew around the needs of the expatriates as they saw them and around the felt needs of the indigene whose horizons were limited by what the expatriates wished to teach him — and this was very little. The indigenous farmer needed little pidgin to fulfil his limited role in the commerce of the country: a role limited by his own ignorance and the domi­ nance of the expatriates. Scott perceives a gradual change towards more indigenous participation as expatriate didimans are replaced by locals but point out that as they receive their training in English they "will often use unnecessary words in explaining things to farmers" (1977: 730). Whilst agricultural and environmental education has become more sophisticated, they have not prevented a dramatic deteriora­ tion of the natural environment of the country, particularly its forests. 4.5.

Classification and taxonomies

In what follows I shall present a detailed longitudinal account of the develop­ ment of naming life forms in Tok Pisin, drawing on a number of mainly unpub­ lished data, dictionaries and word lists as well as some of my field notes. I shall give an outline of the developments at each of the levels identified above. 4.5.1. Kingdom level Whilst in English animal and plant are well-established terms, expressions for neither concept, until very recently in urban Tok Pisin, ever became well-estab­ lished. However, one can observe a number of solutions in the history of Tok Pisin to the problem of filling this gap. Dempwolff (1910), for instance lists: Fauna Flora binatang 0 bul, bulmakau Tier, Fleisch ('animal, meat') Tier, Ungeziefer ('animal, creepy crawlies')

Brennikmeyer (1924), who, like Dempwolff, collected his data in the Gazelle Peninsula of New Britain acknowledges one kingdom level term: pisin

Tier, Vogel, Verwandter ('animal, bird, relative')

and observes that dok 'dog' is regarded as a 'pisin'. Pinetang is glossed as Käfer 'beetle' and bulmakau as Kuh 'cow'. The "Wörterbuch mit Redewendungen" (Anon, circa 1935) compiled on the New Guinea mainland, one of the most comprehensive dictionaries of Tok

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Pisin, for the first time distinguishes kingdom level terms for plants and animals, Fauna binatang animal, creepy crawly

Flora sayor vegetable

though it is not clear whether all animals and all plants are subsumed under binatang and sayor respectively. Pidgin is now glossed as 'bird' and 'aeroplane' and bulmakau as 'cattle'. In later dictionaries the word for 'aeroplane' is balus 'dove'. Kingdom level terms are missing in van Baar's (1938) dictionary compiled on the New Guinea main­ land, in Hall, Bateson and Whiting (1942) and in Dahmen (1949). Mihalic (1971), the standard Tok Pisin dictionary to date, lists binatang as well as the recent loan animal for 'animal' but has no single entry for 'plant'. Instead, the cumulative circumlocution ol tri, sayor, gras 'trees, vegetables, grass-like plants' is used. Before moving to life form taxa let me add a few remarks on the word abus, which among many of my informants was used to mean 'animal'. The word abus in many ways is an intriguing item — Mihalic's etymology ('Gazelle') is wrong as the languages of the Gazelle Peninsula do not have the sound [s]. My own suspicion is that it derived from English 'animals', a suspicion fuelled by the fact that my daughter pronounced "animals" abus early in her L1 acquisition. Abus is not listed by Dempwolff (1910) or Brennikmeyer (1924) and appears first in "Wörterbuch mit Redewendungen" (Anon. 1935), glossed as 'sidedish consisting of meat, fruit or vegetables eaten with sago (saksak) which is in a class of its own'. Dahmen (1949) again glosses abus as 'meat, vegetables eaten together with other things like sago, taro, sweet potatoes'. Murphy (1943) translates abus as 'seafoods', but Steinbauer (1969) only glosses it as 'pig, pork, meat, game'. Finally, Mihalic (1971) glosses it as 'a side dish consisting mainly of pork, meat, fish or seafoods'. Earlier vegetarian sidedishes are now excluded from the domain of abus. During my own field work I have found it to refer to any edible animal, thus excluding binatang (which includes small vertebrates) and animals such as dok which are referred to as abus only by those who eat them. Non-flying birds such as muruk 'cassowary' are also classified as abus. However, there is some looseness here: Elephants and lions were referred to as abus by some of my young informants for whom it approximated the kingdom term 'animal'. Enimal and animul are also widely known among younger better educated speakers of post-Pidgin and post-Creole varieties. The term 'plant', on the other hand, was not borrowed from English.

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4.5.2. Life form taxa A fair bit of variation is encountered here and it is not always clear whether we are dealing with life form taxa or generic names. The fact that Tok Pisin only distinguishes between biknem (general term) and smolnem (specific term) does not help: Dempwolff (1910) distinguishes the following: Fauna sel spaida shell spider

pißen bird

bembe butterfly

pukpuk diwai crocodile tree/wood

Flora purpur decorative plant

sayor vegetable

kunai schilfgras

alang-alang grass

kunis/ k vegetable

diwai tree

tangete decorative plant

This set is basically identical with that given by Brennikmeyer (1924). We note the taxon 'vegetable, edible greens' which is indicative of a utilitarian basis of classification, as indeed is the taxon 'decorative plant'. In the "Wörterbuch mit Redewendungen" (Anon. 1935) we find: Fauna laus pukpuk spaida flea, tick, crocodile spider louse

sel shellfish

fish fish

kumu vegetable

Flora diwai tree

kunai alang-alang grass

Van Baar (1938) lists: pukpuk fish crocodile fish

Fauna pinatang insect/ beetle

Flora diwai, tree sayor tree green vegetable

kina shellfish

r vine

maleo snake eel snake/ worm

kunai alang-alang reed

That liklik pukpuk ('little crocodile') is the entry for 'lizard' confirms the place of this entry at the taxon level. We note the replacement of the earlier sel by kina, the addition of another utilitarian taxon reed and the competing lexemes diwai and tri for 'tree'. Entries such as liklik snake bilong kaikai blut 'leech' confirm evidence listed in earlier sources that snake includes snakes, worms, leeches and maggots (e.g. mama

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347

bilong snake 'rhinoceros beetle', whose larvae caused major damage on some coconut plantations). Hall, Bateson and Whiting (1942) show that there was competition between balus and pisin as the name for bird (and indeed aeroplane), that r includes roots and vines, and that binatang is now roughly equivalent to insects. In Dahmen (1949) we find interesting utilitarian distinctions between tinned and fresh plants: Fauna snake snake, worm, leech Flora kumis2

pinatang beetle, insect

prut

gras

tinned tinned vegetables fruit

grass

pisin bird

kunai alangalang grass

pislama seaslug

manguru

purpur

mangrove flower

pis fish

kumu

pukpuk crocodile, lizard

paiawut

divai

generic firewood tree terms for edible leaves

Mihalic (1971) has: Fauna pis fish

binatang kina palai pislama shell lizard seaslug insect fish

snake snake, worm

spaida spider

laus pukpuk louse, crocodile flea

maleo eel

Flora diwai

flower

kumu

purpur

r

kunai alang

tree

flower

edible greens

decorative plant

vine

grass

alang-

Note that palai rather than pukpuk is now used to refer to lizards, geckos and iguanas; the taxon kumis 'canned vegetables' has disappeared and Mihalic notes that in the Wabig area (New Guinea Highlands) kumu means 'potato'. As in other dictionaries, there is no generic term 'tuber' that would include yams, tapioca, potatoes etc. Purpur is used both to refer to specific decorative plants (cordylines) and to flowers in general.

2) This word is derived from German Gemüse Vegetables'.

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A brief examination of the life form taxa names suggests that the main distinctions were in place by 1910 and that there is relatively little development thereafter: What development there is, for instance the addition of kumis and prut, suggests that utilitarian rather than universal forces are at work and that the endpoint is very dissimilar to universal classifications such as the ones postulated by Berlin (1992) in the case of fauna and more similar in the case of flora. There is a great deal of restructuring, with several changes from taxon lexicon to generic lexicon and vice versa. 4.5.3. Generic level A general observation is that local plants and animals are typically designated with words of local origin, whilst introduced species have European names. Exceptions are words referring to life forms which are particularly useful to expatriates e.g. banana or sufficiently similar to be identified with exotic life forms {louse, rat). Another generalization is the relative smallness of the vocabulary at this level. Mihalic (1971) lists fewer than 150 names for plants, trees, fruit and vegetables, and a large number of them refer to exotic food plants {melon, kabis, anian, rais, hebsen, 'melon, cabbage, onion, rice, peas'). Local names are not stable and often have very limited currency: Many of the names of Tolai and Mioko origin (listed in Mosel 1980: 25) are not widely known outside the Bismarck archipelago. The local names that are more widely used do not all date back to the formative years of the language : Buai 'betelnut' appears to have replaced bilinat in the 1930s only, and, as Mihalic (1990) observes, many earlier established terms have in more recent times been replaced by English names. Let us now look at generic terms chronologically. The lack of terms, even for quite common life forms, before 1910 can be seen from occasional remarks by contemporary observers such as those of Schnee (1904: 303-4) who gives: small fellow something he go belong bush

'land crab'

and plenty small fellow something he come he kaikai all finish

'ants'.

Such circumlocutions were in all likelihood created ad hoc and could not be employed without pointing outside a specific context. Dempwolff (1910) compiled separate word lists for Pidgin English in general and another with words from indigenous languages. The term indige­ nous means languages other than German and English, and for Dempwolff this includes words of Malay origin introduced by the plantation workers from the

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE LIFE FORM LEXICON OF TOK PISIN

349

Dutch East Indies in the early plantations of the New Guinea Company: karabau 'water buffalo', kapok 'cotton', pato 'duck' etc. In total, Dempwolff lists 60 genus level entries of indigenous origin and 25 each of English and German origin. The domain of the former are local life forms, particularly those inhab­ iting the bush and the sea, whilst the latter refer overwhelmingly to domesti­ cated exotic plants and animals. Life forms with indigenous names are overwhelmingly utilitarian, i.e. plants and animals used in local cookery, shells and plants used for adornments or building materials, and animals such as flies, fleas and bedbugs that impact on human well-being: A few items deserve special comment. A distinction is made between fell 'flea', laus 'louse' (but also glossed as 'flea') and musmus 'bedbug' and between gus 'goose' and pato 'duck'. Palai is translated as 'monitor' (in later forms of Tok Pisin also 'lizard, ghekko'). A distinction is made between tertel 'tortoise, turtle' and tertelsel 'tortoise shell' which in all other lists is merged into trausel. The word bembe 'butterfly' is given, a word that I have found difficult to elicit from any informants. Brennikmeyer (1924) lists only 31 genus level entries of indigenous origin and again 25 more of German and English origin, with German words clearly making inroads: There is only partial overlap with Dempwolff but this would seem to reflect Brennikmeyer's missionary orientation rather than the loss of lexicon or major restructuring. Of interest is the first lexical phrase longpela nek 'heron' to refer to an animal. The "Wörterbuch mit Redewendungen" again lists 60 genus level items, overlapping largely with Dempwolff, and 33 of German and English origin, with several double entries (painap-ananas 'pineapple', papaya-popo 'pawpaw' and swibel-anian 'onion'). New complex lexical items are nilpis 'a kind of fish' and long pela maus 'a kind of fish'. Van Baar (circa 1938) again lists around 60 entries of indigenous language origin and provides special entries for: Baumsorten 'kinds of tree' (10) (see Appendix II) Muschelsorten 'kinds of shellfish' (52) Fischsorten 'kinds of fish' (45) 22 tree names are listed (15 with indigenous names), and van Baar adds: "If you want to name other trees you have to describe the shape and size of their leaves" (translation mine). Of interest among these names are buter 'tree with little fruit of a galip like taste' (he does not identify the avocado) and the first use of the distinction between domesticated and wild varieties: galip(tru) galip bilong bus popo popo bilong bus

'galip nut' 'wild galip' 'pawpaw' 'wild pawpaw'

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This structural pattern is used increasingly in later dictionaries competing with compounds of the type vel + N. Only 7 fish names (5 of indigenous origin) are given by van Baar, including sak 'shark' which for many of my informants was not a fish but a separate life form. Again 7 kinds of shell are listed (all with indigenous names). The word sel of earlier editions 'shellfish in general' has been replaced by kina. Van Baar also comments on the cultural uses of the 7 named species. Murphy (1943) appends separate lists of fish and seafoods, animals and insects, trees and shrubs, fruit and vegetables and European foods to his booklet on Tok Pisin. 36 species of fish and shellfish have names of an indigenous origin, against 2 of European provenance. Of interest are compounds and lexical phrases. nilpis mausgras longpela tel bigmaus kindam bilong solwara bulmakau bilong solwara

'blowfish' 'catfish' 'edible mussel of swamps' 'groper' 'prawn' 'porpoise or dugong' (but the indigenous variants ambusa and bonon are also listed.)

Murphy's list of animals and insects gives 17 genus level names of European origin, 22 of indigenous origin and 15 coined forms using Tok Pisin word formation devices or circumlocution, including interesting items such as pinatang bilong saksak anis bilong kaikai haus taragau bilong nait

'edible grub worms' (not snek belong saksak) 'termites' 'hawk or eagle of night' = 'owl'

and a distinction between: snek i gat gip liklik snek snek bilong drinkim blut

'venomous snake' (from German Gift 'poison') 'worm' 'leech'

This suggests that life form expressions are used unless contextual features require further specification. Among the trees and shrubs species listed we find 22 of indigenous origin, 7 of European origin and 3 generated by language internal word formation devices: wail saksak 'nipapalm', liklik tri 'shrub' and wail limbum 'Toddy Palm'. Note that the same Tok Pisin word refers to different species in salat 'nettle bush, poison oak'. 'Betelnut' is bilinat and huai, and purpur is used both as a life form level 'decorative scrub' and generic level item 'croton'.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE LIFE FORM LEXICON OF TOK PISIN

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Among fruit and vegetables we find 24 items of European and 22 of indigenous origin as well as 4 created from internal resources. The items wolu 'pumpkin' (listed by Dempwolff 1910 and Dahmen 1949) is replaced by pamken and a distinction is made between tabak 'European tobacco' and brus 'native tobacco'. More commonly this cultural distinction is signalled by adding bilong waitman and bilong kanaka respectively as in: kapiak bilong waitman taro (bilong) kanaka

'soursoup' 'native taro'

Vegetables introduced by the Chinese (Kongkong) are signalled as in: taro Kongkong

'Singapore taro'

Among foods the item papai 'mushroom' and talinga 'edible mushroom' appear for the first time, probably as a genus rather than life form level item. Papai never gained wide currency and was subsequently replaced by masrum 'edible European mushroom'. Muli 'citrus fruit' is used in the compounds solmuli 'lemon' and swit muli 'orange'. Dahmen (1949) lists 53 life forms of European and 57 of indigenous origin and 14 generated by internal word formations, only a modest increase in lexical productivity. Unlike Murphy, who correctly glosses salat as 'nettle', Dahmen provides the Eurocentric glosses salat 'lettuce' and in a similar manner glosses konyak as 'cognac' rather than 'kava'. The indigenous word for 'sardine' talai appears as sadin and 'mosquito' is now natnat as well as moskito. The entry mumut in Dahmen is translated as "marmot, small marsupial". Marmots of course are conspicuous by their absence in Papua New Guinea. Mihalic (1971) gives 63 genus level life forms of European origin, 108 from indigenous languages and 40 coined from internal word formation devices. Mihalic's dictionary draws on most of the previously examined sources and thus is cumulative rather than a description of the language spoken in 1970 — indeed, several of the items listed were known perhaps only to a few members of the older generation; Mihalic (1990), in a paper on lexical obsolescence, identifies some of these items. Of particular interest are a) the multiple use of names and b) the coexis­ tence of several names for the same species. As regards a), we find examples such as kindam kalangar taragau kapul palai nilpis

'crayfish, shrimp, prawn' 'parakeet, parrot' 'eagle, hawk' 'cuscus, opossum, tree kangaroo' 'lizard, gecko' 'blowfish, scorpion fish'

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For b) we typically find a name of indigenous origins side by side with a Euro­ pean name and/ or a coined form as in 'bee' 'butterfly' 'fowl' 'cod'

binen (from German Bienen), niknik, binatang bilong kaikai man bataplai, bembe paul, kakaruk kot, bikmaus

As regard words coined from internal resources, pairs such as flaipis and winpis for 'flying fish' suggest that different solutions to perceived lexical gaps were arrived at by different groups of Tok Pisin speakers. During my fieldwork I found that many of these names had only local currency. Mihalic, like others before him, would seem to have taken into account only the usage of certain groups of people, excluding for instance the Chinese community, many of whose members were fluent Tok Pisin speakers and in their capacity as market gardeners also provided the vegetables to the local population. Wu (1977: 1053) provides a list of Tok Pisin names for Chinese vegetables, in use around Rabaul, the capital of the former German part of Papua New Guinea. Chinese names Choi Sum Kai Choi Kai Lum Lau Pak Ong Choi Pak Choi Sung Choi Tao See Kua Tung Kua Wu Tau Yin Sal

Tok Pisin names Toi Tum Kai TÍO Kai Lun Lau Pak Kangkung (Kango) Pak Toi Sala, Lesis Tao Sika Tung Ka Taro bilong Saina Min Tai

English names Chinese cabbage Chinese mustard Chinese broccoli Turnip Chinese watercress Chinese cabbage Lettuce Beans of several kinds A kind of squash "Winter" melon Taro Chinese celery

During my own work on a number of former German mission stations I found that not only were German nouns such as bonen 'beans' and hebsen 'peas' still in use but that a number of words not listed in any of the existing dictionaries were also known including: kle katopel

'clover' 'potato'

The items swain from German Schwein 'pig' and rintfi from German Rindvieh 'cattle' were used as terms of insult only.

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4.5.4. Subgeneric level and varietal level Very few Tok Pisin names are found at these two levels, understandingly so as the language typically functioned in rather general/ culture neutral discourse, and as local knowledge of life forms was expressed in the local vernaculars. The earliest example I have come across is korakum 'red ant' listed by Dempwolff (1910); this item is listed by most subsequent lexicographers and was still widely used when I did my fieldwork, though some younger speakers used retpela anis instead. Murphy (1943) lists two additional items talimbur 'greensnail',3 kolsis 'small leafed mangrove' as distinct from mangoro and nambatu bilong limbum 'a kind of Areca palm'. Mihalic (1971) lists a similar form nambatu bilong mambu 'an inferior type of bamboo'. The use of numbers to distinguish lifeforms at the subgeneric level is much more widespread than is suggested by lexicographers. I recorded the following forms as used by the inhabitants of Erima Nambis (formerly Erimahafen — an early centre of German plantation activity) in the Madang province, with speakers under 15 years who employed Tok Pisin as their first language. Pidgin nambawan balus nambatu balus nambawan galip nambatu galip

Descriptive phrase provided i no wait tra, 1 dakwait I wait tra bilong yumi man I planim strongpela bilong bus

nambatri galip nambawan kabis nambatu kabis nambawan kwila nambatu kwila nambawan moran nambatu moran nambawan palai

bilongbus tasol kabis tru i karnap long wara waitpela retpela blakpela skin skin i gat makmak long wok im kundu

nambatu palai nambatri palai

so i sanap ilong kokonas

nambapo palai nambapaip palai

bilong haus bilong bus

English grey pigeon white pigeon cultivated nut tree tree with hard nuts growing wild nut tree growing in bush cabbage watercress white ironwood red ironwood python (black skin) python (speckled) monitor (skin used for drams) lizard (serrated back) lizard (lives in coconut trees) gecko (lives in the house) lizard (lives in the bush)

Dr D. C. Laycock (p.c.) has pointed out to the author that in the Sepik region the male (red) and the female (green) of the parrot Lorius Roratus are referred to as nambawan kalangal and nambatu kalangal respectively.

3) The Manus greensnail was referred to as "greensnail" by all of my Manus informants.

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There appears to be considerable dialectal variation in the use of names of subgeneric lifeforms and informants in other parts of PNG did not recognize the labels given by the Erima Nambis speakers. Dahmen (1949) provides an additional subgeneric item kalapua 'a short banana', a term I have found not to be in use by my informants. No additional items are to be found in Mihalic (1971), apart from the already mentioned lexical phrases and compounds distinguishing domesticated (0) from wild (wel- or bilong bus) lifeforms.

5.

Some notes on etymologizing and English influence

One can distinguish a number of phases in the development of Tok Pisin, each of them characterized by different structural and functional properties. As regards the development of the life form lexicon over a period one can postulate the following summary:

1.

1860-1900 Jargon stage

Lexical resources Lexical roots of English and local (mainly Tolai: Duke of York) origin

Life form levels Restricted to life form and generic labels

2.

1900-1930 Stabilization

Strong adlexification and some relexification from German

Variable solutions to labelling kingdom levels; small increase in life form and generic level terms

1930-1975 Expansion phase and increasing creolization

Very modest lexical expansion. English roots continue to be added — regional varieties exhibit some borrowing from local languages. German roots are replaced by English roots. Very restricted use of derivational morphology

Continued small increase in generic level terms, small number of subgeneric terms

Local and German expressions lost; heavy 1975-present Post pidgin/ creole borrowing from English phase

Kingdom level terms still unsettled — no significant overall

As regards the etymological sources, the approximate sound but less often the meaning is preserved in Tok Pisin. Because of the much reduced inventory of distinctive sounds in Tok Pisin (when compared to English) two or more distinct English words can become homophones in Tok Pisin. This process may have been involved in items such as:

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE LIFE FORM LEXICON OF TOK PISIN

waragras welpis

355

'watercress' (a variant of kanggo) from German Walfisch 'oilfish', 'whale'

For the users of waragras, watercress is a kind of'grass'. English 'flying fox' in most early dictionaries is listed as blaikbokis (black box) though in present day Tok Pisin this has become blakfoks or plaifoks, reflecting better knowledge of the English etymology and animals not found in New Guinea (such as the fox). Similarly trausel from "tortoise shell" is being replaced by tertel and totois and items of English origin are introduced via schools, agricultural education and the media. Tietze (1971), for instance, replaces: Traditional Tok Pisin lombo mais hebsen

Modern Tok Pisin pepa, pepper horn, corn pi, pea

and adds neologies such as: silverbit legum

'silver beet' 'legumes'

I have no up-to-date information as to the extent to which Tok Pisin has changed in the most recent past under the impact of English and compulsory primary education in urban settlements.

6.

Conclusions

The story of the Tok Pisin lexicon for life forms allows a number of conclusions that would appear to be relevant to more general questions of structuring and restructuring in pidgins and creoles. a) Neither the English classification of life forms (e.g. mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish) nor English conventions for class membership (e.g. the eel is a fish, the cassowary is a bird) have been taken over by Tok Pisin speakers, though in highly anglicized urban varieties there is some convergence. b) Local classification systems such as the ones described by Bulmer (see Pawley, ed. 1991) have not been borrowed into Tok Pisin on the whole. c) The development of life form classification is largely an internal process in Tok Pisin. Generic items would seem to be the basis from which higher level items are derived, e.g.

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pisin 'bird'

d) e)

f)

g)

animal

pukpuk 'crocodile'

reptile species

but the process is tortuous, and considerable restructuring can be observed. The emerging taxa do not follow the universal development postulated by cognitive anthropologists. In spite of the relatively small number of exotic life forms in Papua New Guinea, about fifty percent of the life form lexicon refers to exotic species. The very considerable word formation grammar of Tok Pisin remains under­ used in the domain of local life forms. The majority of these cannot be named even in expanded and creolized varieties. The development of life form lexicon is influenced primarily by utilitarian factors and more precisely by whether a life form is of any use to those in power (planters, missionaries, government, agriculturalists). The evidence at hand suggests that in comparison to traditional languages of the region Tok Pisin has remained lexically impoverished when it comes to talk about Nature. As more and more speakers shift to Tok Pisin as their primary or first language, there is the danger that a vast amount of local knowledge about fauna and flora will get lost and that Tok Pisin will require considerable expansion if it is to become a medium in which the environ­ mental complexities of Papua New Guinea can be discussed.

I have tried to show that the development of the structured lexicon is governed not by inherent forces but largely by external pragmatic ones and that postulated universal hierarchies for the development of lexical structures do not apply in the case of Tok Pisin. This confirms my findings for other contact languages such as Mauritian Creole, Pitkern/Norfolk and St. Helena English (cf. Mühlhäusler 1996). The structured lexicon was chosen as a convenient point of departure for exploring pragmatic and adaptive parameters in structural development but other areas of grammar are expected to be subject to similar processes.

References Anon. 1935. "Wörterbuch mit Redewendungen". Unpublished ms. Alexishafen(P.N.G.). Berlin, Brent. 1992. Ethnobiological Classification. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Borchardt, Karl. 1926. "Tok Boi Wörterbuch". Unpublished ms., Manus Island. Brennikmeyer, Leo. 1924. "Einführung ins Pidgin-Englisch". Unpublished ms., Kamanacham (German New Guinea). Brown, Cecil H. 1977. "Lexical universale and the human language faculty". In Muriel Saville-Troike, ed. Linguistics and Anthrology. Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 75-91.

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—. 1984. Language and Living Things: Uniformities in Folk Classification and Naming. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Dahmen, Johannes. 1949. "English-Pidgin English dictionary". Unpublished ms., Bundralis/ Rabaul (P.N.G.). Dempwolff, Otto. 1910. "Das Pidgin-Englische im Bismarck Archipel". Unpublished ms., includes "Wörterverzeichnis", probably written about 1910. Fill, Alwin. 1993. Ökolinguistik: Eine Einführung. Tübingen: Narr. —, ed. 1996. Sprachökologie und Ökolinguistik. Tübingen: Stauffenburg. —.1998. "Ecolinguistics: The state of the art". Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik 23: 3-16. Foley, William A. 1997'. Anthropological Linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell. Franklin, Karl J. 1972. "Practical considerations of folk taxonomies". Kivung 4/3: 133-40. Hall, R., G. Bateson and J.W.M. Whiting. 1942. Melanesian Pidgin English, Short Grammar and Vocabulary, with Grammatical Introduction. Baltimore: Linguistic Society of America. Hunn, Eugene S. 1977. Tzeltal Folk Zoology: The Classification of Discontinuities in Nature. London and New York : Academic Press. —. 1985. "The utilitarian factor in folk biological classifications". In J. Dougherty, ed. Direction in Cognitive Anthropology. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 117-40. Laycock, Donald  1975. "Observations on number systems and semantics". In Stephen A. Wurm, ed. 1975:219-33. Mihalic, Francis. 1971. The Jacaranda Dictionary and Grammar of Melanesian Pidgin. Milton, Queensland: Jacaranda Press. —. 1990. "Obsolescence in k Pisin vocabulary". In John W. M. Verhaar and Peter Mühlhäusler, eds. Melanesian Pidgin and Tok Pisin. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins, 263-74. Mosel, Ulrike. 1980. Tolai and Tok Pisin. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics A-57. Mühlhäusler, Peter. 1979. Growth and Structure of the Lexicon of New Guinea Pidgin. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics C-52 —. 1996. "Linguistic adaptation to changed environmental conditions: Some lessons from the past". In Alwin Fill, ed. 105-30. Murphy, John J. 1943. The Book of Pidgin English. Brisbane: Smith and Paterson. Pawley, Andrew, ed. 1991. Man and a Half— Essays in Honour of Ralph Bulmer. Auckland: The Polynesian Society. Sankoff, Gillian. 1980. The Social Life of Language. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Sapir, Edward. 1985. "Language and environment". In David G. Mandelbaum, ed. Edward Sapir — Selected Writings. Berkeley: University of California Press, 89-104. Schnee, Heinrich. 1904. Bilder aus der Südsee. Berlin: Reimer. Scott, Robert P. 1977. "New Guinea pidgin teaching: Agricultural problem and pidgin". In Stephen A. Wurm, ed. 1977: 723-31. Steinbauer, Friedrich. 1969. Concise Dictionary of New Guinea Pidgin. Madang: Kristen Press.

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Tietze, Reinhard. 1971. Kain Kain Sayor na kumu. Madang: Kristen Press. Van Baar, William. 1938. "German-Pidgin English Dictionary". Unpublished ms., Alexishafen (P.N.G.). Wu, David Y.H. 1977. "Intrusive Languages other than English: Chinese". In Stephen A. Wurm, ed. 1977:1047-55. Wurm, Stephen A., ed. 1975. New Guinea Area Languages and Language Study. Vol. 3. Papuan Languages and the New Guinea Linguistic Scene. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics C-38. —. 1977. Language, Culture, Society, and the Modern World. Vol. 3. New Guinea Area Languages and Language study. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics C-40.

APPENDIX I Developmental Hierarchy for taxon level classes of plants (adapted from Brown   no life GRERB [bush]→[vine] → [grass] forms → [tree]→ 'grass'/'herb' or 'grass' [vine]→ [bush]→ [grass] [grass]→[bush] . J . J Stages: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

APPENDIX II Van Baar (1938): Baum (sorten) tor oder karamut = Eisenholz kwiler pul = Ossholz tong = Tuholz sayor = Gemüsebaum mon = Baum mit kleinen grünen essbaren Früchten manggo (mango) = Mango muli = Apfelsinen oder Zitronenbaum kapiak = Brotfruchtbaum aiai = Neu-Guinea Apfel galip = Galipbaum galip bilong bush = wilder Galipbaum kalafilum = Kalaphilumbaum aila = Baum mit kleinen Früchten mit galipartigem Geschmack yambo = Choyavenbaum mit essbaren Früchten, rot oder weiß von innen

1977) Path 1 Path 2 Path 3

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE LIFE FORM LEXICON OF TOK PISIN

popo = Papaiabaum mit essbaren Früchten Popo bilong bush = wilder Papaia pilinat (bitelnat) = Betelnussbaum limbum = Betelbaum ohne essbare Früchte Will man sonstige Bäume bezeichnen, so muss man sie näher angeben durch Form und Grösse der Blätter.

APPENDIX III Van Baar (1938): Kokosblatt (grünes) Kokosblatt (trockenes) Kokosblatt (dickes Ende v.) Kokosfaser (Schutz d. jungen Bäume) Kokosfleisch m. Wasser Kokosmilch Kokosnuß Kokosnuß (Triebe) Kokosnuß (junge) Kokosnuß (halbreife) Kokosnuß (reifer) Kokosnuß (Kern) Kokosnuß (Keim) Kokospalme Kokospalmkrone Kokosrippen (zusammen geb.) Kokosschale (innere) Kokosschale (äußere) Kokosstamm Kokostraube (voll und leer) Kokostraube (ganz junge) Kokostraube (Schutzblatt d. K.)

Peter Mühlhäusler Department of Linguistics University of Adelaide Adelaide, South Australia 5005 Australia [email protected]

lip bilong kokenas bumbum panggal laplap bilong kokenas milis wara bilong kokenas kokenas munmun trip kulau drai kopra kru kokenas het bilong kokenas brum sel bilong kokenas skin bilong kokenas kokenas kor munmun kalo

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Créolisation du français et francisation du créole: Les cas de Saint-Barthélemy et de la Réunion

Robert Chaudenson Université de Provence Les études créoles, même si elles ont, dans les dernières décennies, connu un considérable développement sur le plan des descriptions comme sur celui des théories de la créolisation, n'ont sans doute pas assez progressé dans un domaine pourtant essentiel qui est celui du comparatisme. On a souvent assimilé la créolisation à l'une de ces expériences linguistiques dont ont rêvé certains, de Psammétique à Frédéric Barberousse. Le fait que nombre de créoles se soient constitués dans des îles, souvent désertes (comme dans l'Océan Indien) ou vidées de leurs habitants (comme dans la plupart des Antilles) a favorisé la rêverie et fait considérer la créolisation comme une sorte d'expérience linguisti­ que conduite dans le "laboratoire créole". Cette métaphore, comme toute métaphore, présente une forme de perti­ nence (qui n'est sans doute pas où ceux qui la proposent croient qu'elle se trouve; cf. le chapitre sur "Le laboratoire créole" dans Hagège 1985), mais fausse la réalité au point qu'on peut s'interroger sur l'intérêt qu'elle peut dès lors présenter. La métaphore du laboratoire me paraît en effet inadaptée en ce qu'elle tend à minorer, voire à effacer, les aspects sociaux de la créolisation qui sont pourtant capitaux. Une bonne partie des errances, voire des aberrations d'une certaine créolistique, s'explique par l'ignorance ou la méconnaissance de ces facteurs. Le risque est plus grand encore chez ceux qui s'aventurent sur ce terrain sans le connaître. Il est en effet dangereux de présenter, fut-ce métapho­ riquement, la créolisation comme une expérience linguistique abstraite de ses conditions socio-historiques et sociolinguistiques dont le rôle est tout à fait déterminant. La créolisation n'est pas en effet la simple résultante d'une situa­ tion de contact linguistique, comme tend à le faire croire le fréquent et abusif usage du terme "laboratoire", mais la résultante d'un jeu complexe de facteurs qui en font plus l'exception que la règle. J'ai dit et essayé de montrer ailleurs qu'elle constitue une sorte de "recette de sorcière" aux composantes diverses, mais dans laquelle l'absence d'un seul élément suffit à bloquer le processus. C'est précisément là que les créoles, et en particulier les créoles français, pré­ sentent des analogies avec une expérience linguistique. Je pense que, dans le cas des créoles français et, à un degré moindre dans le cas des créoles portugais,

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l'histoire a réalisé une sorte de protocole expérimental; en effet, une même variété de français a été, aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, diffusée dans des zones diverses (Amérique du Nord, zone américano-caraïbe, Océan Indien) où elle s'est trouvée placée, dans des contextes coloniaux différents (société esclava­ giste vs non esclavagiste), en contact avec des langues radicalement différentes (langues africaines dans la Caraïbe vs langue malayo-polynésienne ou indienne dans l'Océan Indien). Si l'on ajoute qu'au sein même de ce "protocole" se sont encore produites des diversifications: survie d'une variété ancienne du français sans créolisation (Saint-Barthélemy); immigrations plus récentes différentes (africaine aux Seychelles ou indienne à Maurice, ce qui permet d'évaluer l'effet de ces migrations sur des variétés de créoles qui en ont été préservées comme à Rodrigues), formation de créole plus récent à partir d'une composante créole introduite (tayo de Saint-Louis en Nouvelle Calédonie dont on ne peut sérieu­ sement contester la relation avec le réunionnais), etc. Ce sont ces facteurs qui donnent à la formation des créoles français le caractère d'une expérience, mais une expérience n'est pas nécessairement "de laboratoire". On peut donc regretter que la voie de l'étude comparée des créoles, esquissée dès 1964 par M. Goodman et qui apparaît comme un des domaines de recherche les plus pro­ metteurs, n'ait pas été plus et mieux exploitée. Saint-Barthélemy a occupé pendant vingt ans mes rêveries linguistiques dans la mesure où, à partir des travaux de G. Lefebvre (1976) et un peu plus tard d'A. Highfield, j'ai eu le sentiment que cette île minuscule des Petites Antilles pouvait être un élément décisif dans la comparaison pour l'éclaircissement de certains problèmes posés à la créolistique. Le point de départ de cette hypothèse a été la construction durative être qui + verbe ('j'étais qui lui disais', cf. Lefebvre 1976) que Highfield signale également à Saint-Thomas dans la langue des Saint-Barth. immigrés. Ce point a immédiatement retenu mon attention, puisque cette construction existe dans le créole réunionnais. Elle est même un des premiers traits locaux attestés à Bourbon {Moin la parti marron parce qu'Alexis l'homme de jardin l'était qui fait à moin trop l'amour , vers 1720, cf. R. Chaudenson 1974 et 1981a: 3-4). La curiosité de la chose est que ce tour ancien est aujourd'hui basilectal: créole basilectal moin té ki dans ('je dansais') vs créole acrolectal mi dansé (même sens). J'ai essayé d'expliquer cette évolution par une "érosion basilectale" puisque, au XIXe siècle, chez Héry, trois tours sont en concurrence: {tait ou l'était + thème verbal; l'était qui + thème verbal; li causait), le deuxième étant, dans ce corpus, le moins fréquent. La présence de ce tour {être qui + verbe) à Saint-Barth. et à la Réunion détourne donc de chercher une explication dans deux évolutions identiques, quoique rien n'indique la présence d'une telle construction en français de France. Un deuxième élément important est que ce tour est attesté à Bourbon dès le début du XVIIIe siècle (donc avant même la créolisation proprement dite) et, qu'à Saint-Barthélemy, il est caractéristique du patois et non du créole (où

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l'équivalent est une construction en ka). On voit donc bien l'intérêt de ce point pour une approche des degrés de restructuration dans les systèmes créoles. Si ce fait explique aisément l'intérêt (insatisfait) que j'ai porté vingt ans durant pour Saint-Barthélemy et l'opportunité de l'envisager ici, il ne dispense pas d'éclairer le lecteur sur les situations de la Réunion (je serai bref puisque ce créole est sans doute aujourd'hui le plus systématiquement et le plus complètement décrit) et surtout sur Saint-Barthélemy pour lequel la documentation générale demeure très réduite. Soulignons toutefois, en préambule, que les modes et les conditions de la créolisation n'impliquent nullement qu'on puisse se risquer à parler d'une "échelle" de la créolisation qui, par des "degrés" successifs, conduirait de façon régulièrement progressive, voire mécanique, des langues européennes aux créoles. Une telle hypothèse supposerait un fondement théorique minimal qui me paraît très loin d'être établi. A-t-on pu, en effet, présenter, en dépit des multiples tentatives en ce sens, un ensemble de traits linguistiques définissant une spécificité des langues créoles, c'est-à-dire commun à tous les créoles et à eux seuls? A ma connaissance, aucune des propositions faites en ce sens ne résiste à l'analyse. Dans ces conditions, je vois mal comment on peut prétendre constituer une sorte d'échelle idéale qui conduirait des langues européennes aux créoles "purs", "prototypiques", etc., en passant par des variétés intermédiaires du type "créoloïdes" ou "semi-créoles", etc. Comment pourrait-on évoquer une configuration "ovoïde" dans un monde où l'œuf n'existerait pas et peut-on divi­ ser une réalité absente qu'on peut symboliser par zéro? Prenons garde que ce constat ne signifie nullement que je nie qu'une évolution ait conduit de certaines variétés du français oral ancien aux créoles français. La confusion vient de deux faits d'importance inégale. Le premier est que les langues apparues aux colonies ont été désignées comme "créoles" pour la simple raison qu'elles étaient parlées par des Créoles (blancs, mulâtres ou noirs) et qu'on a, peu à peu, dérivé d'une simple dénotation de l'indigénéité, comme pour "cheval créole" ou "café créole", à une caractérisation typologique dont les fondements scientifiques demeurent à établir. Le second fait est que l'évolution linguistique, que prouvent les différences majeures entre le français de départ (que peu de créolistes prennent en compte et que moins encore connaissent) et les créoles, ne constituent nullement une preuve de l'aboutisse­ ment final à un nouveau type de langue. Je suis si peu hostile à l'idée de cette évolution que j'ai été le premier, me semble-t-il, à proposer une analyse en terme de "continuum", à la fois intralinguistique et interlinguistique (cf. Chaudenson 1981b). Dans cet article, j'essayais de montrer que, si je puis dire, les créoles ne marchent pas tous du même pas sur la voie de cette évolution, mais aussi, et ce point est capital, qu'un même créole ne présente pas des évo­ lutions de même type ou de même degré, ni dans leur nature, ni dans leur "radi­ cante", pour les différents traits linguistiques de son système. Il est clair, du moins pour les créoles français, que les essais de définition d'un créole "proto-

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typique" ont, en fait, pour fondement, direct ou indirect, patent ou latent, des approches idéologiques de la description de ces langues qui, parfois, ne font pas mystère du caractère de leur démarche. Le procédé est simple; il consiste à privilégier systématiquement, dans la description et l'analyse des systèmes en cause, toutes les variantes les plus éloignées du français, à présenter comme générales et "basiques" des variantes très marginales, voire à créer plus ou moins ouvertement des éléments lexicaux ou grammaticaux. Une telle action n'est pas illégitime si on la conduit, comme telle, dans le cadre d'actions de politique linguistique; il est, en revanche, très fâcheux de lui donner les couleurs d'une approche scientifique rigoureuse.

La Réunion La Réunion (ancienne Ile Bourbon) est une île de 2500 km2 qui, avec l'Ile Maurice (ancienne Ile de France) et Rodrigues, forme l'archipel des Mascareignes, dans l'Océan Indien; aujourd'hui peuplée de plus de 650 000 habitants, elle était déserte jusqu'à l'installation des Français, en 1665; à la fin du XVIIe siècle et au début du XVIIIe, elle voit se développer, lentement et non sans difficultés, une société coloniale où les Blancs demeurent majoritaires jusqu'en 1715. Ce fait, qu'on tend souvent à oublier, est la conséquence d'une loi économique qui ne souffre pas d'exception: une phase d'installation ("société d'habitation") où les Blancs sont plus nombreux que les Noirs précède, toujours et partout, "la société de plantation" que caractérise d'importantes immigrations serviles, rendues indispensables par le développement des agro-industries coloniales (sucre, café, épices, indigo, etc.). L'arrivée de contingents massifs d'esclaves, qui change radicalement la structure sociale, est nécessairement décalée dans le temps par rapport à la création des colonies, puisqu'elle suppose l'existence de moyens de production (bâtiments, routes, ports, champs défrichés, technologies maîtrisées, etc.) et des investissements importants (qu'il s'agit de rentabiliser). On peut ainsi facilement distinguer les colonies de "plantation" où ont pu se développer des agro-industries coloniales de celles dont la situation, la géo­ graphie et/ou le climat n'ont pas permis l'implantation de ce type de cultures (c'est, par exemple, le cas de Rodrigues, dans l'Océan Indien, qui n'a jamais été vouée à la culture sucrière). À la Réunion, depuis le XIXe siècle et les premières mentions du parler local, on a mentionné l'existence de variétés linguistiques. V. Focard (1884) distingue trois formes d'idiomes locaux: • "le parler des petits créoles" (ceux qu'on nomme aussi "Petits Blancs" ou "Blancs des Hauts", comme le montre l'opposition que cet auteur établit entre "ces créoles-là" et les "noirs indigènes", 1884: 182);

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• "le vrai créole" (celui des "noirs indigènes" qui "ne s'énoncent point comme les cafres et les malgaches que l'esclavage et l'immigration ont naturalisé chez nous" ibid: 182). • "le parler des Cafres" (dans le même article, il associe, comme on vient de le voir, "cafres" et "malgaches"). Sans entrer dans le détail de l'étude de cette classification qu'on peut trouver ailleurs (cf. Chaudenson 1981a: 164-8), on constate qu'on a, pour V. Focard, deux parlers proprement indigènes, celui des "petits créoles" blancs et "le vrai créole", le parler des "noirs et surtout des négresses indigènes". On peut ici laisser de côté "le parler des cafres", qui est simplement, au fond, la langue des "noirs indigènes", le "vrai créole", avec quelques variantes phonétiques liées aux habitudes articulatoires de locuteurs allogènes récemment arrivés dans l'île. On est d'autant plus fondé à le faire que les immigrations ayant cessé, vers la fin du premier quart du XXe siècle, le problème des variétés du créole parlées par les immigrants ne se pose plus. La classification proposée par V. Focard rejoint donc celle qui a été constatée plus tard et qui oppose la variété parlée dans les Hauts (parties élevées de l'île), plutôt par des Blancs à celle qui est utilisée dans les Bas (zones littorales) par des populations d'origine non européenne (cf. carte 1). Cette opposition, certes un peu sommaire, est valide jusque dans les années 60 à une nuance près. La corrélation entre variété linguistique et type ethnique est à pourvoir de nuances considérables; il s'agit en fait de groupes sociaux et de dominantes ethniques; des Noirs, métis ou mulâtres qui vivent dans un groupe blanc parlent comme les Blancs et inversement. Il en résulte que les change­ ments économiques et sociaux survenus depuis les années 60 (développement de l'île, en particulier par des grands travaux) ont entraîné une mobilité de la population et une forte urbanisation, modifiant, en particulier, cette opposition entre des Hauts peuplés majoritairement par des Blancs et des Bas où domine largement une population de couleur. En fait, plutôt que d'établir une opposition entre "Bas" et "Hauts" de l'île, il faut noter que l'aire basilectale correspond de façon assez exacte à la zone de plantation et de monoculture (Le Cirque de Mafate n'est une exception qu'en apparence car cette région, loin d'être comme on le croit, un isolat, est au contraire une zone de migration et de passage à partir de la région du Port). On ne peut donc plus vraiment opposer, en termes proprement ethniques, le parler des Blancs à celui des Noirs. Le cas de la Réunion évoque à cet égard celui de la Louisiane où l'on trouve des Blancs qui parlent "nèg", c'est-à-dire créole, alors que l'idiome des Blancs est plutôt le français acadien, le "cajun". Néanmoins, deux variétés se laissent toujours distinguer, le parler dit des Hauts, plus proche du français, et le créole nwar (kozé an nwar se disant de cette variété). Je laisserai de côté ici le problème de l'analyse de ces deux parlers qu'on peut considérer, au sein d'un continuum, soit comme les dialectes polaires

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distincts ("français créolisé" et "créole"), soit comme des sous-systèmes (créole acrolectal et basilectal; pour le détail, cf. Carayol et Chaudenson 1973, 1978).

Carte 1: L'île de la Réunion

Les distinctions entre ces deux variétés qui partagent le même lexique sont essentiellement d'ordre phonétique (le parler acrolectal présente des voyelles arrondies /u/ et /eu/ et des chuintantes /ch/ et /j/ là où l'idiome basilectal a des voyelles non arrondies /i/, /é/, /è/ et des sifflantes /s/ et /z/) et morphologiques (une des différences les plus connues est l'opposition entre le passé acrolectal mi dansé et la forme basilectale moin té ki/i dans). Les cartes phonétiques de synthèse établies à partir des données de l'Atlas linguistique et ethnographique de la Réunion (Carayol, Chaudenson et Barat 1984: 237-8) permettent de visualiser assez bien ces phénomènes et de relativiser l'opposition géographique courante entre parlers des Hauts et des Bas1:

1) Pour ce qui est des cartes 2a et 2b la couleur du cercle ou de la partie de cercle correspond aux pourcentages de variantes acrolectales (blanc) ou basilectales (noir) en un point donné.

CRÉOLISATION DU FRANÇAIS ET FRANCISATION DU CRÉOLE

Cartes 2 a et 2b (cf. Carayol, Chaudenson et Barat 1984: 237-8)

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On peut formuler à propos de cette situation une hypothèse que nous avons déjà présentée et dont je ne fais que retracer ici les points essentiels. Le "français créolisé" (cette expression étant, dans une perspective diachronique, préférable à celle de "créole acrolectal") serait une forme de survivance d'une variété linguistique ancienne de français koïnèisé à partir de laquelle s'est opérée l'évolution qui, vers le milieu du XVIIIe siècle, lors du développement agro­ industriel de l'île, a conduit à l'émergence du créole basilectal. Il est donc impossible de parler de l'idiome réunionnais comme un tout et de le regarder comme un semi-créole sans préciser quelle variété est en cause et en confondant plus ou moins les deux. Contrairement à ce que l'on a souvent prétendu, le peuplement des Hauts de l'île (mais aussi de la zone de l'extrême sud et du nord-est car l'opposition Hauts/Bas est, on l'a vu, à relativiser) ne commence pas avec l'abolition de l'esclavage, mais dès le XVIIIe siècle, en raison de la paupérisation d'éléments de la population blanche qui résulte elle-même du morcellement des terres et du développement agro-industriel. En simplifiant beaucoup, on peut dire qu'au moment où se met en place la société de plantation, certains Blancs, écartés des franges littorales du Nord et de l'Ouest, les plus propices à l'agro-industrie du café, puis du sucre, émigrent vers les Hauts et le Sud; ils y maintiennent leur mode de vie ancien ("l'habitation" à faible effectif d'esclaves) et leur langage (un français koïnéisé déjà marqué par des traits de créolisation, mais qui n'a pas subi l'évolution qu'entraîne la mise en place de la société de plantation). Jusqu'à la départementalisation ce clivage se maintient, en dépit du déclin de la culture sucrière et c'est seulement dans les années 60 que se produisent les bouleversements économiques et culturels qui vont quelque peu troubler cette situation. La Réunion se caractérise donc par la coexistence de ces deux variétés linguis­ tiques distinctes: 1. le français créolisé, utilisé initialement dans les Hauts par une population majoritairement blanche (ce que confirment encore actuellement des domaines annexes comme les traditions orales ou les représentations linguistiques communes); 2. le créole basilectal, caractérisé comme la langue des Noirs (kozé an nwar) ou des Indiens (malbar), qui ont fourni, les seconds surtout, l'essentiel de la main-d'oeuvre sucrière. Il n'y a aucun problème d'intercompréhension entre les deux parlers dont le lexique est naturellement commun, puisque le fonds lexical sur lequel s'est opé­ rée la créolisation est celui du français koïnèisé du XVIIIe siècle; en revanche, les traits linguistiques qui permettent d'identifier chaque variété sont connus de tous. Par ailleurs, l'urbanisation massive et les mouvements de population font que le clivage géographique et social traditionnel s'est affaibli.

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A la lumière de cette présentation qui résulte de longs travaux de terrain (en gros de 1965 à 1985), on peut se demander de quoi parlent exactement des créolistes qui évoquent "le réunionnais", s'ils le savent eux-mêmes et d'où vient leur information. On peut en effet présenter sous cette étiquette commune des éléments très différents qui, les uns et les autres, peuvent apparaître dans la bouche des Réunionnais. On doit également noter que coexistent, en synchro­ nie, des états de langue qu'on peut assez logiquement regarder comme des degrés différents et successifs dans l'évolution qui va du français aux créoles.

Saint-Barthélemy La Réunion fait presque figure de continent à côté de Saint-Barthélemy, puisque cette dernière île est cent fois plus petite (25 km2) et moins peuplée (environ 5000 habitants, sans compter les touristes). L'idée de conduire une comparaison entre ces deux territoires n'a pas été au départ, comme je l'ai dit, la principale motivation de mon intérêt pour Saint-Barth.; il tenait plutôt au fait que cette île était une énigme et un défi à ma théorie de la créolisation. Les informations qu'on avait sur la situation linguistique de Saint-Barth. étaient peu abondantes: quelques articles déjà anciens de G. Lefebvre ou, plus récents, de J. Maher, un témoignage indirect avec l'étude de A. Highfield sur le parler des Saint-Barth. immigrés à Saint-Thomas (Iles Vierges); on savait aussi que G. Lefebvre avait recueilli une abondante documentation et rédigé en parti­ culier un gros glossaire demeuré inédit. La plupart des travaux sur l'île émanaient d'anthropologues et, s'ils fournissaient des éléments précieux, ils ne pouvaient être substitués à des travaux proprement linguistiques. La vogue de Saint-Barthélémy, paradis fiscal français, devenu, en outre, le lieu de villégia­ ture favori de la jet-set européenne et nord-américaine, faisait craindre que l'île n'ait été totalement déculturée au cours des dernières années. Le séjour que j'ai pu y faire, en mai 1997, avec L.-J. Calvet, était donc une aventure, en ce sens que nous étions très loin d'être sûrs d'avoir encore quelque chose à observer ou à recueillir dans cette île. Fort heureusement, il en a été tout autrement et cette enquête comme les recherches qui l'ont accompa­ gnée se sont révélées du plus haut intérêt. Une partie des résultats a été publiée en 1998 sous le titre Saint-Barthélemy. Une énigme linguistique (Paris: Didier Erudition). Un des premiers points à marquer est que, par rapport à des descriptions des années 60 ou 70 comme celle de G. Lefebvre (1976), la situation linguisti­ que paraît s'être simplifiée. En lieu et place des cinq variétés linguistiques qu'il mentionnait, on n'en trouve guère plus que deux, clairement localisées et diffé­ renciées et parlées par un nombre important de locuteurs: le créole dans la partie orientale (Au Vent) de l'île et le "patois" dans la partie occidentale (Sous le Vent):

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Saint Barthélemy 2 kms

Carte 3 (cf. Calvet et Chaudenson 1998: 10)

Cette situation est celle que décrivent les élèves du collège de Gustavia où a été conduite une enquête sociolinguistique (cf. Calvet et Chaudenson 1998). Cette situation pose dès l'abord un certain nombre de questions qui forme l'énigme qui donne son titre à notre livre: • Qu'est ce que ce "patois" dont on entend dire qu'il résulte de formes ancien­ nes de normand ? • Qu'est-ce que ce créole de Saint-Barth. dont use une communauté qui est presque totalement blanche ? • Quels rapports entretiennent ces deux idiomes ? • Pourquoi et comment, dans un espace insulaire si réduit, ont pu se maintenir deux parlers différents? Il ne s'agit pas ici de répondre en détail à toutes ces questions ce qui a été fait ailleurs (cf. Calvet et Chaudenson 1998), mais de retenir les éléments qui peuvent être mis en parallèle ou en contraste avec la situation réunionnaise et éclairer le problème des "degrés de la créolisation". Comme dans le cas de la Réunion, un bref rappel historique est néces­ saire. Le peuplement permanent de Saint-Barth. commence en 1659 (en 1665 pour la Réunion), mais l'île connaît, au cours de son histoire des fortunes diver­ ses; les guerres coloniales font que la population est, à plusieurs reprises, en partie ou dans sa quasi-totalité, contrainte de quitter le territoire. Toutefois, les Saint-Barth. reviennent avec obstination dans leur pays et finissent par pouvoir y demeurer de façon définitive. Contrairement à ce qu'on a souvent affirmé, les Normands n'ont pas joué un rôle exclusif ni même décisif dans ce peuplement; en fait les origines des colons français de Saint-Barth. sont les mêmes que celles des immigrants fran­ çais qui, au XVIIe siècle, partent pour la Nouvelle France ou l'Océan Indien.

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Tous sont originaires des régions d'oïl, à l'Ouest d'une ligne Bordeaux-Paris et, s'il y a bien entendu parmi eux des Normands, ils ne sont pas majoritaires; on ne voit donc pas pourquoi le patois de Saint-Barth. serait une forme archaïque de normand. Ce point de vue est confirmé, au plan lexical, par P. Brasseur (1996). Il est plus probable, et bien des détails le montrent, qu'on est en présence d'une koinè archaïque de français populaires et dialectalisés d'oïl, qui n'est pas sans rapport avec les variétés anciennes de français d'Amérique. C'est ce type de français qui partout a servi de terminus a quo à la créolisation. La présence d'un créole pose le problème de l'esclavage à Saint-Barth.; l'usage surprenant d'un créole par une population presque entièrement blanche n'étonne plus si l'on prend garde qu'après l'abolition de l'esclavage, survenue en 1847, car de 1784 à 1878 l'île a été cédée à la Suède, la quasi-totalité des Noirs quittent l'île. Ce point admis, quelle est l'origine de ce créole ? S'est-il formé dans l'île et s'agit-il, de ce fait, d'un parler de première génération ou a-t-il été introduit d'ailleurs ? La réponse est d'abord dans l'histoire et nous pensons avoir résolu ce problème de façon définitive. Un point paraît tout à fait évident, même si, à ma connaissance, il n'a jamais été remarqué. Les faibles dimensions de l'île et sa constante pauvreté font qu'elle ne peut, en aucune façon, constituer un marché pour les vaisseaux négriers; il est impensable de voir des navires de traite se dérouter pour venir vendre des esclaves à Gustavia. Aucun esclave "bossale" (arrivant de son lieu d'origine) n'a donc sans doute jamais été introduit directement depuis l'Afrique à Saint-Barthélémy, même si dans des recensements, ici ou là, on peut trouver mention d'un Noir "né en Afrique"; une telle indication ne prouve évidemment pas qu'il en est venu directement dans l'île. On peut prouver cette hypothèse en consultant les actes d'affranchissement qui sont particulièrement intéressants à cet égard car y figure, en général, le lieu d'achat de la personne affranchie lors­ qu'elle n'est pas née dans l'île (il faut en effet, pour ce type d'acte, faire la preuve de la propriété). On constate par là que la grande majorité des esclaves, nés hors de Saint-Barth. et affranchis entre 1807 et 1822, vient soit de la Martinique (55%) soit de la Guadeloupe (10%); 24% d'entre eux sont nés à Saint-Barth.; les autres viennent des autres Antilles; trois seulement sont nés en Afrique ce qui naturellement ne prouve en aucune façon qu'ils sont arrivés directement de là à Saint-Barth. (Calvet et Chaudenson 1998: 42). Il est donc certain que les esclaves venus de la Martinique (surtout) et de la Guadeloupe ont introduit leurs créoles à Saint-Barth. Deuxième point: pourquoi le créole n'est-il en usage que dans la partie orientale de l'île? Sans entrer dans le détail de la démonstration, on peut la résumer. Saint-Barthélemy est une île minuscule, au relief très escarpé et surtout sèche. Elle n'offre donc pas des conditions très favorables au développement des agro-industries coloniales. A cet égard, la zone Au Vent a une situation un peu moins défavorable au plan géographique et climatique. C'est donc là que furent tentées les expériences agricoles (culture de l'indigo en particulier). Cette zone

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abrita donc non seulement l'essentiel des esclaves amenés dans l'île, mais aussi les plus grandes plantations, tandis que la zone Sous le Vent, vouée à la pêche et aux cultures vivrières, conservait des "habitations" à effectifs d'esclaves très limités. On pourrait donc dire que Saint-Barth. a, durant près d'un siècle, une structure qui fait coexister, dans le même espace insulaire, deux types de sociétés coloniales qui en général se succèdent: une société d'habitation (Sous le Vent), qui perpétue la structure antérieure, et une société de plantation (Au Vent) avec des unités de production à effectifs d'esclaves relativement nombreux (à l'échelle de Saint-Barth.). Favorisé peut-être par d'autres facteurs (la famille Bernier par exemple a vécu dans d'autres îles, comme le souligne J. Maher, mais elle donne à ce fait une importance sans doute excessive), le créole va devenir l'idiome régional de cette zone, sans doute par la commodité de son usage dans les rapports entre maîtres et esclaves (tous les esclaves le parlent), mais aussi par le système colonial d'"éducation", les enfants, blancs et noirs, étant confiés, dès le sevrage, à la garde de vieilles "négresses", évidemment créolophones. L'émigration de la plupart des Noirs, après l'abolition de l'esclavage ne change rien à la situation linguistique, Blancs et Noirs usant déjà du même parler. La différenciation des deux idiomes s'explique, non pas par des degrés différents de créolisation mais par la structure sociale; le mode de vie local fait que chaque zone vit en totale autarcie, ce que confirme l'endogamie et la constante localisation des lignées familiales dans l'une ou l'autre partie de l'île. Cet aspect a été étudié dans son détail par les anthropologues comme par les démographes. Il n'empêche qu'au plan linguistique "patois" et "créole" ne sont pas sans rapports. Le bref aperçu historique précédent fait apparaître deux faits essentiels: le créole n'a eu aucune influence sur le patois de la région occiden­ tale; en effet, les esclaves amenés des Antilles, très minoritaires et fortement intégrés aux maisonnées blanches, y ont rapidement appris le patois local. En revanche, dans la zone Au Vent, la généralisation du créole au détriment du patois a été progressive et, de ce fait, le patois a provoqué une évolution du créole qu'on pourrait qualifier de "décréolisation"; elle est particulièrement nette au plan phonétique, puisque le système créole est identique à celui du patois et que la plupart des traits caractéristiques des créoles des Petites Antilles ne s'y retrouvent pas. Le lexique est commun au patois et au créole dans une forte proportion, même si l'on repère assez facilement des termes qui sont spécifiques de l'un ou de l'autre. C'est, en revanche, au plan morphosyntaxique qu'apparaissent les différenciations les plus nettes (ce point peut être illustré par exemple par l'opposition entre le patois i é ki hour et le créole i ka kouri). La Réunion et Saint-Barthélémy Les deux îles présentent des caractères relativement spécifiques qui tendent à les rapprocher:

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• aires créolophones à fort peuplement blanc; si Saint-Barth. a aujourd'hui un peuplement presqu'entièrement blanc, il s'agit, on l'a vu, d'une évolution survenue au cours du XIXe siècle; la Réunion est sans doute, parmi les autres aires créolophones, celle où le pourcentage de Blancs est le plus élevé. • existence de deux idiomes locaux; l'un constitué par une variété proche du français ("patois" à Saint-Barth., "français créolisé" à la Réunion), l'autre par un créole moins basilectal que dans d'autres aires, si l'on admet le principe de l'analyse en termes de continuum interlinguistique (cf. Chaudenson 1981b). Toutefois, les brefs esquisses historiques de l'histoire sociolinguistique des deux îles font apparaître aussi des différences: • le français créolisé de la Réunion paraît être un idiome qui présente déjà des caractères de "créolisation", c'est-à-dire, en fait, d'"indigénéisation", terme auquel je préférerais "endogénéisation" si je n'avais déjà spécialisé le terme "endogène" avec un autre sens en opposant les parlers "exogènes" et "endo­ gènes" (cf. Chaudenson 1974). Elle résulte de la marginalisation sociale et géo­ graphique d'une partie de la population blanche à partir du XVIIIe siècle. En revanche le "patois" Saint-Barth. est une variété probablement plus archaïque et, par là, plus représentative, des koïnès initiales des zones à peuplement français comme la Nouvelle-France. Ce patois est donc structurellement plus proche de variétés anciennes des français d'Amérique que du créole Saint-Barth., même si ce dernier partage avec lui système phonétique et lexique de base. • le créole réunionnais n'est donc nullement, comme certains ont voulu le pré­ tendre, un "semi-créole"; tout d'abord, comme on l'a vu, quel idiome réunion­ nais vise-t-on par une telle formulation ? Elle me paraît en outre faire référence à une vision abstraite et lointaine des créoles; elle ignore, en particulier, la variation intralinguistique des créoles qui reste largement à explorer (cf. Chaudenson 1981b). En effet, souvent des arrières-plans idéologiques ou par­ fois une simple ignorance du terrain ont conduit à privilégier abusivement cer­ taines variétés par rapport à d'autres. Sur ce point, la thèse magistrale de D. Fattier (1998) sur le créole haïtien apporte des éléments de confirmation d'ob­ servations qu'on peut déjà faire, en particulier à propos du rodriguais (cf. Chaudenson 1992). On constate en effet, au plan phonétique par exemple, que des traits réputés "non créoles" (dans l'Océan Indien, voyelles arrondies ou chuintantes), apparaissent comme des variantes libres chez des locuteurs qui ne sont pas susceptibles de subir l'influence du français. Il ne s'agit donc pas de "décréolisation", mais de variation intralinguistique. Il faut d'ailleurs distinguer la "décréolisation" (qu'on peut observer dans les cas de diglossie sous l'in­ fluence de la langue européenne) de la "dévemacularisation", qui affecte essen­ tiellement le lexique et qui tient à des facteurs extra-linguistiques. Les vocabu­ laires liés à des activités traditionnelles, particulièrement menacés par l'évolu­ tion sociale et technologique, sont naturellement les champs d'action principaux de la dévemacularisation; corollairement, tous les secteurs de la modernité sont

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alimentés, au plan lexical, par les langues européennes, ce qui contribue aussi à la dévernacularisation globale des lexiques créoles. Le créole de Saint-Barth. offre un cas encore différent et sans doute unique, puisqu'il s'agit de l'introduc­ tion d'un créole allogène (martiniquais pour l'essentiel) dans une zone à substrat "patois" (la région Au Vent de l'île), le terme de "substrat" étant employé ici au sens qu'il a proprement en français et dans la tradition de la romanistique. • le créole de Saint-Barth. est donc un parler de deuxième, voire de troi­ sième génération; cette dernière formulation pourrait être retenue si l'on regarde le martiniquais et le guadeloupéen comme des parlers de deuxième génération puisque les premiers colons sont venus de Saint-Christophe; toute­ fois cette caractérisation est de peu d'intérêt puisqu'on ne sait pas grand chose de la situation linguistique de Saint-Christophe au début du XVIIe siècle, et qu'en tout état de cause, il est peu probable qu'une créolisation réelle ait pu y avoir lieu, même si l'on dispose de quelques éléments du "parler des Noirs". Ces circonstances écartent donc la tentation de comparer le cas du créole de Saint-Barth. à celui du seychellois ou du rodriguais qui sont aussi des parlers de troisième génération. On peut facilement faire apparaître les différences dans un schéma: Schéma 1: lere génération

Parler de Saint-Christ. au début du XVIIe

Bourbonnais (avant 1721)

Bourbonnais (avant 1721 )

2eme génération

Martiniquais +, à un degré moindre, guad.

Mauricien + Réunionnais

Mauricien

3eme génération

Créole Saint-Barth. + substrat patois SB

Seychellois

Rodriguais

La compréhension de ce tableau oblige à faire référence de façon plus précise à la notion de "génération" de créole. Ce concept (cf. Chaudenson 1981a) est inspiré, non de la génétique humaine mais de l'informatique; un ordinateur de Xeme génération est un ordinateur qui emprunte une partie de ses constituants aux ordinateurs de la génération (X-l), tout en présentant des caractères spécifi­ ques d'innovation par rapport à la génération précédente. Un créole de 2eme génération est donc un créole qui se forme dans un territoire où surviennent des habitants d'une colonie antérieurement établie et qui introduisent donc, au départ, une forme d'idiome colonial, qu'il s'agisse ou non d'un créole propre­ ment dit. La meilleure illustration de ce type de situation est fournie par les créoles de l'Océan Indien, puisque on y dispose de preuves à la fois historiques et linguistiques de la validité de cette hypothèse.

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Le bourbonnais (parler de Bourbon avant 1721) est donc, historiquement, une composante initiale majeure du mauricien ce qui ne doit naturellement pas conduire à conclure que le réunionnais et le mauricien sont des jumeaux linguistiques; je crois même avoir été l'un des premiers à dire que les créolophones unilingues réunionnais et mauriciens ne se comprennent pas. Il n'em­ pêche que quand on fait l'histoire parallèle des deux langues (elle est esquissée dans Chaudenson 1981a), on constate qu'elles sont bien plus proches à date ancienne qu'aujourd'hui. Les preuves sont dans la comparaison linguistique systématique qui fait apparaître que, dans tous les domaines (phonétique, lexi­ cal, morphosyntaxique), les deux langues présentent une multitude de spécifi­ cités, inconnues du français, qui ne peuvent, à l'évidence, résulter d'innovations parallèles fortuites et qui prouve l'apport initial bourbonnais au mauricien. Ce point admis, le cas du rodriguais est le plus clair dans la mesure où l'influence du réunionnais y a été très limitée (elle n'est même pas sûre); les caractères de ce créole sont donc, en gros, ceux du mauricien ancien. Rodrigues est en effet peuplée au début du XIXe siècle, avant les grandes vagues d'immi­ gration indienne à Maurice qui commencent en 1835; la population rodriguaise est donc entièrement "créole" (au sens mauricien du terme, c'est-à-dire ni blanche ni indienne); le rodriguais ne présente donc pas la plupart des nombreux emprunts lexicaux faits par le mauricien aux langues indiennes depuis le milieu du XIXe siècle (pour le détail, cf. Chaudenson 1992). Le cas seychellois est plus complexe dans la mesure où l'influence du créole réunionnais y est incontestable, même si celle du mauricien est très pré­ pondérante (pour le détail, cf. par exemple, Chaudenson 1981b). Toutefois, dans le cas du seychellois comme du rodriguais qui sont donc des parlers de 3ème génération, ce sont des créoles déjà constitués qui arrivent avec les immigrants d'autres îles. On a la preuve qu'à la fin du XVIIIe siècle, les créoles de la Réunion et de l'Ile de France ont déjà acquis une forme quasi définitive. Saint-Barth. offre un autre cas de figure; laissons de côté le rapport avec Saint-Christophe et donc la question de savoir si les créoles guadeloupéen et martiniquais sont des idiomes de deuxième ou de première génération. Stricto sensu, on peut admettre que la première dénomination est la plus logique, mais on ne peut en aucune façon conduire une analyse du type de celle qu'on peut faire pour le réunionnais et le mauricien; non seulement nous ne savons pas grand chose de la situation linguistique de Saint-Christophe avant 1735, mais il n'y pas plus, depuis longtemps, de parler français dans cette île. Ce qui fait l'originalité absolue de la situation de Saint-Barth. est que les créoles introduits par les esclaves (le martiniquais y domine sans doute) vont se trouver en contact dans cette île avec le patois local qui est, si l'on veut user d'une métaphore génétique, leur oncle ou leur grand-oncle et qui est, au milieu du XVIIIe siècle, en usage dans la totalité de l'île. La situation va évoluer, à date beaucoup plus récente, par une certaine influence du guadeloupéen que l'évolution actuelle ne fait que renforcer (tous les enfants de Saint-Barth. naissent désormais en

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Guadeloupe puisqu'il n'y a pas de maternité dans l'île). L'évolution du créole de Saint-Barth. tient donc, non à une situation classique de décréolisation par contact avec le français, mais à son usage sur un substrat patoisant dont l'action s'est marquée essentiellement au plan phonétique. Pour ce qui est du lexique, on doit être plus nuancé dans la mesure où le patois et le créole ont naturellement une origine commune dans la "koinè" des colons français. Il s'agit donc, en quelque sorte d'une "auto-greffe" comme le fait apparaître le schéma suivant (cf. schéma 2) qu'on trouve dans Calvet et Chaudenson (1998: 151). Les problèmes de genèse et de structures que pose le créole de SaintBarth. paraissent grosso modo résolus (y compris ceux des rapports avec les autres créoles des Antilles qui n'ont pas été abordés ici, mais ont été par ailleurs traités; cf. Calvet et Chaudenson 1998); le patois est sans aucun doute l'élément de la situation locale le plus intéressant pour la problématique de la créolisation. Le patois de Saint Barth, est sans doute l'état de langue actuel le plus proche de ce que pouvait être le français des colons des XVIIe et XVIII siècles, même si l'on doit naturellement se garder d'y voir un fossile linguisti­ que. Autant l'influence du patois sur le créole paraît nette, autant il semble n'y avoir eu aucune influence dans l'autre sens (comme par exemple en Louisiane). La zone Sous le Vent a été largement isolée du contact avec l'aire créolophone par la structure géographique, économique et sociale de l'île; les activités de production agro-industrielles ou artisanale (indigo, coton, ananas pour les pre­ mières; sel pour la seconde) ne se sont jamais implantées dans la région occi­ dentale qui a toujours été économiquement autonome (pêche et cultures vivrières) et très endogame (l'autre moitié de l'île l'étant aussi par simple voie de con­ séquence). Il est probable que dans la période où les Noirs ont été encore relati­ vement nombreux dans la zone Au Vent, cette composante ethnique différente a contribué à maintenir la séparation nette entre les zones et à "protéger" le patois de toute influence créole. On peut donc penser qu'une forme de résistance identitaire autour du patois a contribué à le maintenir à l'abri de toute influence du créole.

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Schéma 2: français populaire ancien (en voie de koïnèisation)

créolisation (Martinique Guadeloupe)

pas de créolisation (Saint-Barth.)

(fin XVIIe) (milieu XVIII) patois S-B Au Vent

crépies

créole S-B

patois S-B

 S-B

PS-B

(milieu XIXe) créoles

patois S-B Sous le Vent

 S-B

(2) PS-B

(1) Tentatives de développement agro-industriel (zone Au Vent surtout) (2) Les Noirs quittent Saint-Barth.

J'ai eu la chance de pouvoir travailler sur la riche documentation lexicographique recueillie (essentiellement dans la zone patoisante) par Gilles Lefebvre; ce travail, malheureusement inédit, est monumental; il reflète sans doute un état de langue du milieu de notre siècle, ce qui est à la fois un inconvénient et un avantage. Nous aurions souhaité publier ce texte, en collaboration avec G. Lefebvre, en le complétant, le cas échéant, par des données lexicales que nous avons pu recueillir et qui n'ont pu trouver place dans l'ouvrage déjà cité (Calvet et Chaudenson 1998). Cela n'a pas été possible, mais nous gardons espoir de parvenir à le faire un jour. Le seul point que je voudrais aborder ici, en forme de conclusion, est celui du rapport entre le patois de Saint-Barth. et les français d'Amérique du Nord, en particulier ceux que je nomme "marginaux", non sans provoquer quelque déplaisir chez certains linguistes québécois. Ce terme n'a

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pour moi aucune connotation péjorative, mais souligne simplement une "mar­ ginalité" à la fois structurelle et sociale. C'est d'ailleurs précisément ce double sens du mot qui m'a conduit à le choisir. Ces variétés de français sont caractéri­ sées par deux aspects: • une marginalité sociale qui se définit par rapport à des français d'Amérique qui, comme le "québécois standard", sont en usage dans des sociétés où la superstructure socio-culturelle a pris depuis longtemps une place importante; à mes yeux, un des éléments fondateurs de la marginalité est la transmission exclusivement orale du français. C'était le cas du français du Missouri (mal­ heureusement disparu, mais sur lequel existe un corpus important: Carrière 1937); c'est celui du français acadien des bayous de Louisiane (signalons par exemple qu'à Bayou Lafourche, la population a refusé, il y a une dizaine d'années, l'enseignement du français parisien que lui proposait le CODOFIL); le cas le plus net est sans doute celui du patois de Saint-Barth. (au moins chez les locuteurs les plus âgés et, a fortiori, chez les témoins interrogés par G. Lefebvre). Un second élément de cette marginalité sociale est une transmission hors de tout contact avec d'autres systèmes linguistiques; les vieux Cajuns de Louisiane ne parlent pas plus l'anglais que la plupart des vieux Saint-Barth. le français standard, en revanche, en Louisiane, on doit prendre en compte les contacts entre français cajun et créole. • une marginalité structurelle qui se marque dans des restructurations liées à la variabilité intralinguistique; la transmission orale hors de tout contact linguistique est la meilleure garantie d'une observation privilégiée d'une varia­ bilité de ce type. Naturellement, on doit prendre en compte que cette variabilité s'exerce au sein de systèmes qui sont sensiblement différents du français stan­ dard moderne, mais les lignes de force majeures de l'auto-régulation de la langue demeurent largement permanentes (cf. Chaudenson, Mougeon et Beniak 1993). Bien des rapprochements s'imposent entre le patois de Saint-Barth. et ces français marginaux. Toutefois, on doit prendre garde, comme je l'ai déjà dit, qu'il ne s'agit pas de fossiles linguistiques; chaque parler a une dynamique interne et la variabilité inhérente à un système fait souvent apparaître des variantes différentes pour une même variable. Si l'on prend pour exemple l'expression de l'aspect duratif ou continuatif, l'histoire du français offre une succession de variantes, du moyen français à l'époque moderne: ce sont • être ou aller + participe présent (on a encore dans la fable Le loup et l'agneau de La Fontaine Je me vais désaltérant...)', • puis, du XVIe au XVIIIe siècles, être à ou être après + infinitif (on a aussi être après à + infinitif); • enfin, à partir du XIXe siècle, être en train de + infinitif. On comprend donc facilement que, compte tenu de la période de la colonisation, les créoles, comme les français d'Amérique, présentent tous des variantes du type être après ou être après à, soit conservées comme telles (français), soit à

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l'origine de marques préverbales (créoles). Être en train qui est aujourd'hui le tour courant est trop récent en français pour avoir joué un rôle. Toutefois, le patois de Saint-Barth. et le créole réunionnais donnent à penser qu'une péri­ phrase être qui + verbe a pu être aussi employée dans des constructions durati­ ves. A la Réunion, on trouve même, dans des variétés de langues différentes, trois tours ou des marques qui en résulte: être qui (aujourd'hui en créole basilectal: moin té ki dans 'je dansais'); être après (créole et français créolisé: nous l' apré rod tang 'nous cherchons des "tangs'" (= tanrecs); être à + infinitif; ce tour constant dans les documents réunionnais rédigés en français au XIXe siècle était encore en usage dans les années 70 chez des personnes âgées (Saint-Paul). Le français du Québec présente aussi les deux tours être à et être après + infinitif, le premier étant plus ou moins perçu comme standard. S'il y a dans les choix de variantes différentes d'une même variable un élément de différenciation entre les idiomes (français ou créoles) issus de la colonisation ancienne, on doit aussi prendre en considération les restructurations qui tiennent à la koïnèisation des diverses variétés de français au sein d'une même colonie. Quoiqu'il ne s'agisse que d'une hypothèse, on peut se demander si les tours continuatifs être qui (patois de Saint-Barth.) et ka (créole SaintBarth.) n'ont pas une origine relativement proche, si l'on admet, comme nous l'avons proposé, que ka vient de (n)'être qu'à, c'est-à-dire en fait de la périphrase être à + infinitif que nous venons de citer. Les voies diverses de la koïnèisation sont bien difficiles à retracer puisque nous ne savons pas grand chose de la langue des colons et qu'il serait bien hasardeux de penser qu'elles peuvent être déterminées à partir des pourcentages de locuteurs présumés des différentes variétés de français dialectalisées qui se trouvaient en présence dans chacune des colonies. On ne peut sans doute pas en dire plus dans l'état actuel de nos connaissances mais en tout état de cause des formes diverses de koïnèisation peuvent expliquer, pour partie, les différences entre les français marginaux. La comparaison entre La Réunion et Saint-Barth. se révèle importante sur deux points qui touchent à la réflexion sur les degrés de la créolisation, mais aussi sur les facteurs qui la déterminent. Les deux îles présentent en apparence la même situation que caractérise la coexistence, au sein du même espace, de deux variétés de langue qu'on est tenté de regarder comme des degrés sucessifs et, par là, différents dans l'évolution qui conduit à la créolisation. Le créole acrolectal ou français créolisé de la Réunion comme le patois de Saint-Barth. (même si le premier constitue sans doute, dans l'évolution, un degré plus avancé que le second dans une analyse en terme de continuum interlinguistique) représentent des degrés antérieurs au créole réunionnais basilectal et au créole de Saint-Barth., c'est-à-dire, toujours dans la même approche en terme de continuum, des variétés plus proches du terminus a quo. Le paradoxe est que ces variétés n'ont pas, comme ailleurs, disparu et c'est bien entendu là qu'interviennent les facteurs que certains nomment écolo­ giques et que j'ai qualifiés, par le passé, de "socio-historiques". Quoique, à la

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différence de ces distingués collègues, je ne sois pas un partisan fanatique du terme "écologique", je reconnais qu'il a l'avantage d'intégrer les paramètres géographiques et climatiques dont on a pu voir que le rôle est essentiel dans le cas de Saint-Barth. La survie dans les deux îles de variétés anciennes, caractéri­ sant, somme toute, la "société d'habitation" tient naturellement au fait que les populations qui en usent ont conservé des formes d'organisation sociale qui caractérisaient ces anciennes structures coloniales (en gros, population blanche plus nombreuse que la population noire en raison de l'absence de développe­ ment du système agro-industriel des "sociétés de plantation"). Toutefois, on doit observer entre les deux îles une différence majeure qui mériterait une étude plus approfondie; en effet, si le créole basilectal de la Réunion est issu directement du français koïnèisé de la période initiale dont le créole acrolectal est sans doute une survivance, le créole de Saint-Barth. présente avec le patois de cette même île une relation plus complexe dont j'ai essayé de rendre compte par le schéma proposé plus haut. La filiation entre le créole acrolectal réunionnais et la variété basilectale est, en quelque sorte, directe, tandis que celle qui existe entre le patois de Saint-Barth. et le créole de cette même île est plutôt de l'ordre du cousinage. Sur le plan structurel, en revanche, le créole de Saint-Barth. est marqué par une forme de décréolisation, essentiellement phonétique au contact du patois. Il apparaît donc que, sur ces divers points, une analyse purement synchronique peut conduire, dans la perspective d'une évaluation des "degrés de créolisation", à des erreurs monumentales que seule permet de prévenir une approche socio-historique ou, si on veut, "écologique".

Références Brasseur, Patrice 1996. "Notes dialectologiques sur le lexique de Saint-Barthélemy". Etudes Créoles 19,2:47-61. Calvet, Louis-Jean et Robert Chaudenson. 1998. Saint-Barthélemy. Une énigme linguistique. Paris: Didier Erudition. Carayol, Michel et Robert Chaudenson. 1973. "Aperçu sur la situation linguistique à la Réunion". Cahiers du Centre Universitaire de la Réunion, 3: 1-44. —. 1978. "Diglossie et continuum linguistique à la Réunion". Dans Nicole Gueunier et Émile Genouvrier. Les Français devant la norme. Paris: Champion, 175-90. Carayol, Michel, Robert Chaudenson et Christian Barat. 1984. Atlas linguistique et ethnogra­ phique de la Réunion. Tome I. Paris: CNRS. Carrière, Joseph Médard. 1937. Tales from the French Folklore of Missouri. Evanston, Illinois: The Northwestern University Press. Chaudenson, Robert 1974. Le lexique du parler créole de la Réunion. 2 vol. Paris: Champion. —. 1981a. Textes anciens en créole réunionnais et mauricien. Comparaison et essai d'analyse. Hamburg: Buske. —. 1981b. "Continuum interlinguistique et intralinguistique". Etudes Créoles 4,1: 19-46.

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—. 1992. Des îles, des hommes, des langues. Essai sur la créolisation linguistique et culturelle. Paris: L'Harmattan. Chaudenson, Robert, Raymond Mougeon et Edouard Beniak. 1993. Vers une approche de la variation panlectale du français. Paris: Didier. Fattier, Dominique. 1998. "Contribution à l'étude de la genèse d'un créole: l'Atlas linguistique d'Haïti, cartes et commentaires", thèse de doctorat d'État, Université d'Aix-Marseille 1, 6 volumes, 2224 cartes. Focard, Volcy. 1884. "Du patois créole de l'Ile Bourbon". Bulletin de la Société des Sciences et Arts de la Réunion, 179-239. Goodman, Morris. 1964. A Comparative Study of Creole French Dialects. La Hague: Mouton. Hagège, Claude. 1985. L'homme de paróles. Paris: Fayard. Héry, M. L. 1849. Esquisses africaines. Fables créoles et Explorations dans l'intérieur de l'Ile Bourbon. Saint-Denis de la Réunion: Vital-Delval. Highfield, Arnold R. 1979. The French Dialect of St.Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. A Descriptive Grammar with Texts and Glossary. Ann Arbor: Karoma. Lefebvre, Gilles. 1976. "Français régional et créole à Saint-Barthélémy". Dans Albert Valdman et Émile Snyder, éds. Identité culturelle et francophonie dans les Amériques I. Colloque tenu à l'Université d'Indiana, Bloomington, du 28 au 30 mars 1974, Québec: P.U. Laval, 122-46. Maher, Julianne. 1990. "Créole et Patois à Saint-Barthélemy: Diversité linguistique dans une population homogène". Etudes Créoles 13,1: 45-55.

Robert Chaudenson Université de Provence Institut d'Études Créoles et Francophones 29, av. Robert Schuman 13621 Aix-en-Provence Cédex 1 France chaudenson@newsup. univ-mrs. fr

Restructurations dans un créole "conservateur": Le cas du créole louisianais

Ingrid Neumann-Holzschuh Université de Regensburg

1.

Introduction

Du fait de sa plus grande proximité structurale avec le français, le créole loui­ sianais (CL) est, tout comme le créole guyanais (CGuy) et les créoles de l'Océan Indien (COI), classifié comme un créole "conservateur" dans quelques études (cf. Valdman 1978: 30; Alleyne 1996: 134)2, tandis que l'haïtien moderne (CH), qui s'est éloigné considérablement de sa langue de base, est considéré comme "innovateur" ou "prototypique" (cf. McWhorter 1998). Si l'on accepte l'idée qu'il y a des mesures de créolité ("creoleness") et si l'on définit ce concept en fonction de la présence ou de l'absence de certaines caractéristiques morphosyntaxiques comme le fait Schneider (1990), un créole conservateur devrait montrer moins de traits contribuant à la rupture structurale entre le créole et sa langue de base. En d'autres termes, les processus de "restructura­ tion" qu'a subis ce créole ont été moins radicaux. Dans le sens de la théorie des prototypes, les variétés conservatrices ne seraient donc pas prototypiques, bien que leur statut de créole ne soit pas mis en doute.3 1) Je remercie Emmanuel Faure pour ses commentaires pertinents ainsi que pour la relecture stylistique de cet article. 2) Le terme "conservateur" est utilisé dans un autre sens que Winford, pour qui "conserva­ teur" est un quasi-synonyme de "basilectal". "The former label [i.e. conservative, I.N.-H.] is by and large synonymous with the term 'basilect' which is used to refer to the conservative (most rural) creole surviving in communities such as Guyana and Jamaica" (1993: 1). Appa­ remment, les processus de restructuration dans les créoles à base lexicale française n'ont pas eu le même rythme d'évolution, cf. note 26. 3) Cf. Schneider (1990: 105): "creoleness and creoles should be understood as a category in the light of prototype theory in lexical semantics [...]. There is a variety of constitutive factors that contribute independently to the notion, and the label applies to some language varieties better than to others, without implying that the latter are necessarily 'non-creoles'. We may distinguish prototypical, or full, creoles that combine all or almost all of these features from varieties that are less typical of the category". Cette vue est partagée par

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Du fait qu'il existe donc des "vrais" créoles qui ne sont pourtant pas "prototypiques" résultent plusieurs questions: le fait que la créolité est un phénomène gradué ("graded phenomenon", Schneider 1990: 86) permet-il, dans le domaine des créoles à base lexicale française (CBLF), une meilleure compréhension du processus de la créolisation en tant que processus graduel? Les catégories grammaticales sont-elles affectées de la même façon par les processus de restructuration ou s'agit-il plutôt d'une restructuration "différen­ tielle"? Dans quelle mesure l'évolution différente des créoles dépend-elle des conditions socio-historiques particulières aux aires créolophones respectives? Toute réponse à ces questions doit être basée sur une analyse historique et comparative, telle que l'a fournie A. Valdman pour le système pronominal.4 A plusieurs reprises, Valdman (1992, 1994, 1996a, 1996b) a attiré notre attention sur le fait que l'uniformité structurelle remarquable qui existe entre le CL et l'haïtien ancien (c'est-à-dire le créole de Saint-Domingue (CSD)) permet de formuler l'hypothèse selon laquelle le CL ainsi que le CSD représentent une souche plus ancienne des créoles dans le Nouveau Monde et que c'est l'haïtien moderne qui doit avoir subi, au cours du XIXe siècle, une "repidginisation" (ou une deuxième restructuration) responsable du caractère innovatif du CH.5 Valdman en conclut: "Si le CL semble plus francisé que le CH d'aujourd'hui, c'est qu'il a peu évolué par rapport aux premières formes des CBLF formées dans le Nouveau Monde" (1994: 200). En suivant la piste de ces travaux j'essayerai de fournir quelques données supplémentaires pour confirmer l'hypothèse selon laquelle, dans une première phase de créolisation, les processus de restructuration étaient plus ou moins les mêmes dans les différents créoles français de la Caraïbe, de sorte qu'il y avait, au début, une uniformité remarquable entre ces idiomes. Dans ce contexte, Hazaël-Massieux (1996: 174-5) parle même d'une "norme pan-créole archaï­ que". L'individualité de chaque créole ne semble donc être que le résultat de processus ultérieurs, qui, comme le montre l'haïtien, ont pu considérablement éloigner le créole de sa langue de base. Les ressemblances qui existent entre les premiers créoles permettraient en outre d'arriver à la conclusion que les créoles "intermédiaires", si l'on veut effectivement utiliser ce terme pour le CL, sont des créations autonomes plutôt que des produits d'une décréolisation graduelle d'un

McWhorter (1998) qui soutient la théorie de l'existence d'un prototype créole: "the notion of creoleness as a matter of degree follows naturally from the identification of the prototype" (1998: 809). 4) Pour une perspective comparative et diachronique cf. aussi les travaux de Alleyne (1996), Hazaël-Massieux (1996) ou Arends ed. (1995). 5) Cf. aussi Alleyne (1996: 177): "L'haïtien est, à d'autres égards, le plus innovateur. Cepen­ dant, ces innovations ne vont pas dans le sens d'une décréolisation, mais ont, au contraire, l'effet d'éloigner la langue encore plus du français".

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créole plus "basilectal" (cf. Winford 1996: 325).6 En d'autres termes: l'éloignement structural moins prononcé du CL par rapport à sa langue de base dans certaines catégories ne s'explique pas seulement par l'abandon de certains traits caractéristiques des autres créoles ("décréolisation") mais aussi par le fait que le CL ne les a jamais possédés.7

2.

Le concept de restructuration

Par "restructuration" j'entends — en suivant Mufwene (1996) — un processus de réorganisation en plusieurs étapes au cours duquel, sous l'influence des langues d'origine des esclaves, s'est opérée non seulement une sélection et recombinaison de traits provenant pour l'essentiel de la langue de base, ici le français, mais aussi une série d'innovations spécifiques.8 Au début, ce proces­ sus, qui était, dans une large mesure, non dirigé, doit avoir été déclenché par la tentative de chaque esclave de comprendre les locuteurs de la langue dominante respective.9 Ces processus de changement linguistique, qui, en principe, ne se distinguent pas de ceux discernables dans d'autres situations de contact,10 ne se sont manifestés qu'à partir du moment où les locuteurs de langues non-euro­ péennes ont essayé d'apprendre les langues de leurs maîtres, au moins de manière approximative, et se sont mis à les utiliser entre eux. Bien entendu, l'objet de la restructuration n'était pas la langue standard, mais bien davantage diverses variétés non-standard des langues de bases européennes, auxquelles les Africains avaient accès en fonction de la spécificité de la situation de contact linguistique. Toutefois, comme l'ordre structural de la langue cible n'était pas 6) Je n'aborderai pas ici le problème d'une origine commune des CBLF de la zone américaine. Pour ce qui est de la Louisiane, il y a toujours eu des relations étroites avec les Antilles; je me demande pourtant si l'on doit postuler une variété précréole antillaise comme "input" en Louisiane comme le fait Valdman (1996a, 1994: 197). Si j'ai bien compris Hall (1992), rien ne nous invite à penser que les contacts entre la Louisiane et la Caraïbe aient été si denses au XVIIIe que des échanges linguistiques aient pu se produire sur une large échelle. 7) Cf. aussi Neumann (1985: 47). Pour ce qui est du problème du terme décréolisation dans le contexte des semi-créoles cf. Winford (1997: 6). 8) Cf. Mufwene (1996: 83-4): "this reorganization often consists in modifying grammatical features selected into a Creole's system from the lexifier, the language that was being appro­ priated by foreign populations and undergoing some changes. [...] The reorganization also consists in recombining in a new system features which formerly did not belong in the same one, as may be determined by the diverse origins (dialect and language-wise) of several features of any creole". 9) Cf. Mufwene (1996: 87): "Recognizing individual speakers as agents of restructuring enables us to account for variation within the community". 10) Cf. Winford (1997: 3): "the processes of change or restructuring that gave rise to pidgins and creoles are different only in degree rather than kind from those that occur in many cases of language contact". Cf. aussi Thomason et Kaufman (1988).

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accessible à chaque auditeur individuel, ce dernier, face à ce qui n'était pour lui que matériau linguistique non-structuré, a procédé à une structuration nouvelle, ce qui a pu entraîner entre autres des erreurs de segmentation (il suffit de penser à l'agglutination de l'article) ou des attributions sémantiques erronées. Lors de ce type de réanalyse (cf. Lang et Neumann-Holzschuh 1999)11 les langues africaines ont sans doute joué le rôle d'une sorte de filtre (Hazaël-Massieux 1993), responsable, en fin de compte, de la sélection et de la réorganisation des structures langagières.12 Ce filtre devait être plus ou moins perméable selon l'intensité du contact linguistique. A ces processus de réanalyse sont venus s'ajouter, du côté des locuteurs, des processus de grammaticalisation déclenchés par certains mécanismes cognitifs, qui ont fini par conduire à une consolidation graduelle des nouvelles structures.13 En tant que processus responsable de l'éloignement structural des langues créoles naissantes par rapport à leurs langues de base, la restructuration ne devrait pourtant pas être conçue comme un processus unique qui ne se serait déroulé que dans la première phase de la colonisation.14 Il s'agit plutôt d'un processus continu, qui, selon la situation démolinguistique respective, a eu lieu en plusieurs étapes.15Tandis que l'objet des premières restructurations était des variétés du français non-standard, les restructurations ultérieures se sont effec­ tuées sur des "approximations des approximations" au sens où l'entend Chaudenson. Comme l' constaté Valdman (1994, 1996a), il faut distinguer au moins deux phases bien distinctes pour le CH: une première phase (celle du CSD) dans laquelle il y avait encore une uniformité remarquable entre les CBLF de la Caraïbe, et une phase ultérieure pendant laquelle le créole haïtien a subi de nouveaux processus de restructuration qui l'ont éloigné radicalement de sa 11) Cf. aussi Harris et Campbell (1995: 50): "Reanalysis is a mechanism which changes the underlying structure of a syntactic pattern and which does not involve any modification on its surface manifestation". Pour une conception analogue du terme de "réanalyse" cf. Lang (dans ce volume) et McWhorter (1997). 12) "Moreover, it seems that the degree of 'radicalness' or structural divergence of a creole vis-à-vis its superstrate is a direct function of the degree of substrate retention in its forma­ tion" (Winford 1997: 15). Cf. cependant McWhorter (1997)! 13) Cf. Véronique (1999: 183): "On peut supposer que lors de la créolisation, des grammaticalisations acquisitionnelles multiples ont donné naissance à des entités linguistiques nouvelles, les langues créoles [...]". Cf. aussi Bruyn (1995) et Detges (dans ce volume) qui fournit une description extrêmement pertinente du processus de grammaticalisation dans les langues créoles. 14) Mufwene (1996: 94): "Even though the most drastic restructuring may have taken place during the initial and critical transition to the plantation phase in every colony, I expect the process to have continued probably up to the end of the abolition of slavery in the 19th century". Cf. Arends et Bruyn (1995) pour l'hypothèse d'une évolution graduelle des créoles. 15) Winford (1997: 18): "The possibility of continuing restructuring of creoles (and pidgins) as a result of their acquisition by new immigrants or learners speaking either the same or different substrates has received relatively little attention in the literature".

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langue de base. Ce développement est lié à l'arrivée de nouveaux esclaves au XIXe siècle, dont le processus d'acculturation linguistique peut être perçu comme une "repidiginisation" ou "recréolisation" (Winford 1997: 18). Ces nouveaux processus de restructuration qui, d'un point de vue structural, consistent en de nouvelles réanalyses, voire en grammaticalisations continues, ont eu pour conséquence une radicalisation des réorganisations déjà entamées dans la première phase et ils sont à l'origine de "la prototypicalité" du CH par rapport à la langue de base.16 De ce qui a été dit précédemment, il ressort que la question de l'existence de "degrés de restructuration" concernant l'évolution diachronique d'une langue prise individuellement est sans conteste justifiée. Ce n'est donc qu'en adoptant une perspective historique qu'on peut mieux discerner les différentes étapes de la restructuration qu'ont subies les langues créoles individuelles au cours de leur histoire. Reste à déterminer dans quelle mesure ce concept permet également de situer un créole donné sur une échelle (hypothétique) de "prototypicalité". Je reviendrai sur ce problème à la fin de cet article. Pour l'instant, j'aimerais formuler l'hypothèse selon laquelle ce ne sont pas des langues entières qui sont restructurées mais des catégories grammati­ cales individuelles, chacune pouvant présenter un degré divers de restructura­ tion. Le CL fournit un exemple montrant que la créolisation ne produit pas nécessairement des bouleversements typologiques dans toutes les parties de la grammaire, c'est-à-dire qu'il est fort probable que des catégories profondément créolisées coexistent avec des catégories "partiellement créolisées". Toute observation du problème des "degrés de restructuration" requiert tout d'abord un examen attentif des différents sous-systèmes dans leur évolution diachronique.17

3.

Restructuration "différentielle" en créole louisianais

3.1. Il est notoire que la situation linguistique en Louisiane a toujours été caractérisée par une complexité considérable. En se référant au travail de Hall (1992), Valdman (1994, 1996a, 1996b) a souligné à plusieurs reprises que grâce à l'équilibre numérique relatif entre Noirs et Blancs ainsi qu'à la prédominance d'une "société d'habitation" jusqu'à la deuxième moitié du XVIIIe siècle, la 16) Le fait que j'entends ici par restructuration uniquement les processus visant à une nouvelle structuration et ayant abouti à la formation de pidgins et de créoles (i.e. une restruc­ turation de la langue de base) n'exclut pas que l'on en propose d'autres définitions; par exemple dans le sens de rapprochement (d'un retour?) vers la langue de base (i.e. une restructuration du créole dans le sens d'une 'décréolisation'; cf. Schwegler dans ce volume). 17) Cf. Véronique (1999: 186): "En effet, d'une part, ceux-ci [les sous-systèmes, I.N.-H.] obéissent à des rythmes d'évolution différents; d'autre part, selon les catégories grammaticales envisagées, les créoles français présentent tantôt des analogies, tantôt des différences radicales". Cf. aussi Winford (1997).

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situation en Louisiane était certainement moins propice à la genèse d'un créole qu'aux Antilles où est apparue plus tôt une "société de plantation". 18 Cette situation socio-démographique n'a pourtant pas empêché la genèse de variétés (pré)créoles — sans doute assez instables — pendant les régimes français et espagnol, comme le démontrent quelques témoignages du XVIII e siècle. 19 Bien que la documentation lacunaire nous empêche de nous prononcer avec certitude sur les variétés du CL au XVIII e siècle, l'hypothèse de M. Alleyne selon laquelle les relations démographiques entre les deux secteurs de la population influent sur le rythme et le degré de «décréolisation» ou sur le maintien ou la dispari­ tion du niveau basilectal, plutôt que sur la genèse des créoles (Alleyne 1996: 19) peut être sans doute confirmée pour ce qui est du CL. En tout cas, il y avait un créole en Louisiane avant l'arrivée des réfugiés de Saint-Domingue. 20 L'"écologie" spécifique (Mufwene 1996) a sans doute favorisé en Loui­ siane une variation linguistique considérable dès le début. Aussi peut-on sans aucun doute partir de l'idée qu'au XVIII e ainsi que dans la première partie du XIX e ont toujours coexisté, dans le même espace, le "basilecte" des bossales, des lectes intermédiaires, et diverses formes de l'acrolecte, ce qui implique qu'il

18) Cf. Valdman (1996a: 77): "Enfin, la situation sociale et les facteurs démographiques ne caractérisaient guère un contexte créologène prototypique". Un autre facteur décisif fut le nombre toujours élevé de Petits Blancs qui, dès le début, a empêché une séparation radicale entre Noirs et Blancs (cf. Mufwene 1996: 113). Il serait intéressant de savoir si la présence d'une couche sociale inférieure de Blancs est une constante dans les régions où l'on trouve un créole supposé être moins radical (Louisiane, Réunion, la Barbade). En outre, le pourcentage d'esclaves nés en Louisiane a toujours été beaucoup plus élevé qu'en Haïti. 19) D'après Valdman (1992, passim), Klingler (1992: 56-7) et Speedy (1995: 102) cela est dû avant tout au fait que la répartition des esclaves n'était pas égale sur les habitations et les plantations le long du Mississippi. Ainsi, nous trouvons à la Pointe Coupée une situation plantocratique assez typique dès 1745, tandis qu'à la Nouvelle-Orléans et à Saint-Martin la répartition entre Noirs et Blancs était plutôt équilibrée (Klingler 1992: 84). 20) Pour ce qui est de l'importance des esclaves venant d'Haïti au début du XIXe siècle pour la situation linguistique en Louisiane, je ne suis pas convaincue que les nouveaux arrivants aient été à l'origine d'une deuxième genèse du CL comme le croit K. Speedy (1995). Ni les données sociohistoriques ni les données linguistiques ne corroborent cette théorie (cf. Valdman 1996a, Klingier, sous presse). Il n'est cependant pas du tout exclu que la variation "intralinguistique" (Chaudenson 1981) telle qu'on l'observe aujourd'hui en Louisiane soit partiellement due au fait que, grâce aux esclaves venant d'Haïti, l'évolution du créole du Mississippi, qui, semble-t-il, est le descendant direct d'un créole louisianais classique, a été différente de celle du créole du Tèche. Il est aussi important de noter qu'il y a toujours eu des différences significatives entre les différentes paroisses pour ce qui est du pourcentage d'esclaves, et qu'en outre, la répartition des esclaves n'était pas égale sur les habitations et les plantations le long du Mississippi (cf. Usner 1992).

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y a vraisemblablement toujours eu divers degrés de créolité en Louisiane.21 La variation qui se manifeste aujourd'hui entre les variétés diatopiques (créole de Breaux Bridge, de la Pointe Coupée, de Vacherie et de Saint-Tammany)22 ainsi qu'entre les variétés ethniques (créole des Noirs vs. créole des Blancs) reflète cette hétérogénéité ancienne, à laquelle s'est ajoutée dès le début de ce siècle une forte décréolisation dans certaines régions. Certes, cette variation devrait aussi, en principe, entrer dans une analyse de la restructuration différentielle du CL; pour le propos de cet article, je me concentrerai cependant sur une analyse du créole relativement homogène tel qu'il se présente dans les textes anciens en ajoutant quelques données modernes. L'état de la langue dont témoignent ces textes (cf. Fortier 1895; Neumann-Holzschuh 1987) ne jette sans doute qu'une lumière approximative sur le CL ancien, d'autant que le fait que ces textes ont été rédigés par les Blancs a sans doute entraîné une certaine homogénéisation.23 Toutefois, ces textes permettent à tout le moins des conclusions provisoires en ce qui concerne l'ancien CL.24 Dans ce qui suit, il sera montré à l'aide de paramètres morphosyntaxiques déterminés25 que le CL a participé à un premier ensemble de restructurations qui se sont déroulées de façon similaire, sinon identique dans la plupart des créoles français, et qui, dans l'ensemble, n'ont pas encore abouti à une rupture structurale nette et immédiate pour toutes les catégories.26 Le fait que certains

21) Cf. aussi Prudent (1980: 34) pour les Antilles. Une situation analogue existait, semble-t­ il, à la Barbade, cf. Fields (1995: 107): "[...] at any one point in time there were so many different varieties of language interacting, even among the slaves, that the creole in Barbados might not have had time to become stabilized before the decreolization began". 22) Une description comparative des différentes variétés du CL manque encore. 23) Cf. Marshall (1997: 343-4): "The question that remains is whether or not the uniformity in these texts is a true reflection of the way LC was spoken in the 19th century. It is most likely that LC was no more uniform then than it is today. [...] It seems more likely that these 19th-century texts, written by whites who spoke both LC and Colonial French, were carefully cleaned up to filter out variation and regularize LC features. The vast amount of variation in present-day LC must be a reflection of its settlement history". 24) Les études encore inédites de Jarreau (1931), Lavergne (1930) et Trappey (1916), qui ont également été consultées pour cet article, sont, à mon sens, une sorte de chaînon manquant entre les textes du XIXe et le CL actuel, tel qu'il a été décrit par Neumann (1985) et Klingler (1992). 25) Je me rends bien sûr compte du fait qu'un tel choix de paramètres linguistiques implique un problème méthodique fondamental: le risque de rassembler des phénomènes hétérogènes et non-compatibles et de les traiter d'une manière égale. Le problème de la pondération en fonction de la pertinence des phénomènes se pose dans plusieurs travaux et n'a, me semble-t­ il, pas encore été résolu d'une façon satisfaisante. 26) Cf. Alleyne (1996: 175): "En somme, la restructuration maximum qui a donné les langues créoles à lexique fiançais s'est réalisée à la fin du processus historique et à travers des changements divergents cumulatifs qui se sont succédé au cours des siècles. Par contre, les langues créoles à lexique anglais ont connu une restructuration maximale au début du proces-

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de ces changements peuvent aussi être observés dans les français marginaux d'Amérique du Nord confirme en partie l'hypothèse de R. Chaudenson, selon laquelle les processus de restructuration qu'a subis le français dans la première phase de colonisation des îles s'inscrivent dans le cadre de ces tendances évo­ lutives de la langue de base.27 Notons cependant que, même à ce stade, le degré de restructuration a varié d'une catégorie à l'autre: tandis que la déviance par rapport à la langue de base n'a été que modérée dans quelques-unes des catégo­ ries, d'autres ont connu une restructuration plus radicale. Dans une deuxième phase, toutes les langues créoles ont connu des évolutions plus ou moins auto­ nomes: alors que le CH et le créole des Petites Antilles (CPA) ont mené au bout certains changements d'abord présents au niveau de tous les créoles atlantiques français, cette radicalisation a été moins prononcée en CL et en CGuy. 3.2. Le système pronominal est, sans aucun doute, un cas exemplaire si l'on veut illustrer ce qu'on devrait entendre par "degré de restructuration" dans une catégorie grammaticale individuelle. A plusieurs reprises, Valdman a utilisé cet exemple pour démontrer que, dans ce domaine, le CL tout comme le CSD sont moins éloignés du français que le CH actuel. Le critère principal est la différen­ ciation formelle et fonctionnelle des pronoms personnels de la l ère et 2 e personne en formes sujet et formes objet, bien conservée en CL. A juste titre, Valdman souligne que cette restructuration implique "une réduction des diffé­ renciations casuelles ainsi qu'une restructuration sémantique" (1996a: 84): Le système conservateur, que l'on retrouve généralement dans le CL ainsi qu'en Guyane et dans l'Océan Indien, dénommé Créole 1 dans le Tableau 2, oppose trois formes potentiellement distinctes des pronoms personnels; la différentiation maximale n'est en fait réalisée qu'à la troisième personne du singulier où l'on retrouve li/l vs. so vs. /i. Dans le système intermédiaire (Créole 2), qui correspond à celui de CSDC [créole saint-dominguois colonial], une forme préposée au prédicat assumant la fonction de sujet s'oppose à une forme postposée servant de complément d'objet direct ou de complément prépositionnel et, lorsqu'elle est précédée du fonctif a, de possessif. Enfin, sous sa forme la plus régularisée (Créole 3), exemplifiée par le CH Central, le système pronominal des CBLF n'a qu'une seule forme qui sert de sujet lorsqu'elle est préposée et qui assume toutes les autres fonctions syntaxiques lorsqu'elle postposée au prédicat. (Valdman 1994: 202)

sus et, depuis, ont subi un processus de rapprochement progressif vers la structure de l'anglais". 27) L'importance des français dits "marginaux" pour une meilleure compréhension de la créolisation est soulignée par Chaudenson (1992) et Chaudenson et al. (1993). Pour ce qui est des tendances évolutives dans les CBLF cf. Chaudenson (1973), Bollée et NeumannHolzschuh (1993) ainsi qu'Alleyne (1996: 179sq.) pour une vue critique de cette position.

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Pour ce qui est de la première et de la deuxième personne, le CL distingue entre /to (pronoms sujets et déterminants possessifs antéposés) et mwa~mwe (rare) et twa~to (pronoms compléments); le CH ne dispose que des formes mwë~m et u~w pour les trois fonctions différentes.28 Il est bien clair que le système de l'antéposition, caractéristique du CL, reflète mieux que l'autre ce qu'a dû être la première phase de la créolisation; pour ce qui est de la généralisation des formes toniques notons que ce phénomène est aussi — au moins partiellement — attesté en cadien.29 D'après Alleyne (1996: 134), "il est intéressant de constater que les langues qui suivent ce modèle français se situent pour ainsi dire à la périphérie de la zone créole et peuvent être considérées comme conservatrices".30 3.3. En ce qui concerne la forme et la fonction des déterminants, on peut également montrer que le CL ancien concordait largement avec les formes anciennes des créoles de la Caraïbe.31 Tout comme le genre grammatical,32 la 28) Le tableau suivant est reproduit d'après Valdman (1996a: 85): Créole 2 Créole 3 Créole 1 (CFL, créoles de l'Océan (créole de Saint-Domingue) (créole haïtien moderne) Indien, Guyane) POSTPOSE COMPL POSS PREPOSE Sujet mo mo mo mwë/m mwë mwë to to twe twe to vu vu vu u/w vu vu so li/1-li/i li li li li nu nu nu nu nu nu/n zot zot zot zot zot vu vu vu jo jo/j jø(→je/jo) jø jø jo Pour ce qui est de l'antéposition du possessif en CH ancien cf. aussi Fattier (1994). 29) "The most striking change is the dramatic increase, across generations, in the use of the disjunctive pronoun mon, both with and without some form of je, in contexts where there is no apparent contrast or emphasis at all" (Rottet 1995: 178). Ainsi, on y trouve aujourd'hui les formes moi/mon, t(u), ça, on, vous-autres, ça/eusse/eux-autres. Rottet cite le passage suivant: Q: Et t'as appris les prières en français ou en anglais? R: Mon s'a 'pris les prières en anglais, mais s'connais le Salut Marie, le HAIL MARY, en français. Là mon s'connais. Mémère m'a montré. 0 Veux apprendre les autes, mais c'est pour m'assir là, aller dire que mon 0 vas lé apprendre, mais ça c'est le seul qui mon s'connais (1995: 178). 30) Hazaël-Massieux (1996: 169-83) applique la stratigraphie dialectale de Bartoli au monde créole de la Caraïbe (zone innovatrice au centre, zone conservatrice à la périphérie). 31) Le système tel qu'il est décrit dans Neumann (1985) est sans aucun doute le résultat d'une décréolisation récente sous l'influence du cadien. 32) Etant donné que l'absence du genre morphologique est une constante de la créolisation, la restructuration a été radicale en CL aussi. Ce n'est qu'à partir du XXe siècle que des formes marquées comme p.ex. l'article indéfini féminin se retrouvent dans les textes. La thèse de

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détermination nominale peut servir d'exemple pour l'hypothèse selon laquelle dans la première phase de la genèse d'un créole, un certain nombre de catégories se perdent complètement et se forment de nouveau au cours d'un développement ultérieur. Dans un bon nombre de créoles, cette première phase se caractérise par l'absence de toute marque d'actualisation — phénomène tout à fait connu dans le français du XVIIe siècle (Chaudenson 1994; Hazaël-Massieux 1996: 185sq.; Alleyne 1996: 135sq.).33 (1) (2) (3) (4)

quand Nègre tenir e bon Maître, Nègre veni bon 'quand un Nègre a un bon Maître, le Nègre devient bon' (1758)34 qu'il a pas encore gagner couteau 'qu'il ne possède pas de couteau' (1748) moi déjà vu bête tant grosse comme ci-là *'j'ai déjà vu une bête grosse comme celle-là'(1777) ma moi gagné sentiment tout comme blancs mêmes 'mais j'ai autant de senti­ ment qu'un François' (1777) (exemples cités d'après Valdman 1996a: 78-9)

Après cette phase de simplification radicale — Hazaël-Massieux parle de "la ruine du système des marques de détermination du français" ainsi que d'une "défonctionnalisation des formes françaises de l'article défini" (1996: 191, 198) — on peut constater l'apparition de l'actualisateur défini -la postposé dans les créoles de la Caraïbe au XVIIIe (Hazaël-Massieux 1996: 193).35 En Louisiane l'actualisateur postposé -la et (la)-yé au pluriel est utilisé systématiquement à partir du XIXe selon les modalités d'emploi qu'on a également observées pour les autres créoles de la Caraïbe: le substantif non-spécifié est dépourvu d'article {to boucou lémé calimaçonl NH 45), alors que le substantif spécifié est suivi de

Jarreau, écrite en 1931, est particulièrement intéressante à cet égard, étant donné la variation considérable entre formes avec marquage de genre et formes sans marquage de genre; cf. aussi Neumann (1985: 58, note 3). En cadien aussi, il y a d'ailleurs des indices montrant que le marquage du genre n'est plus fait systématiquement: C'est là ma mère à moi vivait (...) là moi j'ai venu au monde, ça fait ma mère elle est mort proche (S 42); le gros maison à Cecil (S 181). 33) C'est R. Chaudenson qui a constaté à propos de la détermination zéro dans les langues créoles qu'il faut connaître le terminus a quo pour mieux comprendre le degré de restructura­ tion dans les langues créoles. En français le système des déterminants est une "des 'zones de fragilité' du système, d'autant plus exposées à la restructuration que la complication y est extrême et la pertinence de telles distinctions à peu près nulle" (1994: 176-7). Cf. aussi Hazaël-Massieux (1996: 192): "Il serait sans doute important de pouvoir évaluer exactement les exigences du français populaire de l'époque, en France et aux Isles, pour mesurer l'étendue de la déviance. Assurément, par exemple, l'emploi de l'article chez les locuteurs archaïsants était-il moins fréquent que dans la langue actuelle". 34) Je suis les sources pour ce qui est de la traduction des exemples. En cas d'absence d'une traduction, la traduction est la mienne et sera marquée par un astérisque. 35) Alleyne (1996: 136) interprète la postposition de l'actualisant dans un contexte plus vaste: la tendance manifestée par les langues créoles vers une structure nominale «sénestrocéphale».

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l'article postposé (Neumann-Holzschuh 1987: 9). Notons que l'article postposé se trouve aussi après un nom qui est accompagné d'un numéral: trois dézos-yé (J 15). Tout en ressemblant aux autres créoles antillais dans ce domaine,36 le CL n'a pas systématisé l'usage du déterminant -la en tant que déterminant de phrase comme en CH moderne et en CPA.37 Comme dans le français parlé, où là est utilisé comme marqueur pragmatique dans certains contextes (cf. Ludwig 1996: 318sq.), cette particule peut s'employer en tant que déterminant d'une phrase à complément nominal avec antécédant déterminé ainsi que d'une proposition relative restrictive; son emploi n'a pourtant jamais été obligatoire dans ces 38

contextes. (5) (6) (7) (8)

la race Compair Bouki la 'la race de compère Bouki' (NH 71) dézef torti yé poisonné mouen 'les oeufs de la tortue m'ont empoisonné' (NH 51)39 la viande béf to menein hier là 'la viande de boeuf que tu as apportée hier' (J 6) la mezon  Vondon jer la brilé 'La maison dans laquelle j'étais hier a brûlé' (N 135)

mais aussi: (9) (10) (11)

na pi rention dan cabanne, jiche dizo cilà ki rêté 'il n'y a plus de nourriture dans la cabane, seulement cet os qui est resté' (NH 49) mon  te det peje pu sa  tefe 'j'étais payée pour ce que je faisais' (N 374) sa se la flj ke li va marje 'c'est la fille qu'il va épouser' (N 176)

Aujourd'hui l'évolution de la en tant que déterminant de phrase est la plus avancée en CH, ou la peut apparaître "avec tous les types de phrases, principa36) Des exemples isolés avec un déterminant préposé sont fréquents dans les textes du début du XXe siècle; il s'agit surtout du déterminant des, aussi relevé dans le créole des Petites Antilles (cf. Hazaël-Massieux 1996: 199): nous-autres te des nègres (T 10);  gain des fi (T 14) à côté de les ti garçon ye (J 5). Aujourd'hui nous observons l'intrusion progressive des déterminants préposés (cf. Neumann 1985). 37) Pour ce qui est de l'emploi de la en CPA moderne, Ludwig (1996: 332) constate: "Dieser fakultativ-pragmatische Gebrauch von la als Determinant in Relativsätzen ist im Kreol nun zu einer integrativ-syntaktischen Technik systematisiert und dabei auf den restriktiven Typ beschränkt". 38) Pour ce qui est de l'emploi de -la comme marqueur de phrase, il s'agit d'une grammaticalisation graduelle d'éléments expressifs, également attestée en cadien (cf. Bollée et NeumannHolzschuh 1998: 190; Chaudenson 1994: 184): le nègre le noir que on appelle Bayou-là (S 176); ça fait il s'ont mis à chanter-là (S 172). Cf. aussi Ludwig (1996) et Lefebvre (1982) pour l'aspect diachronique. 39) Contrairement au CH, le marqueur du pluriel -ye n'est que rarement extrapolé en CL (cf. Alleyne 1996: 143, qui cite, entre autres, l'exemple suivant: tab m te achte-yo bel 'les tables que j'ai achetées sont belles'). Klingler (1992: 106) a relevé la phrase suivante: èn da njes  mari je te e gr/Radwe 'One of my husband's nieces was graduating'.

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les ou enchâssées, «tensées» ou infinitivales", bien que "le seul environnement où la soit syntaxiquement obligatoire est celui d'une relative restrictive" (Alleyne 1996: 144).40 Les changements morphophonologiques de la dans certains contextes qui sont systématisés en CH (et dans le créole de la Martinique), ne le sont pas en CL. Des syntagmes comme vje   relevés dans la paroisse de Pointe Coupée (cf. Valdman éd. 1997: 117) donnent cepen­ dant à penser qu'en Louisiane aussi de telles formes n'étaient pas inconnues au siècle précédent. 3.4. La position de la particule négative PA est considérée comme un des critè­ res les plus importants pour le caractère "conservateur" du CL. En CL, pa a toujours suivi les marqueurs te, sra, sre, et a été antéposée à ape et alé, aux verbes auxiliaires olé et capab et à la base verbale sans marqueur (cf. NeumannHolzschuh 1987: 20-1). Étant donné que la postposition du négateur à la particule té est aussi attestée en guyanais ancien,41 où il coexistait avec pa té, en guadeloupéen ancien et en CSD, il est donc évident que l'antéposition de pa aux marqueurs TMA constitue une évolution ultérieure, que le CL n'a pas partagée (cf. Hazaël-Massieux 1993: 117, 1996: 175-6; Schlupp 1997). (12) (13) (14)

CGuy: Chimen té pa bon [...] 'Le chemin était difficile' (Saint-Quentin 1872, cité d'après Schlupp 1997: 124) CGua: [...] afin i té pas laide (Baudot 1923, cité d'après Hazaël-Massieux 1996: 176, cf. aussi Schlupp 1997: 124) CL: Mé roi là té pa olé, no mem, li pa olé tandé raison pou séparé avé sa fille 'Mais le roi n'était pas du tout d'accord, il ne voulait pas entendre raison et se séparer de sa fille' (NH 21).42

Pour ce qui est de l'antéposition du négateur dans les créoles "innovateurs", il s'agit sans doute d'une surgénéralisation des constructions françaises, où le 40) Alleyne donne les exemples suivants pour le CH:fanm ou te vin wè-a 'la femme que vous êtes venus voir'; Jean te vini(-an) 'Jean est venu' (1996: 143-4). Cf. aussi Posner (1985a: 1801): "The extensive use of là in Québec, not only as a deictic but also to mark the end of a clause and as a hesitation filler, suggests that West African influence [...] is not the only factor to be taken into account in considering the use of LA as a relative marker. [...] What has happened on Haiti, however, is that the use of LA as a clause marker has become grammaticalized, fully, perhaps only in recent times. The process is interesting as an example of linguistic change, but need have little to do with creolization as such. As in many examples of linguistic change, multiple causation was probably at work — including excessive use of là in the French imported to Haiti, and interpretation by West Africans of là/eux as markers like those of Ewe a, lá (definite)/wo (= 'they, plural marker')". 41) Mes informations sur le CSD sont contradictoires. Fattier (1994) et Alleyne (1996) ne donnent pas d'exemples de te pa(s) pour l'haïtien ancien, tandis que Hazaël-Massieux (1993: 117) constate l'existence de cette forme sans pourtant donner une référence précise. 42) Dans le créole de Breaux Bridge d'aujourd'hui la postposition du négateur au présent est due à une décréolisation assez récente (cf. Neumann 1985).

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négateur précède l'élément lexical dans les phrases contenant une copule ou un auxiliaire, sans que l'influence des langues de substrat puisse être exclue complètement.43 Apparemment, de telles surgénéralisations ont eu lieu d'une manière beaucoup plus restrictive dans les créoles dits conservateurs. Un autre point de ressemblance important entre le CL et d'autres premiers créoles est constitué par les négatifs figés comme na pa, fo pa, ve pa, pe pa issus de formes simples du français (Hazaël-Massieux 1996: 175-6; Baker et Corne 1982: 222-3). Notons cependant qu'en CL ancien les formes ve et pe étaient plus rare qu'oie et capa(b) dans les phrases négatives (cf. NeumannHolzschuh 1987: 19-20); ce n'est qu'à partir du début du XXe siècle que ces formes deviennent de plus en plus fréquentes, comme le démontrent les travaux de Lavergne (1930) et Jarreau (1931).44 (15) (16) (17) (18)

Mo vé pas renvoyé toi sans arien T don't want to send you back with nothing' (NH158) li te vé pas fait.... 'il ne voulait pas faire ... ' (L 21 ) To pé pas oter ein bout on ça-là, et mette ein bout on  chienne? *'Tu ne peux pas enlever un morceau de celle-ci et mettre un morceau sur la mienne?' (J 61) Li té pé pas chappé *T1 ne pouvait pas s'échapper' (J 40)

Dans le domaine des phrases négatives au futur on emploie, dans les textes anciens, comme en CH, la combinaison pa + marqueur du progressif ape.45 (19) (20) (21) (22)

 pa pé dit arien lot moune 'je ne vais rien dire aux autres' (NH 37) mé mo pa pé vini on  pié 'mais je ne vais pas venir à pied' (NH 37) "Oh non!" té la réponse. "Mo pas pé fait ca". *'"Oh non!" fut la réponse. "Je ne vais pas faire cela.'" (J 61) "Mo pas pé chargé toi arrien pou ca" jiablesse-là répond *'"Je ne vais pas te demander quelque chose pour cela" répondit la diablesse' (J 40)

43) Cf. Mufwene (1996: 118): "The regularization of its pre-predicate position in French Creoles is obviously not entirely independent of French itself [...], although the convergent influence of several African languages following this pattern cannot be totally discounted. Loss of inflections and selection of verbal forms which are not clearly distinct from the infinitive and the past participle seem consistent with the selected preverbal position of the negator pa in creóles. Not only did the morpheme for negation come from the lexifier but also the model for its syntactic distribution". Cf. aussi Posner (1985b: 182-3) et HazaëlMassieux (1993). 44) Cf. Véronique (1999) pour une analyse comparative des modaux dans les créoles français, entre lesquels il y a de considérables identités conceptuelles et formelles. 45) Dans Trappey (1916), on trouve aussi la combinaison (v)a + pa {Ma pas dit toi boujou [7]; Maîtresse va pas content [16]), sans que cette forme semble avoir jamais été vraiment usuelle en Louisiane, pas plus que dans les autres aires créolophones (cf. Hazaël-Massieux 1996: 177; Schlupp 1997: 94).

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(23)

To capable chanter et danser tout la nuit, main mo mo pas pe jamain gardé en bas *Tu peux chanter et danser toute la nuit, mais je ne regarderai pas en bas' (J 8)

Aujourd'hui, on constate en Louisiane une différence diatopique marquée: tandis qu'à la Pointe Coupée cette dernière construction est encore attestée dans la forme pa + e ou pe + e (cf. Klingler 1992: 163, 209), à Breaux Bridge, on emploie la forme p'alé dans les phrases négatives du futur, une construction également connue en haïtien ancien (cf. exemples 25-27). (24) (25) (26) (27)

mo m pe e rèste debut la 'I am not going to remain standing there' (K 209) No p'alé gen en bal'Nousn'aurons pas de bal' (N218) Vou doi crére que mo pa allé prendre la caze à vou 'Vous devez croire que je ne prendrai pas chez vous tous ces objets' (D 366) Mais, Valentin tout monde après présenté bouquette aqué couplettes chansons a lo, est-ce  pas le gangné quienne à moé tout? *'Mais, Valentin, tout le monde va présenter un bouquet de fleurs avec des chansons, est-ce que moi je n'en aurai pas un tout pour moi?' (C 8)

3.5. Pour ce qui est de la sérialisation des verbes, le CL n'a toujours disposé que d'un inventaire réduit et l'importance de ces constructions n'a jamais été la même que dans d'autres créoles caraïbéens.46 La sérialisation est un terme qui recouvre toute une série de structures diverses; en CL, mis à part de simples coordinations sans conjonction apparente {nomme la te coutime assis fait café [T 9]), la construction la plus fréquente est "verbe de mouvement + autre verbe ou + deuxième verbe de mouvement" (en CL: courir, venir, galoper, partir, par exemple: Mo kuri vini, li parti galope). Il s'agit donc de structures consécutives dans lesquelles deux verbes se succèdent de sorte que leur séquence dans la phrase récapitule la séquence de deux actions dans le monde réel. Ces constructions, qui ne comptent pas parmi les vraies structures sérielles,47 sont répandues dans toutes les langues créoles; on peut donc supposer qu'il s'agit d'une souche "pan-créole" ancienne, d'autant plus qu'il y a des structures analo­ gues en français.

46) Cf. Hazaël-Massieux (1996: 343-51), Mufwene (1996: 115-7) et Valdman ed. (1997). Pour le problème de l'existence des constructions sérielles dans l'Océan Indien cf. Alleyne (1996: 16sq.). Comme les constructions sérielles, le clivage du prédicat, assez répandu dans les créoles antillais, n'est pas attesté en CL. Des constructions comme li krié jikà krié pa olé ancô 'elle cria jusqu'à n'en plus pouvoir' (NH 22) doivent sans doute être interprétées d'une autre façon. 47) D'après Ludwig (1996: 256sq.) il s'agit ici de séries spécifiant et intensifiant le mode d'action ("die Aktionsart spezifizierende und intensivierende Serien"); on peut donc, comme le fait Ludwig, se demander s'il s'agit ici d'une séquence de deux verbes ou d'une vraie sériali­ sation (cf. aussi Manessy 1995: 246sq.).

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(28) li couri pran so zouti 'il courut prendre ses outils' (NH 29) (29) Madamme Ranhoutan [...] té apé couri frêmé so la porte 'Madame Ranhoutan [...] était en train de fermer sa porte' (NH 65) (30) li couri trivé Compair Torti au ra bayou 'il alla trouver compère Tortue près du bayou' (NH 53) (31) Compair Tayot vini limé so di fé 'Compère Tayot vint pour allumer son feu' (NH47) (32) La eine chatte vini commencer passer enba *'Une chatte est arrivée et s'est mise à se promener en bas' (L 8) (33) yé parti couri côté bayou 'ils s'en allèrent près du bayou' (NH 49) (34) bon courore ki galopé vini avé zozo paradis 'le bon coureur qui rentra en courant avec l'oiseau du paradis' (NH 77) (35) Mo té apé galopé porté vou la clé 'J'étais en train de vous apporter votre clé en courant' (NH 65) (36) ye tourné vini koté palé lé roi 'ils retournèrent tous au palais du roi' (NH 77)

La seule exception à ce schéma dont nous ayons connaissance est l'exemple suivant qui se trouve dans une chanson de Lafcadio Hearn (cf. Valdman 1996b: 157).48 (37)

Mo fé plain l'argent,  trèsor/Pour porter donné toi. T made a lot of money, my treasure/To bring to you' (lit.: 'pour (le) porter (et) dormer à toi')

Cette construction ressemble au verbe sériel "datif des créoles antillais avec ban (< bay 'donner'); étant donné cependant que ce texte n'est sans doute qu'une adaptation de la chanson très connue à l'époque "Lisette a quitté la plaine" composée à Saint-Domingue, on peut douter que cette construction n'ait jamais été répandue en Louisiane. Aujourd'hui, les constructions sérielles dont le comportement syntaxique diffère des verbes composés mentionnés ci-dessus sont comptées parmi les spécificités du CH, où la rentabilité de ce procédé est sans aucun doute liée à l'influence des langues africaines (cf. Alleyne 1996: 170). Etant donné que ces constructions ne semblent pas avoir eu la même fréquence dans les textes anciens en CH, on peut supposer qu'elles sont le résultat du processus de restructuration secondaire que le CH a subi pendant le XIXe siècle. 3.6. Pour ce qui est de la formation du temps et de l'aspect, les similitudes de fonctionnement, les proximités formelles et les identités fonctionnelles sont fortes dans toutes les langues créoles à base lexicale française, comme l'ont constaté, à juste titre, Alleyne (1996: 119sq.) et Véronique (1999). Pour ce qui 48) Dans les phrases suivantes la construction à deux verbes, dont le premier fonctionne en tant qu'auxiliaire, a une valeur inchoative: Compair Lapin couri dan kisine et tombé manzé dézef torti (NH 53); maronguoin-ye tombé morde ye (J 25). Cette construction, qui existe aussi en CH mais pas en CGuy (Schlupp 1997: 279), est toujours courante dans le créole de Breaux Bridge (Neumann 1985: 236).

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est de la Louisiane, la formation du temps et de l'aspect à l'aide de marqueurs aspecto-temporels a toujours été un des critères permettant de distinguer le mieux le créole (celui des Noirs et des Blancs) du cadien, bien que le cadien, lui aussi, ait récemment subi des changements considérables (cf. Rottet 1995). La généralisation d'un système de marqueurs T(emps)M(ode)A(spect) compte sans doute parmi les restructurations profondes les plus importantes; qu'il y ait toutefois là aussi des degrés de restructuration, c'est ce que l'on va montrer, à titre d'exemple, à l'aide de la configuration formelle et fonctionnelle du domaine de la postériorité (cf. Spears 1990; Alleyne 1996: 177). L'image donnée sur ce point par le CL est la suivante: d'un côté, ce créole a participé à l'ensemble de restructurations qui a conduit à l'utilisation exclusive dans les CBLF (à l'exception du réunionnais) de marqueurs préverbaux pour l'expression de la postériorité, préservant d'un autre côté des formes plus proches du français qui étaient connues, au moins partiellement, par d'autres créoles à un stade antérieur de leur évolution mais qui sont aujourd'hui abandonnées. L'existence d'une continuité formelle — malgré une indéniable disconti­ nuité fonctionnelle — plus grande entre le CL et la langue de base est attestée entre autres par la conservation des marqueurs s(r)e (fr. serait) et s(r)a (fr. sera) pour exprimer le conditionnel (présent et passé) ou le futur du passé/futur simple (cf. Neumann 1985, Neumann-Holzschuh 1987: 15; Klingler 1992). Le marqueur s(r)e était également usuel en haïtien et en guadeloupéen anciens,49 mais il a été abandonné au profit de la combinaison des marqueurs te va ou te ke (cf. Spears 1990); s(r)a a servi à former le futur en guadeloupéen ancien (Hazaël-Massieux 1996: 317-8), mais a été remplacé assez tôt par des formes dérivées du verbe aller (cf. ci-dessous). (38) (39) (40)

Et quand  sra pas crié ça sra signe  pas gagnin la voix et  sra mouri 'And when I shall not cry it will be a sign I have no voice left and I shall be dead' (F 20) Si mo té pas per li, mo srait donne li gombo *'Si je n'avais pas peur de lui, je lui donnerais du gombo' (NH 17) mé fo pa  pleuré, ça sré fé H tro la peine *'mais il ne faut pas que je pleure, cela lui ferait trop de peine' (M 233)

La combinaison de te et s(r)e, encore courante dans le créole du XIXe, n'est plus attestée dans le créole moderne (Neumann 1985: 220-1). (41) si yé té s'ré pa gagnain la d'jière, Linkorne té s'ré pas fé neg lib 's'ils n'avaient pas gagné la guerre, Lincoln n'aurait pas libéré les nègres' (NH 15)

Des formes analogues se retrouvent dans Ducœurjoly (1802): 49) Cf. Goodman (1964: 88), Baker et Corne (1982), Alleyne (1996: 198-210, 220) et Hazaël-Massieux (1996: 223sq., 315sq.).

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To gagné raison,  séré té coumencé ly jordy 'Tu as raison, je l'aurois commencée aujourd'hui' (D 377) moté seré crére-ly ply grand 'je l'aurois cru plus grand' (D 391)

La combinaison te va pour marquer le conditionnel passé était également connue en CL ancien. Le nombre réduit d'exemples ne permet cependant pas de conclure que te va et sré étaient des synonymes à l'époque. (44) li jiré que li té va pas perdi tout ça, mais li té va donnin ein grand bal, où li té va ninvité tous les Sénateurs et Sénatrices, Gouverneurs et Gouvernourices que li té connin, et qué li té va tant fait, que la ville sré parlé de so bal plus qué li jamais parlé de bal *'il a juré qu'il ne perdrait pas tout cela, mais qu'il donnerait un grand bal, à l'occasion duquel il inviterait tous les Sénateurs et Sénatrices, les Gouverneurs et 'Gouvernourrices' qu'il connaissait, et qu'il ferait tant de choses que la ville parlerait de son bal plus qu'elle n'avait jamais parlé d'un bal' (NH 183)

Dans le domaine des marqueurs du futur proprement dit, le CL présente égale­ ment des parallèles plus nets avec les états de langue anciens des autres créoles français de la Caraïbe qu'avec leurs variétés modernes. A l'origine, deux formes du verbe français aller — va et (k')alé — coexistaient dans plusieurs variétés et étaient en concurrence libre dans certains contextes.50 Selon Hazaël-Massieux (1996), les formes va/a/ava constituent la couche la plus ancienne des marqueurs de futurité dans les parlers créoles de la Caraïbe, elles sont attestées dans des textes anciens du CPA, du CGuy et du haïtien ancien {Nou va dijiné ensemble [D 369], m'a ba vou 6 gourdes [D 366]), où ce marqueur pouvait prendre une valeur aussi bien temporelle que modale. Nous pouvons supposer que l'emploi de «va» est encore assez français puisque nous le retrouvons non seulement dans la Caraïbe, la Guyane, la Louisiane et l'océan Indien, mais même au Canada. (Hazaël-Massieux 1996: 120)

Tandis qu'en CH actuel, va est devenu avant tout un marqueur de la modalité épistémique,51 cette forme a été abandonnée en CGuy et en CPA en faveur du marqueur ka/ké. D'après Hazaël-Massieux (1996: 322), la systématisation graduelle de ces formes en CPA constitue une "première rupture" avec le

50) Cf. Hazaël-Massieux (1996: 315-27) pour une analyse des différents marqueurs du futur dans les parlers créoles des Antilles. 51) La situation actuelle du CH est esquissée par Valdman (1978: 217) et Alleyne (1996: 126-7): pour exprimer les différentes dimensions du futur, le CH emploie pou (inconnu dans Ducœurjoly 1802), va, prale ainsi que la forme du progressif ap + verbe principal. Selon Spears, va exprime principalement la modalité épistémique, tandis que le marqueur progressif exprime le futur (cf. Spears 1990: 125-6).

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système d'origine caractérisé par un net polymorphisme dans tous les parlers créoles. Les méthodes de la géolinguistique de Battoli nous inciteraient plutôt à voir dans KA une innovation des Petites Antilles que la modification des situations historiques n'a pas laissé généraliser, mais qui peut être mise en rapport avec la généralisation tardive du futur en KE, alors que la "périphérie" conservait, parfois jusqu'à aujourd'hui ce qui semble avoir été une forme commune, le futur en VA. (Hazaël-Massieux 1996: 234) Le marqueur alé avait une diffusion comparable à va à l'origine et coexistait avec va dans les états anciens d'autres créoles de la Caraïbe (cf. HazaëlMassieux 1996: 324-5). (45) (46)

CH: Mallé veillé ça, fau ben d'abord n'allé roulé  faire aussi remonter grand chaudière acque batterie là 'J'y veillerai, il faut, puisque nous allons rouler, queje fasse aussi remonter la grande chaudière et la batterie' (D 378) CPA: nous allé touyé li *'nous le tuerons' (Passion selon St-Jean, cité d'après Hazaël-Massieux 1996: 324)

Aujourd'hui alé est conservé dans le marqueur guyanais k'alé pour exprimer le futur proche (cf. Schlupp 1997: 105). Pour ce qui est du CL, (v)a et alé étaient en grande partie synonymes au XIXe siècle: (47) (48) (49) (50)

(51)

 pense ça va fait ein joli bataille et pététe  va de barassé tout lé dé a la fois 'I must try to make them meet and fight, and perhaps I shall get rid of both at the same time' (F 14) La nous va héreux et personne pas allée tracassé nous zotes. Mais comment nous va fait pou traversé lote coté? 'There we shall be happy, and no one will bother us; but how shall we do to cross over to the other side?' (F 38) Et jour là ma mouri, ous antes va dit: "Guintin"/N'alé prier pou toi. *'Et le jour où je vais mourir, vous direz: "Guintin"/Nous prierons pour toi' (NH 138) N'aie parti roulé ... di cane en bas la rampe... Vatendéneg chanté, tout moun apé rimain, Va oi sirop dans bac et caramel dainmain. Gros centri fige allé ronfler,viémait content, L'apé allé, vini, comme dans temps so jène temps. A soir malé fait quart; (NH 136) *'Nous roulerons ... la canne de la rampe Vous entendrez les nègres chanter, tout le monde fera des rimes, Vous allez voir du sirop dans le bac et du caramel demain. La grande centrifugeuse va ronfler, le vieux maître sera content, Il ira ici et là comme dans sa jeunesse Le soir je ferai le quart;' Bon Dje va pini ye, yalé marré ye vente *'Le Bon Dieu les punira, ils auront faim (lit: 'ils vont enrouler leur ventre', NH 134)

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Notons encore qu'en CL ancien le marqueur du progressif ape pouvait exprimer le futur proche, soit seul, soit en combinaison avec alé. Cette dernière construction, qui n'est plus attestée aujourd'hui, est, sans doute, à mettre en parallèle avec le marqueur haïtien prale.52 (52) (53) (54) (55) (56)

Aster  posé, malé fermain mo jié *'maintenant je vais me reposer, je vais fermer les yeux' (NH 132) Napé cour i dans clos avant soleil lévé [...] N'aié coupé di cane, naié mangé sirop *'Nous irons dans le champ avant la levée du jour [...] Nous couperons la canne, nous mangerons du sirop' (NH 127) mouen pé allé invité Compair Tigue *'moi je vais aller inviter compère Tigre' (NH 83)   croir ma palé resté *'je ne crois pas que je reste' (W 6) Yé pa palé trouvé ain otte limbécile com moin *'ils ne trouveront pas un autre imbécile comme moi' (W 6)

Aujourd'hui, alé, qui au XIXe siècle, s'employait encore comme verbe plein (malé dans clos [NH 135], malé dans  cabane [NH 130]), coexiste toujours avec va dans le créole de Breaux Bridge. La différenciation sémantique encore rudimentaire qui est faite entre va (futur lointain, éventuel) et ale (futur proche, défini) induit l'hypothèse que le système cherche à expliciter la fonction de chacun des marqueurs (Neumann 1985: 217). A la Pointe Coupée, cependant, ale est rare (Klingler 1992: 165); le marqueur du futur est a et sa n'est pas connu. 3.7. Sur la base de ces exemples, on peut, pour le moment, tirer la conclusion suivante: malgré des processus de restructuration évidents, le CL est resté plus proche de sa langue de base que ses congénères antillais dans un certain nombre de catégories. En comparaison avec le CH et le CPA modernes, le CL est, dans ces cas précis, le représentant d'une "créolité plus ancienne" (par analogie avec la "latinité ou romanité plus ancienne", cf. Rohlfs 1971), étant donné qu'il n'a pas été affecté dans la même mesure que les autres créoles par des réorganisations structurales ultérieures. Alleyne (1996: 176) constate à juste titre: [...] beaucoup de traits qui sont censés être prototypiquement créoles semblent correspondre à des développements postérieurs (c'est-à-dire, plus récents), tandis que les formes antérieures attestées pour ces langues (et toujours existantes dans quelques-unes, y compris, bien sûr, le réunionnais) semblent se rapprocher davantage, non pas d'un substrat africain, d'un pidgin ni d'un bioprogramme, mais d'une variété de français.

52) Cf. Hazaël-Massieux (1996: 238) pour ce qui est des différentes significations de apé.

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En d'autres termes: une partie des processus de restructuration intervenant à date ancienne prolonge tout d'abord des tendances évolutives du français, qui peuvent, en partie, être également observées dans les français marginaux, et n'entraînent donc pas encore une rupture marquée et immédiate avec la langue de base. Ceci n'exclut toutefois nullement qu'il puisse y avoir d'autres catégories pour lesquelles le processus de restructuration s'est déroulé de façon au moins aussi radicale en CL que dans d'autres créoles! Si l'on pense par exemple à la copule, la rupture avec la langue de base a été très nette en CL également, et cela dès le départ.53 Il en va de même pour le genre grammatical, le rempla­ cement systématique des formes atones par les formes toniques dans le système pronominal ou la généralisation des marqueurs TMA. Ainsi, la rupture structu­ rale entre le créole et le français qui s'est sans aucun doute produite en raison des différents processus de restructuration, ne doit pas être conçue comme un événement unique mais plutôt comme un ensemble de ruptures partielles. La conséquence de ces ruptures qui ne se sont pas forcément déroulées en même temps, a été l'autonomisation des langues créoles.54 Vu ces faits, la question qui vient immédiatement à l'esprit est de savoir pourquoi une catégorie donnée a connu une rupture plus marquée par rapport à sa langue de base qu'une autre. Tout comme chaque mot, chaque sous-système grammatical semble avoir sa propre histoire et on peut donc effectivement s'interroger sur le degré de l'indépendance des catégories grammaticales pour ce qui est de leur évolution dans le temps et dans l'espace. On touche là à un problème théorique complexe qui ne peut être résolu que dans le cadre plus vaste d'une discussion sur les modalités du changement linguistique en général.

4.

Conclusions

Toute discussion sur le degré de restructuration d'un créole présuppose une analyse différenciée de chaque catégorie grammaticale en synchronie et en diachronie, puisque ce n'est pas une langue entière qui est restructurée, mais des catégories grammaticales individuelles. Mais même lorsqu'on est arrivé à ce point, la question centrale se pose à nouveau: à quel moment un créole est-il assez complètement restructuré pour être prototypique? La distance structurale avec la langue de base est sans conteste un critère; cependant elle peut varier considérablement, comme on l'a souligné ici, selon les étapes de l'histoire de la langue et les catégories considérées. En outre, cette distance est-elle mesurable? 53) Les récents phénomènes de décréolisation ne jouent naturellement aucun rôle dans ce contexte (cf. Neumann 1985). 54) Ce scénario, me semble-t-il, est tout à fait compatible avec le modèle de "l'approximation de l'approximation" de R. Chaudenson, qui, autant que je sache, ne nie pas le caractère large­ ment autonome des créoles (cf. Chaudenson 1992: 146-7). Reste pourtant à savoir dans quelle mesure le "français approximatif' se distingue d'un pidgin ou d'un pré-créole.

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Etant donné qu'il n'y a pas vraiment de moyen pour savoir quels traits doivent entrer en ligne de compte, et avec quelle pondération, cette question ainsi que celle de savoir s'il y a des traits créoles typiques doivent pour le moment rester ouvertes.55 Pour ce qui est des CBLF, le parallèle avec les langues romanes s'impose ici: existe-t-il une langue romane prototypique? On a bien entendu analysé les langues romanes quant à leur distance par rapport au latin pour mieux discerner les différentes étapes du changement linguistique, mais de même que l'on ne peut aucunement affirmer que l'espagnol est plus roman que le français, on ne peut pas non plus dire que le CH est plus créole que le CL. En fin de compte, il faut donc se contenter d'effectuer des analyses précises des diverses catégories, permettant en un deuxième temps de mettre en évidence des évolutions conver­ gentes ou divergentes entre langue mère et langues dérivées ainsi qu'entre ces dernières, sans que ces évolutions doivent pour autant être considérées comme un indice de "romanité" ou de "créolité". Ce problème a d'ailleurs été très nettement perçu par Hugo Schuchardt dès 1870: Wie vergleichen oder, besser, wie messen wir zwei Dialekte miteinander? Können wir irgendeinen romanischen Dialekt durch eine einzige Formel, gleichsam als Funktion des Lateinischen darstellen? Nein, sondern nur durch eine Reihe von Formeln, welche die verschiedenen Veränderungen der Laute, der Wortformen, der Bedeutungen usw. ausdrücken. Und zwar stehen diese in keinem notwendigen Zusammenhange; täten sie dies, so müsste ihr gemein­ schaftlicher Ausgangspunkt, müßte eine Formel für die Gesamtveränderungen gefunden werden. {Über die Klassifikation der romanischen Mundarten [1870/1900] in: Hugo Schuchardt-Brevier 1978, 183) (Comment comparer, ou mieux, mesurer deux dialectes l'un par rapport à l'autre? Pouvons-nous exprimer un quelconque dialecte roman à l'aide d'une formule unique, en fonction du latin, pour ainsi dire? Non, il nous faut une série de formules exprimant les différentes modifications des sons, des formes, des significations etc. Et celles-ci ne sont pas nécessairement liées les unes aux autres - si tel était le cas, leur origine commune, une formule rassemblant l'ensemble des modifications devrait être trouvée. Traduction: I.N.-H.)

55) A plusieurs reprises, Mufwene a défendu l'hypothèse selon laquelle "il n'y a pas vraiment de caractéristiques structurelles qui définissent les créoles indépendamment des circonstances socio-historiques de leur genèse" (1986: 137) et qu'il n'y a pas de "structural yardstick for measuring linguistic creoleness" (1997: 59). Dans la même ligne d'argumentation, il émet aussi des doutes envers le concept de la prototypicalité d'une langue: "le prototype créole qui réunisse toutes ces caractéristiques de façon consistante est quelque peu idéalisé" (1986: 144). Pour une discussion critique de cette théorie cf. McWhorter (1998).

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Abréviations  = Chanlatte 1818; D = Ducœurjoly 1802; F = Fortier 1895; J = Jarreau 1931; K = Klingler 1992; L = Lavergne 1930; M = Mercier 1982 [1881]; N = Neumann 1985; NH = NeumannHolzschuh 1987; S = Stäbler 1995; T = Trappey 1916; W = Wogan 1931

Bibliographie Alleyne, Mervyn. 1996. Syntaxe historique créole. Paris: Karthala - PUC. Arends, Jacques. 1995. The Early Stages of Creolization. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. — et Adrienne Bruyn. 1995. "Gradualist and developmental hypotheses". In Jacques Arends, Pieter Muysken et Norval Smith, eds. Pidgins and Creoles. An Introduction. Amsterdam, Philadephia: Benjamins, 111-20. Baker, Philip. 1996. "Pidginization, creolization, and français approximatif. Review of Des îles, des hommes, des langues, by Robert Chaudenson". Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 11: 95-120. Baker, Philip et Chris Corne. 1982. Isle de France Creole. Affinities and Origins. Ann Arbor: Karoma. Baudot, Paul. 1923. Oeuvres créoles. Basse-Terre: Imprimerie du Gouvernement. Bollée, Annegret et Ingrid Neumann-Holzschuh. 1993. "Pour une grammaire historique des créoles". In Jürgen Schmidt-Radefeldt et Andreas Harder, eds. Sprachwandel und Sprachgeschichte. Festschrift für Helmut Lüdtke zum 65. Geburtstag. Tübingen: Narr, 9-22. — et Ingrid Neumann-Holzschuh. 1998. "Français marginaux et créoles". In Patrice Brasseur, ed. Français d'Amérique. Variation, créolisation, normalisation. Avignon: Université d'Avignon CECAV, 181-203. Bruyn, Adrienne. 1995. Grammaticalization in Creoles. The Development of Determiners and Relative Clauses in Sranan, Amsterdam: IFOTT. Chanlatte, Juste (Comte de Rosiers). 1818. L'entrée du Roi en sa capitale en Janvier 1818. In Le Nouveau Monde (Port-au-Prince), dimanche 19 août 1979 (supplément du dimanche, pp. 6-13) . Chaudenson, Robert. 1973. "Pour une étude comparée des créoles et des parlers français d'outre-mer: survivances et innovations". Revue de Linguistique Romane 37: 342-71. —. 1981. "Continuum intralinguistique et interlinguistique". Etudes Créoles 4,1: 19-46. —. 1992. Des îles, des hommes, des langues. Essai sur la créolisation linguistique et culturelle. Paris: L'Harmattan. —. 1994. "Créolisation et appropriation linguistique: de la théorie aux exemples". In Daniel Véronique, ed. 1994: 171-90. —. 1995. Les créoles français. Paris: PUF. —, Raymond Mougeon et Edouard Beniak, eds. 1993. Vers une approche panlectale de la variation. Paris: Didier.

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Ducœurjoly, S.J. 1802. Manuel des habitans de Saint-Domingue [...]. Paris: Lenoir. Fattier, Dominique. 1994. "Un fragment de créole colonial: Le Manuel des habitans de SaintDomingue de S.J. Ducœurjoly, 1802. Réflexions sur l'apprentissage et la créolisation". In Daniel Véronique, ed. 1994: 53-87. Fields, Linda. 1995. "Early Bajan: Creole or Non-Creole?". In Jacques Arends, ed. 1995: 89111. Fortier, Alcée. 1895. Louisiana Folk-Tales. In French Dialect and English Translation. Boston and New York: The American Folk-Lore Society. Goodman, Morris. 1964. A Comparative Study of Creole French Dialects. The Hague: Mouton. Hall, Gwendolyn M. 1992. Africans in Colonial Louisiana. The Development of Afro-Creole Culture in the Eighteenth Century. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. Harris, Alice C. et Lyle Campbell. 1995. Historical Syntax in Cross-linguistic Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hazaël-Massieux, Guy. 1993. "The African Filter in the Genesis of Guadeloupean Creole: At the Confluence of Genetics and Typology". In Salikoko S. Mufwene, ed. Africanisms in Afro-American Language Varieties. Athens, London: University of Georgia Press, 109-22. —. 1996. Les créoles. Problèmes de genèse et de description. Aix-en-Provence: Publications de l'Université de Provence. Jarreau, Lafayette. 1931. "Creole folklore of Pointe Coupée Parish". Mémoire de maîtrise inédit, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University. Klingler, Thomas A. 1992. "A descriptive study of the Creole speech of Pointe Coupée Parish, Louisiana with focus on the lexicon". Thèse de doctorat, Université d'Indiana à Bloomington (Ann Arbor: UMI). —. sous presse. "Louisiana Creole: The multiple genèses hypothesis reconsidered", à paraître dans Journal of Pidgin and Creole Linguistics. Lang, Jürgen et Ingrid Neumann-Holzschuh. 1999. "Reanalyse und Grammatikalisierung. Zur Einfuhrung in diesen Band". In Jürgen Lang et Ingrid Neumann-Holzschuh, eds. 1999, 1-17. — et Ingrid Neumann-Holzschuh, eds. 1999. Reanalyse und Grammatikalisierung in den romanischen Sprachen. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Lavergne, Remi. 1930. "A phonetic transcription of the Negro's medical treatments, supersti­ tions, and folklore in the Parish of Pointe Coupée". Mémoire de maîtrise inédit. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University. Lefebvre, Claire. 1982. "L'expansion d'une catégorie grammaticale: le déterminant la". In Claire Lefebvre, Hélène Magloire-Holly et Nanie Piou, eds. 1982. Syntaxe de l'haïtien. Ann Arbor: Karoma, 21-63. Ludwig, Ralph. 1996. Kreolsprachen zwischen Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit. Zur Syntax und Pragmatik atlantischer Kreolsprachen auf französischer Basis. Tübingen: Narr. Manessy, Gabriel. 1995. Créoles, pidgins, variétés véhiculaires. Procès et genèse. Paris: CNRS.

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Marshall, Margaret. 1997. "The Origin and Development of Louisiana Creole French". In Albert Valdman, ed. 1997: 333-49. McWhorter, John. 1997. "Lost in transmission: A case for the independent emergence of the copula in Atlantic creoles". In Arthur K. Spears et Donald Winford, eds. 1997: 24161. —. 1998. "Identifying the creole prototype: Vindicating a typological class". Language 74: 788-818. Mercier, Alfred. 1982 [1881]. L'habitation Saint-Ybars ou maîtres et esclaves en Louisiane (récit social). Texte présenté et annoté d'après les manuscrits par Réginald Hamel. Durham N.H.: Dimond Library. Mufwene, Salikoko. 1986. "Les langues créoles peuvent-elles être définies sans allusion à leur histoire?". Études Créoles 9,1: 135-50. —. 1996. "The founder principle in Creole genesis". Diachronica 13: 83-134. —. 1997. "Jargons, pidgins, creoles and koines: What are they?". In Arthur K. Spears et Donald Winford, eds. 1997: 35-70. Neumann, Ingrid. 1985. Le créole de Breaux Bridge, Louisiane. Etude morphosyntaxique textes - vocabulaire. Hamburg: Buske. Neumann-Holzschuh, Ingrid. 1987. Textes anciens en créole louisianais. Hamburg: Buske. Posner, Rebecca. 1985a. "Creolization and typological change. Some examples from Romance syntax". Diachronica 2: 167-88. —. 1985b. "Post-Verbal Negation in Non-Stmdard-French". Romance Philology 39: 170-97. Prudent, Lambert-Félix. 1980. Des baragouins à la langue antillaise. Paris: Editions Caribéennes. Rohlfs, Gerhard. 1971. Romanische Sprachgeographie. Geschichte und Grundlagen, Aspekte und Probleme mit dem Versuch eines Sprachatlas der romanischen Sprachen. München: Beck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung. Rottet, Kevin J. 1995. "Language shift and language death in the Cajun French-speaking communities of Terrebonne and Lafourche Parishes, Louisiana". Thèse de doctorat, Université d'Indiana à Bloomington (Ann Arbor: UMI). Saint-Quentin, Alfred de. 1872. Etude sur la grammaire créole. Antibes: J. Marchand. Schlupp, Daniel. 1997. Modalités prédicatives, modalités aspectuelles et auxiliaires en créole à base lexicale française de la Guyane française. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Schneider, Edgar W. 1990. "The cline of creoleness in English-oriented creoles and send­ ­reoles of the Caribbean". English World-Wide 11: 79-113. Schuchardt, Hugo. 1978 [1870/1900]. "Über die Klassifikation der romanischen Mundarten (Leipziger Probevorlesung von 1870)". In Hugo Schuchardt-Brevier. Ein Vademecum der allgemeinen Sprachwissenschaft, zusammengestellt und eingeleitet von Leo Spitzer. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 166-88. Spears, Arthur K. 1990. "Tense, Mood and Aspect in the Haitian Creole Preverbal Marker". In John Victor Singler, ed. Pidgin and Creole Tense-Mood-Aspect Systems. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins, 119-42. — et Donald Winford, eds. 1997. The Structure and Status of Pidgins and Creoles. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins.

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Speedy, Karin. 1995. "Mississippi and Tèche Creole: two separate starting points for Creole in Louisiana". In Philip Baker, ed. From Contact to Creole and Beyond. London: University of Westminster Press, 97-114. Stäbler, Cynthia. 1995. La vie dans le temps et asteur. Ein Korpus von Gesprächen mit Cadiens in Louisiana. Tübingen: Narr. Thomason, Sarah G. et Terrence Kaufman. 1988. Language Contact, Creolization and Genetic Linguistics. Berkeley: University of California Press. Trappey, Adam Shelley Holmes. 1916. "Creole folklore in phonetic transcription". Mémoire de maîtrise inédit, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University. Usner, Daniel H. 1992. Indians, Settlers, and Slaves in a Frontier Exchange Economy. The Lower Mississippi Valley before 1783. Chapel Hill, London: University of North Carolina Press. Valdman, Albert. 1978. Le créole. Structure, statut et origine. Paris: Klincksieck. —. 1992. "On the socio-historical context in the development of Louisiana and SaintDomingue Creoles". French Language Studies 2: 75-95. —. 1994. "Décréolisation, repidginisation et étiolement linguistique dans le développement des créoles". In Daniel Véronique, ed. 1994: 191-210. —. 1996a. "La diffusion dans la genèse du créole louisianais". Etudes Créoles 19: 72-92. —. 1996b. "The place of Louisiana Creole among New World French Creoles". In James H. Dormon, ed. Creoles of Color of the Gulf South. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 144-65. —, ed. 1997. French and Creole in Louisiana. New York, London: Plenum Press. Véronique, Daniel. 1999. "L'émergence de catégories grammaticales dans les langues créoles: grammaticalisation et réanalyse". In Jürgen Lang et Ingrid Neumann-Holzschuh, eds. 1999: 181-203. —, ed. 1994. Créolisation et acquisition des langues. Aix-en-Provence: Publications de l'Université de Provence. Winford, Donald. 1993. Predication in Caribbean English Creoles. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. —. 1996. "Creole typology and relationships". Journal of Pidgin and Creole Linguistics 11: 313-28. —. 1997. "On the structure and status of pidgins and creoles". In Arthur K. Spears et Donald Winford, eds. 1997: 1-31. Wogan, Marguerite B. 1931. Cancans kisinieres. "Cooks Gossip". New Orleans: Rogers Printing Co.

Ingrid Neumann-Holzschuh Universität Regensburg Institut für Romanistik Universitätsstr. 31 93040 Regensburg Germany [email protected]

The myth of decreolization: The anomalous case of Palenquero

Armin Schwegler University of California, Irvine What needs to be explained— but won't be any time soon — is why some pressured ethnic groups mix their language with that of a dominant group, while others lose their language gradually through attrition of language death, and still others shift rapidly to the dominant group's language. Sarah G. Thomason, "Language mixture: ordinary processes, extraordinary results" (1995: 31)

1.

Introduction1

It has long been held that extensive, prolonged exposure of a creole to a socially dominant superstrate tends to cause decreolization or restructuring (Holm 1988: 52-5; Mühlhäusler 1997: 211-21; Rickford 1987; Sebba 1997: 210-24; Winford 1997b).2 While it is true, of course, that there are numerous cases to substantiate such a claim, virtually no attention has been paid to creoles in which multilingualism and superstrate pressure have not produced the expected results, i.e. more or less rapid decreolization or restructuring. The natural reaction to evidence of language history is to ask how and why languages change. Less natural, though no less interesting, is to ask why certain languages appear, in greater or lesser degrees, to have resisted restruc­ turing. Since pidgins and creoles are by definition languages that undergo con1) I am grateful to Barbara DeMarco, William Megenney, and Tom Morton for their comments on an earlier version of this paper. 2) Mühlhäusler rightly points out that some linguists "reserve the notions of [...] decreoliza­ tion for the transition of a [...] Creole to its original lexifier language" whereas others suggest that "continua can develop with lexically different target languages, such that, for instance, a former English-based Creole may gradually be turned into a Dutch-based one" (1997: 211). In this paper "decreolization" has the more limited meaning, i.e. 'transition of a Creole to its original lexifier language'. A number of important theoretical issues underlie the notions of decreolization and, by implication, the creole continuum; see Sebba (1997: 219-25) for a recent discussion.

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siderable foreign interference in the course of their development, the absence of continued restructuring is indeed an unexpected result, especially when the superstrate language has always enjoyed far greater prestige.

Map 1: Location of Palenque (Colombia) Observations presented in this paper question claims that have arguedfor (extensive) ongoing restructuring of Palenquero.

Despite claims to the contrary,3 Palenquero is one of those rare creole languages which during the last one hundred years appear to have escaped decreolization or restructuring. This paper addresses the question as to why some scholars may have been misled when qualifying Palenquero as a decreolized speech variety. It also examines why certain longitudinal data from Palenque force one to conclude that the creole has undergone no significant decreolization, at least not during its recent history (last one hundred years). To lend further support to this conclusion, I will consider several Palenquero grammatical features, all of which have remained surprisingly stable in spite of extended and unusually heavy creole/Spanish code-switching. Towards the end of this study, I will address a number of issues raised by the Palenquero case, including: what consequences does the Palenquero situation have for reconstructing the history of popular Caribbean Spanish? But before delving into these various questions, I shall briefly detail the linguistic and social situation currently found in Palenque. This, it is hoped, will allow those unfamiliar with the history of Palenquero grasp better some of the arguments presented in the main portion of this paper. 3) For instance, Megenney's El palenquero. Un lenguaje post-criollo de Colombia (1986).

THE MYTH OF DECREOLIZATION

Map 2: Palenque and its surrounding area The former maroon village is, and has been for centuries, surrounded by regional Spanish (Schwegler and Morton in press).

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Caribbean

Some comments regarding the current linguistic and social situation in Palenque are in order. A preliminary clarification is also needed: my purpose in what follows is primarily to draw the attention of scholars to a situation that, especially within the context of creole languages, must be viewed as an anomaly, one that requires further study. After almost fifteen years of investi­ gations and on-site research into language and culture of Palenque (see Schwegler 1996a, 1998 and pertinent works by the author cited therein), I openly admit that I cannot offer truly plausible explanations as to why the pro­ longed multilingualism and superstrate pressures from Spanish have not pro­ duced the result one would expect, i.e. decreolization or restructuring of Palenquero. I do not, therefore, attempt to provide an explanation for the mechanics of Palenque's ongoing linguistic transformation (language aban­ donment), nor to account for the precise reasons behind what is no doubt a socially motived change.

2.

Palenque today

The linguistic situation found in Palenque is truly extraordinary: it is the only place on the South American mainland today where an Afro-Hispanic creole still exists. Located less than one hundred kilometers from the Caribbean seaport of Cartagena de Indias (Latin America's major slave-trading center

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between 1600 and 1650), Palenque is a relatively small village of approximately 4 000-5 000 inhabitants, most of whom are of African descent only.4 They generally survive on subsistence farming and bartering of portable goods (fruit, sweets, fish, meat, etc.) at local markets. Descendants of 17th-century maroon slaves, the inhabitants all speak regional Spanish (Caribbean variety and approximations of standard Spanish),5 but only about half of them have an active knowledge of the local creole.6 Among the younger generations, Spanish/Palenquero bilingualism is becoming increasingly rare, so much so that today children or adolescents almost never converse in "lengua" (the local term for Palenquero, lit., 'tongue, language'). There exists then in Palenque a clear generational cline. Whereas the oldest members of the community are, without exception, fully bilingual, the youngest generally possess only minimal knowledge of the creole (passive knowledge varies considerably from person to person, but most children and adolescents still have at least a minimal understanding of common creole expressions). Palenquero can thus claim no more than two or three thousand native speakers.7 Speakers within a generation retain their speech patterns rela­ tively unchanged throughout their life, but each successive generation system­ atically differs from the preceding ones in that the preference for bilingualism is gradually being replaced by a monolingualism of the young Palenqueros. Despite the fact that virtually the entire Palenquero lexicon is drawn from Spanish (less than 1% of the creole vocabulary is of sub-Saharan, exclusively Bantu origins)8 the two languages are not mutually intelligible, that is, the Palenquero creole is not understood by monolingual Spanish speakers. This

4) More complete descriptions of life in Palenque can be found in Friedemann (1987), Friedemann and Patiño (1983, Part 1), and Schwegler (1996a, Chap. 1, 1998). For a most recent, succinct panoramic view of recent (linguistic) work on Palenquero, see Patiño (1997). Also of interest is Patiño (1996). 5) As far as I have been able to determine, all villagers are capable of producing an adequate, nearly standard form of Spanish (Schwegler and Morton in press). 6) For readers not familiar with Latin American Spanish dialectology mention must be made of the fact that, despite the heavy African presence in many areas of Latin America, there does not exist today an ethnolinguistically identifiable "black Spanish" (Lipski, 1994: 129-30; Schwegler in press e). This does not mean, of course, that Afro-American Spanish dialects do not share important, sometimes rather "exotic" features; it simply means that there is no one feature used exclusively by Afro-Americans. The reasons for the absence of such an "ethnic speech" (comparable, say, to that of Black English in the USA) are still poorly understood. 7) A relatively large number of native speakers reside outside of Palenque, mainly in popular barrios of Cartagena and Barranquilla. The exact number of these speakers is not known, but is estimated to exceed one thousand. 8) Until recently it was held that the African component of the Palenquero vocabulary was rather small, totaling no more than a dozen words. As shown in Schwegler (in press a, b) the total of extant African-derived words is, however, far larger (two hundred or more African­ isms, many being archaisms). The majority of these words are likely to be of Kikongo origin.

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absence of mutual intelligibility, coupled with several other factors (e.g. the survival of "strange African traditions"; the dark skin color of its practitioners, etc.) have contributed to the popular notion — clearly false but fairly wide­ spread in Cartagena and surrounding villages — that a "strange African language" continues to be spoken in Palenque. Palenqueros shun the use of their creole outside of their community. Traditionally, their local speech has been heavily stigmatized; thus, they are reluctant to converse in "lengua" in the presence of outsiders. Contact with the outside world is, and has been for many decades, rather intense, as Palenqueros regularly visit some of the neighboring villages, and especially metropolitan Cartagena. However, their contact with Colombia's coastal society continues to be mostly unidirectional, that is, as one Palenquero recently put it, "nosotro vamo y volvemo, pero la gente de afuera casi no viene aquí" 'we [constantly] go [to other places] and return, but people from outside hardly come here'. Palenque is, therefore, still an island apart, both linguistically and socially. Intermarriage with outsiders, for instance, continues to be rare, and even those who have chosen to move to urban Cartagena or Barranquilla typically make arrangements to be buried in their native village. "Once a Palenquero, always a Palenquero" is a ubiquitous attitude in the former maroon enclave, and sociocultural identity and in-group unity in Palenque continues unabated despite the profound changes that have taken place since the early 1970s (Friedemann and Patino 1983; Schwegler 1998). Choice between Spanish and Palenquero symbolizes the cultural contrasts between older and younger Palenqueros, thus reflecting the economic and social changes that continue to occur in Palenque. But language choice (bilingualism vs. monolingualism) does not convey speak­ ers' claims to a social identity, as kin and friendship ties suffice to establish in Palenque who is or is not Palenquero. 3.

Palenquero bilingualism, lects, and decreolization

As already noted, Palenque has been experiencing a language shift, or, to be more precise, language abandonment. Contemporary oral accounts (gathered by the author in situ between 1985 and 1997), coupled with almost fifty years of anthropological and linguistic research into the Palenquero community (see Escalante 1979 [1954] and the sources cited in Schwegler 1998: 252), make it clear that the abandonment has been occurring for quite some time, and that it continues, albeit at an even more accelerated pace. A precise date for the beginning of the language abandonment cannot be given, but its first manifes­ tations reportedly made themselves felt around 1970, i.e. the period immedi­ ately preceding the Venezuelan oil boom when many Palenqueros left the village for better economic opportunities.

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Palenque has become quite famous both inside and outside of Colombia. This notoriety is in large part due to the "miraculous survival"9 (Patiño 1997: 129) of its creole, a vernacular "discovered" less than thirty years ago (Granda 1968; Bickerton and Escalante 1970).10 But its fame is not due to language alone. In many parts of Latin America, people are just now rediscovering their ethnic roots and history {Afro-Latin Americans today. No longer invisible [1995], Schwegler in press e), and so it is only natural that Palenque — the first slaves in the Americas to officially obtain their freedom (Arrázola 1970) — take center stage. Moreover, there survive in Palenque African(izing) ritual practices (Schwegler 1996a), which now attract the curious from afar. Palenque's reputation as a "special place" continues to grow. Yet there have been no sociolinguistic studies of the ongoing language loss, and notwithstanding a rapidly expanding body of literature on Palenquero language and customs, the process by which this language loss occurs is not understood. 3.1.

Code-switching

To gain a proper understanding of just how surprising the absence of (profound) decreolization or restructuring is in the case of Palenque, mention must be made of the unusual rapidity and extreme range of Palenquero/Spanish codeswitching. Whatever the everyday Palenquero bilingual speech situation may be, local speech habits virtually dictate that both languages be interwoven constantly, a fact already noted by Bickerton and Escalante (1970: 265) and briefly elaborated upon by Friedemann and Patiño (1983: 184-91) and Schwegler (1998: 285-90). Put differently, bilingualism in Palenque typically involves the contemporaneous appropriation of two languages of unequal status: prestigious Spanish (vernacular varieties and the standard, national language) and the low-prestige, more private and strictly local Palenquero. Code-switching works at both the sentential and intrasentential levels. Crucial to the purpose of this paper, both languages are neatly kept separate, so that more conspicuous marks of creole speech (e.g. preverbal creole tense/aspect markers like tan [future], aké [conditional], asé [habitual], etc.)11 are neither replaced by, nor substituted with, intermediate forms between creole 9) "Miraculous" because of the proximity of Palenque to a major metropolitan area (Cartagena). One would expect to find such a creole only in more remote areas of Colombia, especially the Pacific Lowlands of Western Colombia, where thousands of Blacks have lived in isolation for several centuries (Granda 1977; Schwegler 1991b; West 1957). 10) Palenquero was first brought to the attention of the scholarly community by Ochoa Franco (1945). It was sampled in Escalante's anthropological monographs (1954 [1979], 1964), and briefly described by Montes Giraldo (1962). It was not until Granda (1968) and Bickerton and Escalante (1970), however, that the creole — rather than ordinary dialectal — character of Palenquero was identified (Lipski and Schwegler 1993). 11) For these and other such creole markers, see Friedemann and Patiño (1983, §2.1), and Schwegler (1992a, 1998: 256).

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and standard Spanish (Schwegler and Morton in press). Thus, one does not find in Palenque the kinds of adjustments made by Guyanese or Jamaican creole speakers when conversing with speakers of the standard language; rather, the two languages (Spanish and Palenquero) are, in a sense, kept pure, minimizing or avoiding altogether possible language interference (this point is taken up in greater detail in section 4.3 below).12 3.2.

Longitudinal data and evidence for the paucity of restructuring

Judging from documentary evidence, Palenqueros probably have been able to engage in this type of rapid, almost constant code-switching for well over two hundred years. According to a 1772 document,13 Spanish and a "peculiar tongue" were spoken fluently by the approximately four hundred souls that made up the village in the second half of the 18th century. There is good reason to believe that the situation never differed substantially thereafter, i.e. until the 1970s when the first signs of language abandonment surfaced. Moreover, there exists a considerable body of contemporary evidence which suggests that, contrary to expectations, intense bilingualism has not triggered decreolization, at least not within the last one hundred years.14 It is to a selection of this contemporary evidence that we shall now turn our attention. 3.2.1. Evidence for the paucity of restructuring 3.2.1.1. Generational differences Contrary to what might be expected in light of what is known from other Caribbean creole speech areas (Jamaica, Guyana, etc.), in Palenque there are no apparent lectal differences (basilect, mesolect or acrolect). In this speech community, old and young bilinguals employ a virtually identical creole gram­ mar, that is, there is no continuum, no "in-between" in terms of lects. Palenqueros do, at times, express opinions as to who does or does not speak the deepest (i.e. most basilectal) variety of the local vernacular, but these opinions invariably appear to be based on speakers' ability to recall arcane (African) lexical material — much of which occurs in ritual contexts, especially 12) I do not discuss here the complex question as to whether one encounters in Palenque a situation of diglossia (see Friedemann and Patiño 1983: 185-91; Schwegler 1998: 240-4). 13) "Hablan entre sí un particular idioma en que a sus solas instruyen a los muchachos, sin embargo de que cortan con mucha expedición el castellano, de que generalmente usan. [...] administra su cura 178 familias con 396 de confesión y 90 esclavos". In "Noticia historial" (1772) Diego de Peredo, Bishop of Cartagena. Source: Noticia historial, en Poemas, cit. in Gutiérrez (1980: 34). 14) The one-hundred-year time span is not a rough estimate, but rather one based on data obtained in interviews from Palenque's oldest inhabitants.

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the lumbalú, see 3.2.1.2 hereafter — and not on objective criteria that would allow one to differentiate lectal differences. 3.2.1.2. Ritual data There survives in Palenque an ancient, clearly African-derived ritual called lumbalú.15 Accompanied by frantic dancing, chanting and the beating of drums, this ritual is practiced the day of a funeral and during the eight-day wake that traditionally follows. Originally believed to be a mixture of Spanish, creole, and African texts, the lumbalú songs have recently been shown to consist of essen­ tially straightforward modern Palenquero, interspersed with Spanish expressions and, importantly, a good dose of African glossolalia so as to assure its ethnic ("African")16 flavor (Lipski 1997; Schwegler 1996a). However, as regards grammar, there are no structural differences between this ritual language and modern everyday local speech. The fossilized ritual segments do not reveal grammatical structures that could possibly be considered basilectal (or mesolectal). Palenquero ritual language does not, therefore, offer any evidence that the creole ever underwent the kinds of profound diachronic change typically associated with decreolization.17 3.2.1.3. Evidence for the paucity of restructuring: absence of language attrition As is well known, decreolization sometimes occurs because the communicative competence of a given speaker may be stronger in the superstrate language than in the local creole. As a result, superstrate structures infiltrate the local speech, thereby leading to the increased intrusion (from a creole perspective) of atypical tense or aspect markers, definite articles, gender markers, and other features often absent in creole languages. In Palenque, the communicative competence of bilingual speakers typically varies little, if at all; that is, one either uses and "knows" the creole, or one does not. Palenque thus presents a situation of language abandonment rather than language change (abandonment of creole in favor of regional Spanish). For this reason, speakers do not restructure their speech by superimposing or grafting their dominant grammar (Spanish) onto their creole. The abruptness with which the local language is abandoned by the 15) Term derived from Kik. lu (prefix indicating collectivity) + Kik. mbálu 'recollection, memory, melancholy, etc.' (Schwegler in press b, in press d). 16) The Palenqueros generally believe that several of their cultural traditions are of direct, purely African descent. However, in reality, most of them are the result of extensive syncre­ tism, whence they are "African" only in a limited sense. A clear example of such syncretism can be seen in their burial practices, described in Schwegler (1992b). 17) Occasionally, there is evidence of previous phonetic change no longer documented in contemporary language. But this does not invalidate the claim that, in terms of structure, the ritual language is essentially the same as modern creole speech.

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younger generations is undoubtedly a contributing factor for the observed absence of restructuring. The local creole is simply dying out, without suffering the natural effects of gradual neglect. Language death in Palenque is not a slowly progressive process; rather, it occurs simply because the creole is losing speakers to an encroaching language. It remains the case that Palenquero is spoken on a daily basis only by bilinguals who have complete native-speaker competence in both languages. 3.2.1.4. Evidence for the paucity of restructuring: contemporary testimonial evidence When queried on the question of former language use in their village, elderly Palenqueros without exception insisted that their modern speech was identical to that of "the good old times". They also maintain that in their youth (ca. 19001920) the eldest spoke Palenquero in very much the same way it is still spoken today (they also claim to have no memory of African languages ever being spoken in the village).18 One of the natives, Inés Martínez (Palenquera, born 1901), expressed it this way: "cuando yo nací en el 1901, aquí toda la gente hablaba español y "lengua" muy bien. Y eso era lo mismo de siempre. No, no ha cambiado nada. Y no había ni escuela ni nada". 'when I was born in 1901, here all the people spoke Spanish and Palenquero very well. And this was always that way. No, nothing has changed. And there was not even a school, nor anything else (= nor any other form of education)'.

Statements of this nature, and the sort of evidence adduced above in sections 3.2.1.1-3.2.1.4, are powerful and, I believe, trustworthy indicators that Palenquero grammar has essentially remained unchanged for at least a century. But if this is indeed so, why then has it been widely accepted that modern Palenquero is a decreolized speech variety?

4.

The myth of decreolization

To answer this question, we must turn our attention to a series of events, most of which have their roots in the history of creolistics as a discipline. The following comments are offered with the assumption — already partially 18) In practical terms this means that a speech very similar to the one in existence today must have been in use as far back as the middle of the 19th century. I do realize, of course, that native speakers are notoriously blind about the realities of their own language. There are, however, good reasons — too complex to be detailed here — that strongly suggest that the natives I interviewed on the issue of local language change were both candid and realistic in their accounts.

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defended above but further addressed in section 5 below — that virtually no restructuring has taken place in Palenque over the past one hundred years, and that, therefore, Palenquero does not present a typical case of creole continuum. Due to limitations of space, I can discuss here only some of the factors respon­ sible for the mistaken analysis of Palenquero. In the following discussion, these points should be kept in mind: • not all Palenquero specialists subscribe to the notion of decreoHzation (see, for example, Bickerton and Escalante 1970 and Friedemann and Patiño 1983: 185); • in general, the proposal that Palenquero is a decreolized variety has met more with silence than with approval (the proposal was made initially by Granda; see, inter alia, 1978: 424sq.; also Megenney 1986). 4.1.

The myth as a result of the chronology of events in creole studies

Granda, the earliest and perhaps staunchest defender of the Palenquero decreo­ Hzation hypothesis, successfully identified Palenquero as a creole (rather than as a Spanish dialect) in the late 1960s, when creole studies had just become firmly established as an academic discipline. Several of the scholars who laid the foundations for the discipline had concentrated their attention on English-based Caribbean creoles in which the synchronic co-existence of lects (basilect, mesolect, acrolect) led to the (then) inescapable conclusion that restructuring or decreoHzation is a logical, perhaps even inevitable historical process whenever a creole is exposed to strong long-term superstrate pressures from its lexifier. The structural consequences of such decreoHzation were viewed as a direct result of a socio-linguistic imbalance in which creole speakers routinely sought to approximate a more standard superstrate speech. Based as it was on Englishand French-based Caribbean creoles, this scenario was then extended to Palenquero, whose inferior standing vis-à-vis superstrate Spanish was indeed analogous to that of the English- and French-Caribbean creoles. However, pro­ ponents of the Palenquero decreoHzation hypothesis never embarked on the systematic, data-oriented research necessary to substantiate their claims. Symptomatic in this respect is, for instance, Megenney's El palenquero. Un lenguaje post-criollo de Colombia (1986), where the question of decreoHzation is never addressed directly, notwithstanding the explicit mention of "postcreole" in the title of his book. To jump to a conclusion is, of course, to by-pass the process of proof. And proof— even a most tenuous kind of proof— for the supposed decreoHzation of Palenquero has never been offered.

419

THE MYTH OF DECREOLIZATION

4.2.

The myth: its connection to the monogenetic hypothesis

Granda (1978, 1988, 1994) and his followers have long defended a monogenetic hypothesis which postulates that an Afro-Portuguese contact-vernacular (a pidgin or creole) was once in use in many parts of the insular and continental Spanish Caribbean, thus forming the basis of popular speech in such widely dispersed areas as Western Colombia, Cuba, or the Dominican Republic. According to this theory, after a number of generations the popular speech varieties of these regions lost all but a few vestiges of their erstwhile creole features through superstrate-induced decreolization, thus yielding post-creole varieties in evolutionary ways that presumably paralleled those traditionally posited for African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) (Holm 1988:§10.6.4; Rickford 1998; Schneider 1989; Winford 1997a, 1998).19 In Granda's view Palenquero represents a rare and unusually valuable remnant of this early Afro-Portuguese speech. Ethnolinguistically distinctive and geo­ graphically isolated, the Palenqueros supposedly considered themselves a special group, so much so that they succeeded in maintaining their unusual local speech far longer than any other Black community in Latin America. Viewed against the backdrop of this monogenetic hypothesis, it is easy to see how Palenquero came to be perceived as a decreolized speech variety, located roughly midway between the original, presumably "deep" Afro-Portuguese contact vernacular and modern popular Caribbean Spanish dialects (for a graphic illustration of this conceptual leap, see Figure 1).

Halfway between early pidgin and modern Spanish (therefore decreolized)

Aíro-Port.pidgin or creole

Palenquero

DECREOLIZATION (continuum)

Caribbean (popular) Spanish Final stage in decreolization

Figure 1

Although the monogenetic theory is appealing in principle (Schwegler 1996b-c, 1999, in press e), the fact remains that no solid documentary evidence has ever been advanced to warrant positioning Palenquero on a lectal continuum in the way Granda and others have proposed. 19) Recent scholarship (e.g. Winford 1997a, 1998) suggests that AAVE may not be the result of decreolization, thereby refuting the traditional "creolist" hypothesis that AAVE arose via the restructuring of a previously widespread creole.

420 4.3.

ARMIN SCHWEGLER

The myth and its apparent substantiation: the synchronic evidence (interference)

To the casual observer of Palenquero speech, and even to the unwary specialist, there occur certain recurrent features in the linguistic performance of Palenquero bilingual speakers that at first sight are strongly indicative of a steady encroachment by Spanish on the local creole; this misperception would seem to confirm the assumption that decreolization is indeed a common and ongoing phenomenon in Palenquero. I am here referring to instances of apparent Spanish and Palenquero mixture (code-mixing rather than code-switching), which some specialists have characterized as cases of "interference". To give just one example: Patino, a scholar more familiar with Palenquero language and society than most other specialists, offered the following observation and accompanying examples:20 Como resultado del bilingüismo, los actos lingüísticos entre palenqueros se caracterizan tanto por el continuo cambio de código — el hablante pasa del criollo al español y viceversa — como por la frecuente interferencia intraoracional de un idioma sobre el otro. Esta interferencia es mucho más notoria en la dirección del español hacia el palenquero. Enunciados híbridos como los siguientes son casi normales en el hablar vernáculo (ponemos en cursivas la interferencia). 'A a result of the (observed) bilingualism, the speech acts between Palenqueros are characterized by a continuous code switching — the speaker switches from the creole to Spanish and vice versa — as well as by frequent intrasentential interference by one language on the other. This interference is much more noticeable in Palenquero than in Spanish. Hybrid enunciations like the ones that follow hereafter are almost normal in daily speech (cases of interference are given in italics)'. (138) a.

d.

ma ngombe ayá. 'el ganado allá' 'the cattle over there = I take the cattle over there' , si bo <no me sueta> í tan nda bo un puño ku mano ikieda ', si tú <no me sueltas> te voy a dar un puño con la mano izquierda'

20) For additional examples of such code-switching, see Schwegler (1998: 287-90). More extensive texts exhibiting frequent code-switching can be found in the appendix to Patiño's Palenquero grammar (Friedemann and Patino 1983: 192-284). Readers should keep in mind, however, that in Patiño's transcriptions code-switches are not signaled graphically, whence it is often difficult, and even impossible to objectively determine the locus of a given switch. 21) The English glosses are mine. To facilitate the analysis, I have placed "<...>" around the supposedly hybrid segments.

THE MYTH OF DECREOLIZATION

421

', if you <don't let me go> I am going to punch you with my left hand' (Friedemann and Patiño 1983:184-7) As Bickerton and Escalante (1970: 264) correctly suspected thirty years ago, in Palenque the alternation between, or actual mixing of, standard and strictly local creole forms, is unlike that which exists in Jamaica, Guyana, or other places where the co-existence of different lects can indeed lead to hesitations between standard creole and intermediate forms. Rather, we are here simply facing instances of very rapid switches between Spanish and Palenquero, with no interference or mixing of codes. In the case of the example cited above (138a), code-mixing could have yielded a hybrid construction like ma ngombe echo-lo ayá (where the combination of inflected Spanish echo 'I take' + postverbal, creole-like -lo 'it' would have been a distinct indicator of mixing rather than switching). But this type of mixing has never been attested for Palenque, nor have I ever heard it during my fifteen years of experience with the Palenquero language.22 As argued here and explained in greater detail elsewhere (Schwegler 1998: 240-4), neither contemporary Palenquero speech nor earlier published transcriptions of Palenquero creole texts (the earliest being Escalante [1979 (1954)], Appendix) offer substantial evidence of ongoing code-mixing and/or decreolization. In Palenque, as in many other places where bilingualism is the norm rather than the exception in daily communication, code-switching is a sign of linguistic competence, not incompetence. In Palenque, speakers do not switch from creole to Spanish so as to "talk up" to individuals of superior linguistic status — "the commonest cause of interference from standard in post-creole speech communities" (Bickerton and Escalante 1970: 265). The reasons for Palenqueros' rapid and almost constant switching are undoubtedly complex, and motivated by stylistic and other considerations that are not yet understood. But they clearly are not the result of the kind of linguistic erosion (loss of competence in the creole) that Patino and others originally suspected to be the root-cause of the observed heavy intertwining of two linguistic codes in daily bilingual Palenquero speech. A caveat is in order. I have argued that neither language-internal nor external evidence allows us to project a diachronic trajectory in which Palenquero decreolized or restructured in significant ways. Furthermore the point has been made that linguistic inertia rather than grammatical upheaval seems to have characterized the history of the Palenquero language during the last one hundred years. I must emphasize, however, that the arguments adduced thus far are not meant to suggest that the creole never underwent decreolization 22) Bickerton and Escalante (1970: 265) also make the worthwhile point that rapid, wideranging switching like that observed in Palenque is seldom, if ever, a feature of a post-creole speaker's performance.

422

ARMIN SCHWEGLER

(restructuring). In my view, profound restructuring is actually likely to have taken place during the early, formative period of Palenquero (17th century). The point I have tried to make thus far is simply that concrete evidence for the supposedly recent (last one hundred years) and presumably still ongoing restructuring has yet to be advanced. 5.

On language attitudes and why one should expect restructuring in Palenque

5.1.

The differential prestige of Spanish and Palenquero

Extensive restructuring should have occurred in Palenque because of the inten­ sity and length of exposure to the dominant language. Palenqueros have long been subject to racial stereotyping, ridicule of their local "African" traditions (which, in their view, includes their local creole). The sentiment that theirs is a backward place is still widespread, both inside and outside of Palenque, and has contributed to making the Palenqueros guarded and reserved individuals who routinely adjust their behavior in the presence of outsiders. Interviews with Palenquero elders have made clear that these pressures existed long before the 1970s. Within the Palenquero community, negative views about some of their local traditions (e.g. the aforementioned lumbalú, no longer celebrated with regularity) and noticeable shifts in social values and behavioral styles have un­ doubtedly contributed to the wholesale move away from the local language to the more prestigious national superstrate. The precise mechanisms which underlie the Palenquero linguistic "revolution" that began in the late 1960s are not fully understood. My own in situ observations (dating from 1990) suggest that, whatever the real explanation may be for the original attrition of the creole, Lambert's observations about language as a factor in intergroup relations may well point us in the right direction: [...] the awareness that one is shifting can itself have profound psychological and social consequences. For example, one can become confused about one's personal identity, or begin to behave as though one actually were inadequate and inferior. As these sentiments spread through a social system, members of the system may be prone to give up and accept one's "inferior" fate, at the same time as they ready themselves to counter-react in the sense of rejecting the accepted image of one's group, starting often with an exploration of the opposite view — that one's own group is as good if not better than the high prestige group. (Lambert 1979: 188)

There are some signs that at least a few creole speakers are readying themselves to counteract traditional notions of linguistic inferiority. Patino (1997: 137) reports, for instance, that during the last five years, a group of youngsters has

THE MYTH OF DECREOLIZATION

423

expressed interest in conserving the local cultural identity, and has begun to regard their creole vernacular as something worth preserving. But, as Lambert also noted (p. 189), feelings towards one's own group can have profound consequences, and regardless of surface signs, are not changed easily. There can be no denying that today there continues to exist in Palenque a perceived imbalance in prestige between things local and things regional, and language is no exception. María-Luisa Simarra, an elderly Palenquera, interviewed in 1994, expressed it this way: "lo ri ante ya no vale náa aquí" 'traditional things are worth nothing here [in Palenque]'. There is little reason to believe that feelings of inferiority and attitudes towards local traditions have changed sufficiently to reverse the progressively diminished importance that younger generations of Palenqueros attach to their linguistic "creole" identity. It would, of course, ultimately be desirable to isolate a specific set of factors that originally triggered and subsequently accelerated the abandonment of the Palenquero creole. For now we can simply point out that, as regards Palenque, the process of language shift must be seen within the broader frame­ work of profound language imbalance. Given this imbalance, one should reasonably expect that pressures exerted on Palenquero by superstrate Spanish would favor the intrusion of Spanish elements into the creole. If this is so, the following question naturally arises: why has this imbalance, and the sociolinguistic pressures that typically accompany it, not triggered the reconfigura­ tion of the creole? This question seems all the more pertinent if we are to follow Thomason and Kaufman's oft-cited Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics, where it becomes clear that Palenquero should indeed be considered a prototypical case for heavy restructuring: The more intense the contact situation is, the more likely it is that extensive structural borrowing will occur. As we noted in chapter 3.2, two crucial parameters of intensity of contact in a borrowing situation are time and the level of bilingualism: long-term contact with widespread bilingualism among borrowing language speakers is a prerequisite for extensive structural borrow­ ing [...] Cultural pressure is most obviously exerted by a politically and numerically dominant group on a subordinate population living within its sphere of dominance; this is the classic situation that promotes structural borrowing [...]. (Thomason and Kaufman 1988:67)

5.2.

Intense co-existence of Palenquero and Spanish

This quote illustrates that a crucial parameter of the intensity of language contact is the level of bilingualism. We have already touched on the point that, among Palenquero bilinguals, extended conversations rarely (if ever) take place in a "creole vacuum", i.e. without the intercalation of Spanish. With constant code-switching being the true hallmark of traditional Palenquero speech, there would be ample opportunity for bilingual speakers to transfer Spanish features

424

ARMIN SCHWEGLER

into their creole. Palenquero clearly presents a situation in which the opportu­ nities for grammatical borrowing abound, but (for reasons yet unexplained) are not exploited. 5.3.

Typological proximity between Palenquero and Spanish

Although generally not mutually intelligible, Palenquero and Spanish share many, though by no means all, typological features. The languages are similar enough that, with one or two exceptions, phonological or phonetic criteria alone do not allow one to differentiate between Palenquero and local Spanish forms. Palenquero word order closely matches that of Spanish in key areas (e.g. SVO).23 Substantial formal similarity and, in some instances, complete overlap exist in several domains of the grammar (a good example is the pronominal system, discussed in sections 6.2 and 6.3 below). Unlike other creoles, Palenquero does have some synthetic inflections, e.g. "progressive" -ndo (ablándo < Span, hablando), past-tense/habitual -ba24 (ablá-ba , cp. Span, hablaba 'spoke, talked'),25 whence the transfer of Spanish-like verbal suffixes could easily fit into an already established mold. 5.4.

Shared vocabulary

A major reason why code-switching between Spanish and Palenquero can be accomplished so readily and intensively is precisely because, as already noted above, the two languages share almost the entire lexicon (99% or more). This observation requires some clarification. The vast majority of Palenquero words are derived from Spanish, with a few having originated in Portuguese and African languages (the size of the actively used African lexical stock is small; there survive about 150 words that are rarely heard in the everyday language). Many Palenquero words do differ phonetically from their Spanish counterparts, but these differences generally are minimal, and are, with a few exceptions, attributable to regular (though not always predictable) sound correspondences. The following random selection of Palenquero words illustrates the situation:

23) Several important differences in word order do exist, but only a few of these have been studied in depth. One of these is predicate negation, examined by Schwegler (1991a) and, more recently, by Dieck (in press). 24) -ba is clearly not a recent addition to Palenquero grammar. 25) The Palenquero and Spanish forms cited do not overlap completely in terms of function and meaning, but this is irrelevant to the main point of the argument made here.

THE MYTH OF DECREOLIZATION

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Palenquero

Spanish

English

mano muhé kumé (n)do kasa

mano mujer comer dos casa

'hand' 'woman' 'to eat' 'two' 'house'

6. 7. 8. 9. 10

425

Palenquero

Spanish

English

ombe (n)gande kolé pogké (n)drumí

hombre grande correr porque dormir

'man' 'big, large' 'to run' 'because' 'to sleep'

As can be seen from the above list, some lexical items are entirely homophonous (cp. Pal. mano, kasa with Span, mano, casa). Such homophony is fairly common, especially if one takes into account coastal dialectal articula­ tions of Spanish words (thus in northern Colombian Spanish, mujer is pronounced [muhé], which is phonetically identical to Pal. muhé). It is also this homophony which explains why the precise locus of a code-switch is often un­ clear, thereby rendering it impossible to determine which of the two languages — Palenquero or Spanish — is being spoken at a given moment. The absence of a clear-cut lexical division between the two languages could naturally lend itself as a convenient "bridge" for cross-linguistic borrow­ ing in other domains of the language, including grammar; however, such borrowing has not taken place. 6.

"Natural changes" that have not occurred in Palenquero grammar

Absence of change is, of course, far more difficult to illustrate than actual cases of restructuring (the difficulty only exists to the extent that, to be truly convincing, it requires far more voluminous documentation than is possible here). Furthermore, in situations of linguistic inertia one is always faced with the difficult task of deciding which structures to examine; the choice is often made randomly. With the above in mind, let us now proceed to examine some areas of grammar where interference, and, therefore, eventually restructuring, would have been a most natural result within Palenquero grammar. 6.1.

Consistent omission of articles

As is well known, Spanish has a set of "singular" and plural definite and indefi­ nite articles (el ~ la; los ~ las; un ~ una, unos ~ unas), all of which are marked for number and gender. A characteristic feature of Palenquero — and here the language follows typically creole patterns — is found in the partial omission of this superstrate choice. Thus, Palenquero grammar makes use of some articles (all genderless; see Fig. 2), but omits others (zero morph), notably the singular definite article corresponding to Span, el and la (for further discussion of this system, see Schwegler 1998: 259-62 and the sources cited therein).

426

ARMIN SCHWEGLER

DEFINITE Palenquero

INDEFINITE

Spanish (masc./fem.)

Palenquero Spanish (masc./fem.)

Singular

0

el, la

un

un, una

Plural

ma26

los, las

un ma

unos, unas

Figure 2: The Palenquero and Spanish article systems Note that in the definite singular, Palenquero uses a zero morph, whereas Spanish employs the overt (gender-marked) el and la.

The following examples illustrate how in the singular, Palenquero makes use of a zero morph rather than an overt marker (cp. the Spanish translations, where such overt marking is obligatory): (1)

Pal. bo tan meté 0 pie akí nu Span, tú no vas a meter el pie aquí Engl, 'you are not going to put the foot here'

(2)

Pal. asina 0 kasa a-ta bonito Span, así la casa está bonita Engl, '[painted] this way, the house is beautiful'

Spanish definite or indefinite singular forms can occur quite frequently in Palenquero, but they are restricted to fossilized stock expressions in which Span, el and la have long lost their function as articles (cp. en e sesenta < Span. en e1 sesenta 'in the [year] sixty'). Similar fossilizations of articles occur with the Spanish plural articles los and las, whose corresponding Palenquero morpheme is the Bantu-derived ma (Fig. 2): thus a ¡a kuatro < Span, a las_ cuatro 'at four o'clock'), never *a ma kuatro. Palenqueros may waver at times as to exactly what qualifies as a stock expression; thus the Spanish phrase todo el mundo (lit. 'all the world' = 'everybody') may be rendered in Palenquero as to 0 mundo or to e mundo21 Apart from stock expressions, the creole stubbornly resists the intrusion of the Spanish articles el, la, los and las. Thus, Palenquero bilinguals will always consider an expression like meté(r) el pie 'put the foot' as 26) Ma is of Bantu origin, with Kikongo ma being its likely principal source (Schwegler in press b). 27) (3a) and (3b) are actual examples from my own field notes: (3) a. b.

Pal. Pal. Span, Engl,

to 0 mundo ta akí to e mundo ta akí (e todo el mundo está aquí 'everybody is here'

< Span. el)

THE MYTH OF DECREOLIZATION

427

belonging to the Spanish code (they are often quick to point out that the corre­ sponding Palenquero equivalent is meté pie). Similarly, in creole speech neither los nor las ever replaces the Palenquero pluralizer ma. Not surprisingly, to this day not a single case of interference of the sort *ese lafs) muhere, for ese ma muhere 'these women' has ever been documented. Similarly, there are no confirmed reports of hybrid structures of the type *un lo(s) ombe for un ma hombe (Span, unos hombres) 'some men', where the substitution of ma by lo(s) could, in principle, easily have taken place. The degree to which the Palenquero article system remains impenetrable is truly remarkable. Here is a vernacular in constant contact (and, one might say, interaction) with a language system that clearly enjoys much greater prestige. As far as I have been able to determine, there are no typological or other barriers (phonotactics, syllable structure, etc.) that inhibit the transfer of articles from the high- to the low-prestige language. Given the already firmly established presence of the indefinite article un in the Palenquero system, it is indeed baffling why expressions like Pal. un ombe kas/Span. un hombre casado 'a married man' are never paralleled by hybrid constructions of the type *lo(s) ombe kasao/Span. los hombres casados 'the married men' or *la(s) muhé kasao/Span. las mujeres casadas 'the married women'. This neat separation of systems can also be observed in the opposite direction (Palenquero —» Spanish) since the local superstrate language never permits the substitution of Span, una or los/las (thus Span, ¿dónde están LAS chicas? for instance, is never rendered as * ¿dónde están MA chicas?. 6.2.

Word order: the inflexible sequencing of Palenquero object pronouns

Palenquero employs the singular (genderless) object pronoun lo < Span, lo (masc, neuter) 'it' (Friedemann and Patiño 1983: 162-4). In terms of function, Pal. and Span, lo are quite similar, though not identical (the differences are not central to the arguments presented hereafter, and are, therefore, left out of the discussion). The crucial difference between Palenquero and Spanish lo is word order.

28) The Spanish spoken in Palenque is not entirely free of creole influences, that is, some features are transfered from the low- to the high-prestige language. Thus, expressions like NOSOTRO DO vamo Span. lit. 'nosotros dos vamos = nos vamos' or tú QUE ESTÁ(S) AQUÍ lit. Span, 'tú QUE ESTÁS AQUÍ = tú (topicalized)' are straight relexifications from Palenquero (cp. Pal. suto ndo bae, and bo ke ta aki, respectively). For details, see Schwegler and Morton in press.

428

ARMIN SCHWEGLER

Span, lo enjoys a more flexible word order — it can occur in both preand postverbal positions, as shown in (4a) and (4b), respectively.29 Palenquero, on the other hand, has a fixed, strictly postverbal order (5a-5b): (4)

a. b.

Span, yo lo quiero comprar, yo quiero comprarlo. 'I want to buy it'.

(5)

a. b.

Pal. Pal.

i kelé komblá-lo. * i lo kelé komblá. 'I want to buy it'.

In light of the Spanish flexibility in the sequence rules of the object pronoun lo, it is reasonable to suppose that this variable word order would occasionally be extended to Pal. lo. But this is not the case. To date there is not a single documented Palenquero example with preposed Pal. lo. The same restrictions obtain for the personal object pronouns: Pal. mi, bo, ele, suto and oné (Span, me, vos (= tú), la ~ lo, nos, los ~ las (Friedemann and Patiño 1983: 155-67). As with lo, postposed personal object pronouns do occur in Spanish (cp. quiere verme 's/he wants to see me'), and in Palenquero (cp. kelé miná-mi 'idem'). However, variations on this sequence rule never occur despite the fact that they are common in Spanish (cf. me quiere ver). This is another instance in which grammatical innovation in Palenquero would seem not only possible, but likely, and yet it never occurs.30 6.3.

Subject pronouns : absence of transfer or blending

Several salient differences exist between the Palenquero and Spanish system of subject pronouns. Unlike Spanish, Palenquero has sets of both full and reduced forms. The reduced pronouns are not simply free variants of their full counter­ parts, but are rather morphophonemically conditioned proclitic markers that depend on a verb (Schwegler in press c). As regards form, the Palenquero and Spanish pronoun systems overlap in many but not all respects.

29) The word order of Span, lo is dictated by a host of dialectal, stylistic, and other factors; in most dialects of Spanish, including the coastal Colombian variety to which Palenquero Spanish belongs, both preverbal and postverbal lo are common. 30) For some linguists, "any linguistic feature can be transfered from any language to any other language" (Thomason and Kaufman 1988: 14), an assertion which flatly contradicts most traditional views on the subject. Few, if any linguists, would, however, argue against the notion that it is true that some kinds of features transfer more easily from one language to the other. It goes without saying that, in my view, the transfer of sequencing rules of Spanish object pronouns (lo, me, etc.) to Palenquero grammar would readily fall within the category of "easily transferable features".

THE MYTH OF DECREOLIZATION

429

To illustrate further the Creole's resistance to restructuring, this section will concentrate on some of these formal similarities and dissimilarities, thus leaving aside other, mostly functional aspects in which the Spanish and Palenquero systems diverge. To start off the discussion, let us examine the pro­ nominal paradigms of the two languages in question. I list regional dialectal Spanish forms so as to offer a more realistic comparison (thus dialectal uté rather than usted is given to show that Pal. uté exhibits a closer formal correspondence than a comparison with the standard Spanish system would suggest). The pronominal paradigms are considerably simplified in order to focus the discussion (for instance, Figure 3 lists only full forms of Palenquero subject pronouns, omitting altogether the reduced forms i 'I',  'you', etc.).

3sg.

Palenquero yo bo uté ele

Spanish (dial, forms) yo tú uté él, ella

lpl. 2pl. 32k_

suto ute(d)e31 ané

nosotro(s), nosotra(s) ute(d)e ello(s), ella(s)

lsg. 2sg.

informal formal

Figure 3: Palenquero and Spanish subject pronouns (greatly simplified) Spanish and Palenquero formally share three pronouns. These are: yo (1st sg.), uté (2d sg., form of respect), and utere (2d pl.). Complete homophony between Palenquero and Spanish forms also obtains in the third singular, i.e. Pal. ele 'he, she', when the form undergoes apocope to el' in prevocalic position (cp. Pal. el' a labá 's/he has washed' with Span, él ha lavado 'he has washed'). Due to the relatively complex phonetic behavior of Pal. ele, it is best to omit it from the discussion, and to concentrate instead on Spanish/Palenquero pronominal pairs that either always or never exhibit complete formal similarity. Complete and consistent formal dissimilarity is observed in the following sets: Pal. bo vs. Span, tú (2d sg.), 32 Pal. suto vs. Span, nosotro(s) (1st pl.), and Pal. ané vs. Span, ellos, ellas (3d pl.). Figure 4 offers a convenient, though admittedly simplified, contrastive analysis of the formal similarities and dissimilarities between Palenquero and Spanish pronouns.

31) Also commonly articulated utere. 32) Palenque and the Cartagena area in general do not use the regional Spanish pronoun vos, found extensively in many parts of Latin America. Pal. bo cannot, therefore, be considered a (recent) borrowing from Spanish.

430

ARMIN SCHWEGLER

FORMAL SIMILARITY (HOMOPHONY) Palenquero and Spanish (dial, forms) yo uté ute(d)e

lsg. 2sg. formal 2pl.

FORMAL DISSIMILARITY 2sg. lpl. informal 3pl.

bo suto ané

tú nosotro(s), nosotra(s) ello(s), ella(s)

Figure 4: Formal similarities and dissimilarities between Palenquero and Spanish subject pronouns —As explained below, the formally different forms (e.g. Pal. bo and Span, tú) are never interchanged.

What is truly remarkable about pronoun usage in Palenque is that bilinguals never fully blend the two systems, that is, Spanish tú, ella, nosotros, nosotras, ellos, and ellas never "invade" the Palenquero pronominal paradigm: one never finds, for instance, hybrid Palenquero constructions like *tú kelé (for b kelé) 'you want', *nosotro a ndrumí (for suto a ndrumi) 'we slept', *ello a miní (for ané a miní) 'they came', etc. In light of the intense and prolonged bilingualism, and considering the already existing overlap of part of the pronominal systems of the two languages (cp. yo, uté, ute(d)e above), this absence of hybridization is indeed unexpected, and demands an explanation. 7.

Reasons for resistance to restructuring

Since neither structural factors nor language universal theories can explain why Palenquero has stubbornly resisted restructuring over the past one hundred years, one looks for external (social) causes to account for the unexpected stability. Scholars have not been particularly successful at developing clear-cut criteria for establishing why some languages resist restructuring more tenaciously than others: "predicting the results of contact-induced change in any detail is far beyond our present ability, given the kinds of evidence now avail­ able about contact languages" (Thomason and Kaufman 1988: 213).34 As far as

33) There is no evidence to suggest that the already overlapping forms (yo, uté, ute(d)e) are the result of a recent innovation. Pronominal usage in Palenque has undergone some change over the past one hundred years (Schwegler 1993, in press c), but none of that change has involved the forms discussed here. 34) As Hamel points out, "several studies have elaborated on theoretical arguments why weak predictability — based on the principle of causality — of macro-sociological perspectives was not so much a question of methodological refinement, but rather a

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Palenque is concerned, I can offer no particularly convincing explanation for the steadfastness of the creole system, nor would I hazard any guesses as to whether the two local languages will continue to co-exist in the state of mutual impermeability that has characterized their recent history (furthermore, given the imminent threat of language death in Palenque, we may never find out!). I have resisted listing the broad social and psychological circumstances under which the language shift in Palenque has occurred, and have readily acknowledged that I am unable to isolate a specific set of factors whose presence would explain the surprising diachronic stability of Palenquero gram­ mar. I do wish to mention, however, that one explanation which invites consid­ eration is not, upon closer examination, really plausible. That is, it could be argued that the Palenqueros, for whom the creole has undoubtedly been the dominant identity marker for several centuries, have "protected" their local language against "foreign" (Spanish) influence in order to safeguard their cultural unity. But such an explanation is fraught with serious problems, brought to a head by the following question: if Palenquero had indeed been made impermeable to externally-induced change (grammatical borrowing from Spanish) so as to preserve the identity and culture of its speakers, why then has the language become subject to such widespread abandonment?35 It is, of course, generally true that "the more important it is for a particular ethnolinguistic group to maintain its 'culture and traditions', the more salient and personally important language becomes for the group" (Lambert 1979: 187). But, as I suggested, strong socio-cultural identity and in-group unity continues unabated in Palenque, notwithstanding encroaching hegemony of the dominant language. Thus, an explanation for the ongoing shift in language loyalty cannot plausibly be attributed to changes in Palenqueros' ethnic or social self-percep­ tion.36 Ryan (1979: 155) is, of course, right in concluding that low-prestige speech varieties (like Palenquero) persist basically because its speakers do not want to give them up. But herein precisely lies the crux of the problem: if recent bilingual generations of Palenqueros have been so open to outside influences (cultural, socio-psychological, etc.), why have they not also permitted their

fundamental theoretical problem about the relationship between macro-societal factors and linguistic behavior" (1996: 65). For references to and a discussion of such works, see Hamel. 35) Stigmatization in and of itself is not a sufficient causal factor for language abandonment. As Gal points out in her excellent book on language shift in Austria, "regardless of stigmati­ zation, people continue to use these varieties, at least in in-group contexts. For minority speakers, these varieties symbolize not only group solidarity but also positive values associ­ ated with the group, including, for instance, feelings of sincerity, toughness or reliability" (1979: 13). 36) In the past, choice of language (i.e. the selection between Palenquero and Spanish) undoubtedly symbolized community membership in verbal interaction. But today this is clearly no longer the case, as monolinguals and bilinguals are equally integrated into the Palenquero community. Choice of language may, however, still convey one's social status.

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creole language to be permeated by "foreign", i.e. Spanish (or Spanish-like) elements?

8.

Implications for further research

As regards degrees of restructuring in creole languages — the central topic of this volume —, Palenquero is a troublesome case indeed. Here is a situation of a socially simple (non-complex) case: Although eager for cultural and linguistic assimilation, Palenqueros have been and continue to be a geolinguistic and social island. They have, in a sense, always been allowed to determine their own social destiny. Given the prolonged heavy bilingualism and centuries-old intensive code-switching, the Palenqueros have had ample opportunity to "adjust" the structure of their local language to the superstrate. Yet they have not done so, keeping the systems neatly separate for at least a century. The Palenqueros always know when they are speaking creole and when Spanish. This is, therefore, not a case where the grammars of the two languages merge, though this may not be obvious to the casual observer unfamiliar with the intri­ cacies of local speech. Strange as it may seem, in Palenque, extended heavy bilingualism and, more recently, change (shift) in language preference has effected no discernible language change in the creole. Palenquero has not, for instance, become more heterogeneous by introducing variant hybrid elements — elements that could have competed with established creole forms (thus, the introduction of a hypo­ thetical, Spanish-like future marker *va could have led to greater synchronic heterogeneity, as future tan (creole) would have co-existed with hybrid *va).37 Nor have the social changes of the last century produced linguistic diversifica­ tion in any of the expected fashions — cross-breeding of forms, decreolization, etc. The implications of these findings are more significant and far-ranging than may seem at first. As regards the origins of Latin American Spanish, it has been argued that the currently available evidence suggests that "no major inno­ vation in pronunciation, morphology or syntax [...] is due exclusively to the former presence of speakers of African languages or of any form of AfroHispanic language, creole or otherwise" (Lipski 1994: 133). But, as the Palenquero situation reveals, for reasons yet to be determined, a creole can remain essentially unaffected by superstrate influence, even if the bilingualism 37) As Gal rightly points out, "language shift shares the characteristics of other kinds of linguistic change: it arises out of synchronic heterogeneity; it is quantitative before it becomes categorical; and it is closely linked to broad social changes through the changing self-identification of speakers and through the changing association of some linguistic forms with prestigious and others with stigmatized social groups" (1979: 153).

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is prolonged, unusually intense, and involves rapid and constant code-switching. It seems logical to conclude, therefore, that if Palenquero disappears without leaving multiple traces in local superstrate Spanish, the often-noted paucity of creole or creole-like features in popular Caribbean Spanish cannot be taken as prima facie evidence for the alleged non-existence of a former, much more widespread Afro-Caribbean creole similar to Palenquero (pace Lipski 1994: Chap. 4; Lorenzino et al 1998; Schwegler 1996b). The main question I raise in this paper is this: why has Palenquero resisted decreolization for so long? Or, to put it somewhat differently: why has there not been significant transfer (convergence) from Spanish to Palenquero, thus effecting greater structural similarity in one or several aspects of grammar of the two languages in contact? The answer requires extensive research on the current and recent socio-linguistic situation of Palenque. Such a study — or studies — would permit more ambitious analyses and explanations than have been attempted here. Hopefully, the proposed line of research would combine ethnography with discourse analysis to demonstrate empirically how discourse strategies and cultural models have, on the one hand, led to the ongoing change in language preference, and, on the other, produced a situation in which Palenqueros, despite their extended history of heavy bilingualism, effected no discernible language change (decreolization) in the local vernacular. As part of this new body of research, future investigations might profit from Hamel's (1996) illuminating work on language conflict and language shift. Following his lead, scholars will want to attempt to broaden our understanding of language shift by focusing not on the outcome, but on the process of dislocation. The sociolinguistic relationship between Spanish and Palenquero, the phases, dynamics, and mechanisms of the generational shift to Spanish, and the relation between macro-societal factors and linguistic behavior are all issues that will have to be analyzed and debated if we hope to reach a satisfactory understanding of how the Palenqueros' current linguistic habitus came about. Finally, a word of caution so as to check any undue optimism in the search for "external" explanations for the Palenquero situation. Future scholars will do well to keep in mind that attitudinal and other social factors that condi­ tion contact situations across time vary in ways that are neither "predictable" nor "verifiable" in the scientific sense of the term. That is, even if it were true that Palenqueros' religious beliefs explicitly prohibited them from changing their local creole (a hypothetical condition that I know to be false), we still would have no means of proving that local religious traditions indeed caused the observed linguistic inertia. Nonetheless, even though we should not expect future hypotheses to constitute "absolute proof', we certainly should continue to raise the obvious, but baffling question: why has Palenquero remained so resistant to change?

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References [No editor]. 1995. Afro-Latin Americans Today. No Longer Invisible. London: Minority Rights Publications. Arrázola, Roberto. 1970. Palenque, primer pueblo libre de América: historia de las sublevaciones de los esclavos de Cartagena. Cartagena: Ediciones Hernández. Bickerton, Derek and Aquiles Escalante. 1970. "Palenquero: A Spanish-based creole of northern Colombia". Lingua 24: 254-67. Dieck, Marianne, in press. "Distribución y escopo de la negación en palenquero". In Yves Moñino, Alfonso Múnera and Armin Schwegler, eds. in press. Escalante, Aquiles. 1979 [1954]. El Palenque de San Basilio. Barranquilla: Editorial Mejoras. —. 1964. El negro en Colombia. Bogotá: Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Friedemann, Nina S. de. 1987 [1979]. Ma ngombe. Guerreros y ganaderos en Palenque. Bogotá: Carlos Valencia Editores. Friedemann, Nina S. de and Carlos Patiño Rosselli. 1983. Lengua y sociedad en el Palenque de San Basilio. Bogotá: Instituto Caro y Cuervo. Gal, Susan. 1979. Language Shift. Social Determinants of Linguistic Change in Bilingual Austria. New York: Academic Press. Giles, Howard and Robert N. St Clair, eds. 1979. Language and Social Psychology. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Granda, German de. 1968. "La tipología 'criolla' de dos hablas del área lingüística hispánica". Thesaurus 23: 193-205. [Reprinted in Granda 1988: 21-30] —. 1977. Estudios sobre un área dialectal hispanoamericana de población negra. Las tierras bajas de Colombia. Bogotá: Instituto Caro y Cuervo. —. 1978. Estudios lingüísticos hispánicos, afrohispánicos y criollos. Madrid: Gredos. —. 1988. Lingüística e historia. Valladolid: Universidad de Valladolid. —. 1994. Español de América, español de Africa y hablas criollas hispánicas. Cambios, contactos y contextos. Madrid: Editorial Gredos. Gutiérrez Azopardo, Ildefonso. 1980. Historia del negro en Colombia. ¿Sumisión o rebeldía? Bogotá: Editorial ABC. Hamel, Rainer Enrique. 1996. "Language, discourse, and cultural models: three levels of language shift and maintenance". Southwest Journal of Linguistics 15: 63-88. Holm, John A. 1988. Pidgins and Creoles. Vol. I: Theory and Structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lambert, Wallace E. 1979. "Language as a factor in intergroup relations". In Howard Giles and Robert N. St Clair, eds. 1979: 186-92. Lipski, John M. 1994. Latin American Spanish. New York: Longman. —. 1997. "El lenguaje de los negros congos de Panamá y el lumbalú palenquero de Colombia: función sociolingüística de criptolectos afrohispánicos". América Negra 14: 147-65. Lipski, John M. and Armin Schwegler. 1993. "Creole Spanish and Afro-Hispanic". In John N. Green and Rebecca Posner, eds. Bilingualism and Linguistic Conflict in Romance. Mouton de Gruyter: Berlin, 407-32.

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Lorenzino, Gerardo, Alexandra Álvarez, Enrique Obediente and Germán de Granda. 1998. "El español caribeño: antecedentes sociohistóricos y lingüísticos". In Matthias Perl and Armin Schwegler, eds. 1998: 25-69. Megenney, William W. 1986. El palenquero. Un lenguaje post-criollo de Colombia. Bogotá: Instituto Caro y Cuervo. Moñino, Yves, Alfonso Múñera and Armin Schwegler, eds. in press. Palenque, Cartagena y Afro-Caribe: historia y lingüística. Bogotá: Ancora. Montes Giraldo, José Joaquín de. 1962. "Sobre el habla de San Basilio de Palenque (Bolívar, Colombia)". Thesaurus 17: 446-50. Mühlhäusler, Peter. 1997. Pidgin and Creole Linguistics (2nd edition). London: University of Westminster Press. Ochoa Franco, J. V. 1945. Consideraciones generales sobre costumbres y lenguaje palenqueros (Precedidas de un estudio sobre el indio goajiro). Cartagena: Dirección de Educación Pública de Bolívar. Patino Rosselli, Carlos. 1996. "Relaciones de contacto del criollo palenquero de Colombia". Signo y Seña (Buenos Aires) 6: 381-413. —. 1997. "El lenguaje de los afrocolombianos (Parte II)". América Negra 14: 127-44. Perl, Matthias and Armin Schwegler, eds. 1998. América negra: panorámica actual de los estudios lingüísticos sobre variedades hispanas, portuguesas y criollas. Frankfurt: Vervuert; Madrid: Iberoamericana. Rickford, John. 1987. Dimensions of a Creole Continuum. Stanford: Stanford University Press. —. 1998. "The creole origins of African American vernacular English: evidence from copula absence". In Salikoko Mufwene, John Rickford, Guy Bailey and John Baugh, eds. African-American English: Structure, History and Use. London: Routledge, 154-200. Ryan, Ellen Bouchard. 1979. "Why do low-prestige language varieties persist?" In Howard Giles and Robert N. St Clair, eds. 1979: 145-57. Schneider, Edgar W. 1989. American Earlier Black English. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. Schwegler, Armin. 1991a. "Negation in Palenquero: Synchrony". Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 6: 165-214. —. 1991b. "El habla cotidiana del Chocó (Colombia)". América Negra 2: 85-119. —. 1992a. "Future and conditional in Palenquero". Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 7: 223-59. —. 1992b. "Hacia una arqueología afrocolombiana: Restos de tradiciones religiosas bantúes en una comunidad negroamericana". América Negra 4: 35-82. —. 1993. "Subject pronouns and person/number in Palenquero". In Frank Byrne and John Holm, eds. Atlantic meets Pacific: A Global View of Pidginization and Creolization. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 145-61. —. 1996a. "Chi ma nkongo": lengua y rito ancestrales en El Palenque de San Basilio (Colombia). Frankfurt: Vervuert; Madrid: Iberoamericana. —. 1996b. "Lenguas criollas en Hispanoamérica y la contribución africana al español de América". Signo y Seña (Buenos Aires) 6: 295-346.

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—. 1996c. "La doble negación dominicana y la génesis del español caribeño". Hispanic Linguistics 8: 246-315. —. 1998. "Palenquero". In Matthias Perl and Armin Schwegler, eds. 1998: 218-91. —. 1999. "Monogenesis revisited: The Spanish perspective". In John Rickford and Suzanne Romaine, eds. Creole Genesis, Discourse and Attitudes: Studies Celebrating Charlene Sato. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 235-262. —. in press a. "The African vocabulary of Palenque (Colombia). Part 1 : Introduction and corpus of previously undocumented Afro-Palenquerisms". Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 15 (2). —. in press b. "El vocabulario africano de Palenque (Colombia). Segunda Parte: compendio de palabras (con etimologías)". In Moñino, Múñera and Schwegler, eds. in press. —. in press c. "On the (African) origins of Palenquero subject pronouns". To appear in Diachronica. —. in press d. "La descodificación de las canciones fúnebres afrohispanas "lumbalú" del Palenque de San Basilio (Colombia)". Thesaurus. —. in press e. "Creolistics in Latin America: Past, present, and future". In Glenn Gilbert, ed. Pidgin and Creole Linguistics in the 21st Century. Frankfurt, New York: Peter Lang. Sebba, Mark. 1997. Contact Languages: Pidgins and Creoles. London: MacMillan Press. Thomason, Sarah Grey. 1995. "Language mixture: ordinary processes, extraordinary results". In Carmen Silva-Corvalán, ed. Spanish in Four Continents. Studies in Language Contact and Bilingualism. Washington: Georgetown University, 15-33. Thomason, Sarah Grey and Terrence Kaufman. 1988. Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics. Berkeley: University of California Press. West, R.  1957. The Pacific Lowlands of Colombia. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University. Winford, Don. 1997a. "On the origins of African American vernacular English — A creolist perspective. Part I: The sociohistorical background". Diachronica 14: 305-44. —. 1997b. "Re-examining Caribbean English creole continua". In Salikoko Mufwene, ed. The English-to-pidgin Continuum (= World Englishes, 16). Oxford, Cambridge, MA.: Blackwell, 233-79. —. 1998. "On the origins of African American vernacular English — A creolist perspective. Part II: Linguistic features". Diachronica 15: 99-154. Armin Schwegler University of California, Irvine Dept. of Spanish and Portuguese Irvine, CA 92697-5275 USA [email protected]

Bozal Spanish: Restructuring or creolization?

John M. Lipski University ofNew Mexico

1.

Introduction

Afro-Hispanic pidgin as spoken by bozales (African-born slaves who spoke Spanish only imperfectly) was by and large a transitory phenomenon, emerging in different guises in each Afro-Hispanic speech community and reconverging with native varieties of Spanish within a single generation. Claims to the effect that Afro-Caribbean bozal Spanish, particularly from 19th century Cuba, coalesced into a true creole are in large measure overstated, although creolization undoubtedly occurred in isolated slave barracks and maroon communities (Lipski 1998a). Contact with other Caribbean creole languages, spoken by workers imported from neighboring islands during the sugar plantation boom of the mid 19th century, also gave rise to hybrid sociolects containing creoloid elements which could be confused with the results of true restructuring of bozal Spanish (Lipski 1996b). There is, however, at least one case of incipient restructuring of bozal Spanish, found among the large numbers of Yoruba-speaking lucumies and kiKongo-speaking congos who arrived in 19th century Cuba. The present study examines two incipient innovations in 19th century Afro-Cuban bozal Spanish: (1) the beginnings of a new verb system, based on a combination of Yoruba-like constructions and hybrid combinations; (2) the use of pleonastic object clitics, particularly lo, in cliticdoubled constructions, and even with intransitive and unaccusative verbs. These configurations emerged in Cuban bozal Spanish during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, only to disappear as subsequent generations of Afro-Cubans acquired Spanish natively. The incorporation of these constructions into AfroCuban Spanish — even for a generation or two — did not represent incipient creolization, primarily because there was never a substantial INTERRUPTION in the transmission of Spanish across generations, a sine qua non for creole formation. The presence of a homogeneous substrate combined with ready access to native and quasi-native models of Spanish created the beginnings of an interlanguage in which African morphosyntactic features were smoothly

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grafted onto a full Spanish grammatical basis. This interlanguage restructuring never reached completion because the rapid elimination of the African slave trade and the dispersal of African-born slaves throughout Spanish-speaking Cuba resulted in the rapid loss of Yoruba and kiKongo among successive generations of Afro-Cubans as the coherent African language-speaking communities disappeared. If this Yoruba- and kiKongo-influenced restructuring had proceeded further, Afro-Cuban Spanish would look more like vernacular Andean Spanish rather than resembling Afro-Iberian creoles.

2.

The African background

2.1.

Afro-Cuban demographics

Slaves in colonial Cuba were drawn from all parts of Africa, as well as from other Caribbean territories, but at least during the 19th century, the majority of the bozal population came from a handful of well-delimited geographical and ethnic regions of Africa. Curtin (1969: 247) gave the following proportional breakdown for slaves imported into Cuba in the period 1817-1843, which represents the most intense period of slave importation in the entire history of Spanish America:1 (1)

Bight of Benin (Yoruba, Fon, etc.): Mozambique (Macuá, etc.) : Northern Congo: Angola/Congo: Bight of Biafra (Igbo, Ijo, etc.): Sierra Leone :

31.1% 29.5% 13.0% 11.3% 9.9% 3.3%

Eltis (1977: 419) gives a somewhat different breakdown:

1) Curtin's figures are a bit strange, especially the reference to Mozambique, which according to his data supplied nearly 30% of the slaves imported to Cuba during the first half of the 19th century. It is known that towards the end of the slave trade, Mozambique and other east African venues rose in importance in supplying the Atlantic slave trade, particularly to Portuguese possessions, but there is no evidence that such a high proportion of southeast African slaves ever arrived in Cuba. In particular, the linguistic panorama is quite bare as regards the possible influence of Mozambican languages in the development of bozal Spanish in the Caribbean.

BOZAL SPANISH: RESTRUCTURING OR CREOLIZATION? (2) 1826-30 1831-35 1836-40 1841-43

West Guinea 34.8 18.7 28.8 34.0

Bt. of Benin 20.9 18.7 24.3 36.0

Bt. of Biafra 44.2 46.2 21.9 3.1

439

North Angola SE Congo Africa 6.6 6.5 22.0

9.8 3.5 —

14.9 5.0

Moreno Fraginals (1978, vol II: 9) estimated that during the period 1850-60, bozales on Cuban sugar estates represented the following ethnic divisions, according to Cuban usage: (3)

Lucumí: Carabalí: Congo: Gangá: Mina: Bibí: Other groups:

34.52% 17.37% 16.71% 11.45% 3.93% 2.84% 13.18%

These figures demonstrate the high concentration of speakers of Kwa languages, the Congo-Benue languages of Nigeria (especially Yoruba and the Efik/Ibibio/Ijo cluster), and of Congo Basin languages, during the peak of the sugar plantation boom in the first half of the 19th century, during which more than 8 5 % of the total number of Africans were taken to Cuba. What is not revealed by the demographic data is the high degree of coherence exhibited by these Afro-Cuban communities, in which African languages and cultures were maintained to a degree never witnessed during earlier periods of slavery. As late as the final decades of the 19th century, Gallenga (1873: 79-80) estimated that "fully one-third of the slaves at present working on the sugar estates in the island are natives of Africa; while, had Spain been willing or able to fulfil her obligations, no African negro less than fifty-eight years of age ought to be found in the plantations". African-born slaves were known as negros de nación in the Spanish Caribbean, and they formed religious and social organizations known as cabildos, some of which continue to exist. The lucumies (Yoruba speakers) and the congos (speaking kiKongo and related languages) represented hegemonic cultures in Africa, and were among the most prominent of the AfroCuban cabildos. The influence of these societies was such that speakers of other African languages were drawn into their midst, acquiring some of the linguistic attributes of these leading Kwa and Bantu languages and imparting these same traits to their acquisition of pidginized Spanish. The closest any sociolect of Afro-Cuban Spanish ever came to grammatical restructuring occurred among the thousands of Yoruba-speaking lucumies who arrived in Cuba during the first half of the 19th century. Given their prominence in santería rituals, as well as the extensive observations by Lydia Cabrera, the language and culture of Yorubas in Cuba is well enough documented as to hazard some hypotheses as to

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their approximations to received Spanish. The contributions of the baKongo and related peoples in Cuba are not as well known; numerous lexical items of kiKongo origin have been conclusively identified (Cabrera 1984; Granda 1973a, 1973b; Schwegler 1999), but there is almost no direct evidence as to the characteristics of Spanish pidgin as used by kiKongo speakers. 2.2.

The Yoruba language in Cuba

The Yoruba language in Cuba represents a conservative and archaic form of varieties currently spoken in Nigeria (cf. Olmsted 1953; Yai 1978). In this respect, it is similar to vestigial forms of Yoruba spoken in Trinidad (WarnerLewis 1971, 1982) and Brazil (Silva 1958). Cabrera (1970c) provides the most extensive vocabulary; she deliberately avoided comparing her results with Yoruba as spoken in Africa, in order to record what was actually used in Cuba. Lucumî/Yoruba culture in Cuba provided the most extensive syncretic religious tradition, enshrined in Cuban santería. The coherence of the Yoruba culture and its transplantation nearly intact to Cuban soil gave to the term lucumi one of the most coherent ethnolinguistic identifications in Afro-Cuban society. To this day, many older Afro-Cubans know and use lucumi words, and Cubans of all races participate in Yoruba-based religious ceremonies. 2.3.

Bantu languages in Cuba

Despite the term congo used to designate an Afro-Cuban ethnic group, more than the BaKongo people (speaking kiKongo) were covered by this designation. The Bantu languages of the former Portuguese Congo and coastal Angola are closely related in terms of structure, and share much cognate vocabulary. In Cuba the congos were closely identified with the palo mayombe rituals (Cabrera 1979), but by all evidence had comparatively less effect on the daily culture of the diverse Afro-Cuban population. Given the grammatical congruence among the Bantu languages found in 19th century Cuba, it is likely that Bantu speakers as a group employed similar strategies when acquiring Spanish, and that instances of substratal interference found in one idiolect would readily be comprehended by speakers of neighboring Bantu languages. It is therefore more useful to speak of a Bantu linguistic presence in Cuba (although Schwegler 1999 affirms that kiKongo was virtually the only contributor), with the understanding that this includes only the closely related group of coastal languages and cultures stretching from the former Portuguese Congo through central Angola.

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3.

441

Development of preverbal particles in Afro-Cuban pidgin

The principal Yoruba contribution to Afro-Cuban consisted of a few dozen lexical items, some of which have survived as part of santería rituals. During the period of most intense acquisition of Spanish by Yoruba speakers, incipient restructuring of the Afro-Cuban verb system was a probable concomitant of the bozal generation, and quite possibly at least the first Cuban-born generation of lucumies. Spanish-Yoruba verbs were based on the PARTICLE + STEM structure of Yoruba verbs, and were of two kinds. The first were innovative verbs based entirely on Spanish words, and employing preverbal particles restructured from Spanish auxiliary verbs and sentential adverbs, together with phonologically reduced infinitives. The second were formed by combining Spanish particles with Yoruba stems, variously derived from Yoruba verbs and nouns. The gradual and partial restructuring of Spanish forms to create preverbal particles was particularly easy, given the fortuitous existence of AUXILIARY + INFINITIVE combinations in Spanish, together with independent processes of phonetic erosion which reduced auxiliaries to monosyllables and infinitives to phonotactic configurations compatible with Yoruba verbs. Of the possible exis­ tence of preverbal particles in Yoruba-derived Afro-Cuban Spanish, the most suggestive element is ta, acting variously as imperfective, progressive, or habitual particle:2 (4)

- Siempre ta regalá dinero a mí 'He always gives me money' (Caballero 1852) - Horita ta beni pa cá 'Now [she] is coming here' (Ignacio Villa, "Drumi, Mobila"; Guirao 1938: 183-6) - Como que yo ta cuchá la gente que habla tanto ... yo ta mira gente mucho 'Since I heard that the people were talking so much ... I watched the people a lot' (Cabrera Paz 1973) - Primero ta llorá na má. 'He's just crying, that's all' (Santa Cruz 1908) - Sí, páe, yo ta robá un gaina jabá. 'Yes father, I stole the speckled chicken' (Cabrera 1976) - Cuando ojo ta llorá a narice toca su parte. 'When the eyes are crying, the nose does its part' (Cabrera 1970b)

2) In a few cases it might be possible to argue that spontaneous developments took place, e.g. when ta is clearly derived from esta{r) where erosion of gerund is involved: - Que to mi cuepo me etá temblá 'My whole body is trembling' (Cabrera 1979) - pavo real ta bucán palo 'the peacock is looking for [a] tree' (Cabrera 1983) - yo está cortá un cañas 'I am cutting [sugar] cane' (Ismael Consuegra Guzmán, "Yo está cortá un cañas" [Feijóo 1979]). In other cases, however, the verbs in question are habitual or durative, contexts where Spanish would not use any combination involving estar. This residue is among the few sure indicators of an infusion of creole elements into bozal language.

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- Ya branco ta debaratá cosa 'The white people are destroying everything' (Cabrera 1970a) - pavo real ta bucá palo 'The peacock is looking for a tree' (Cabrera 1983) - Ta juí, ta pujá mí, siñó 'He fled, he pushed me, sir' (Suárez y Romero 1947)

The particle ta, found in nearly all Ibero-Romance derived creoles in Africa, Asia, the Pacific, and the Caribbean, is undoubtedly derived from the Spanish / Portuguese copula cum auxiliary verb estar, most probably the third person singular form está, regularly reduced to ta in colloquial speech. In Spanish, the auxiliary estar combines only with the gerund in -ndo to form progressive tenses (e.g. estoy trabajando 'I am working', estamos comiendo 'we are working'), and with the adjectival past participle in predicate adjective constructions (e.g. estás equivocado 'you are wrong', estoy convencido 'I am convinced'). In the Afro-Hispanic examples, ta typically combines with an invariant stem derived from the Spanish infinitive lacking final /v/, an established phonetic reduction which began as early as the 16th century (Lipski 1995). In Spanish, estar never combines directly with the infinitive.3 Although some investigators have suggested an earlier pidgin/creole Portuguese basis for preverbal ta in Afro-Cuban Spanish, the direct evidence is scarce and problematic (Lipski 1987, 1992). A more probable source for some instances of ta is Papiamentu, which was present in 19th century Cuba and Puerto Rico as thousands of sugar cane cutters were taken from other Caribbean islands during the sugar plantation boom. Pockets of Papiamentu speakers are documented for Cuba and Puerto Rico, and other Papiamentu elements penetrated Afro-Cuban Spanish (Lipski 1993a, 1996b). Another source of ta + Vinf constructions in Afro-Caribbean Spanish is phonetic reduction of the gerund, suggested by such half-reduced constructions as pavo real TA bucán palo (Cabrera 1983) 'the peacock is looking for [a] tree'. Finally, the frequent use of a bare uninflected infinitive (lacking final Ivi) in Afro-Cuban pidgin provided a ready foundation upon which preverbal particles such as ta could be grafted (Lipski 1993a). Yoruba shares with other languages of the Kwa and Nigerian CongoBenue families a series of monosyllabic preverbal particles used to mark tense/aspect and mood. In Yoruba these combine with an invariant verb, normally a monosyllabic stem of the shape CV, together with some bisyllabic verbs. The Yoruba particle corresponding to the Spanish progressive is n, a

3) Contemporary European (and Angolan) Portuguese uses estar a + INFINITIVE (e.g. estou a trabalhar 'I am working') in progressive constructions, almost totally replacing the earlier gerundive progressives. However, this construction is virtually unattested before the mid-19th century, is not found in Brazilian Portuguese, and was never found in Spanish (cf. Lipski 1987).

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high-toned syllabic nasal, which assimilates in point of articulation to a following non-coronal consonant: (5)

kil'f é 'what are you doing?' mo n jeun 'I am eating'

Crucially, in Yoruba n is also used to mark habitual, as opposed to the past/aorist meaning associated with the bare verb stem. Rowlands (1969: 60) notes that Yoruba speakers acquiring English tend to use the English progressive with habitual meaning. Salazar (1978: 654-5) compares Yoruba particle combinations with homologous constructions in several creoles. In the Afro-Hispanic corpus, there are many examples of ta + Vinf with habitual non­ progressive meaning: (6)

- Siempre ta regalá dinero a mí 'He always gives me money' (Caballero 1852) - Lamo ta regañá mí, yo siempre con soramienta no cuchá ... 'The master always scolds me, annoyed, I never listen' (Cabrera Paz 1973) - Sí, que progrosa son buey, poque cuando nei ta veni ya yo no tiene que da vueta y vueta y vueta lo trapiche 'Oxen are very dangerous, because when they come, I don't have to turn the sugar mill' (Cabrera 1976) - soldao ta cabrón, mambí piliando con machete afila y cortá cabeza 'The soldiers are bastards, Mambís fighting with sharp machetes, cutting off heads' (Acosta-Rubio 1976)

These examples, while not readily derivable from Spanish gerundival progres­ sives, are completely compatible with homologous Yoruba constructions, as well as those in other Kwa languages, particularly those known to have been spoken in 19th century Cuba. They are also consistent with Papiamentu usage, where ta signals habitual aspect as well as progressive, unlike most other IberoRomance derived creoles. The final example, in which ta behaves as a copula followed by a (perhaps adjectivized) predicate nominal coincides with Papiamentu, the only Spanish/Portuguese-based creole in which ta exhibits this behavior. Indeed, Papiamentu is relatively unique in using the same copula -tafor four discrete functions: (i) with verbs, to indicate progressive or imperfective action (mi ta bini 'I am coming/I come'); (ii) with predicate adjectives (trabao ta pisá 'the work is heavy'); (iii) with predicate nominais (mi ta homber 'I am a man'); (iv) with locative predicates (e ta na cas 'he/she is at home') (Stassen 1997: 142-3). This same cluster of properties is also found in several key bozal texts. However, it is the combination of progressive and habitual aspect in Afro-Hispanic ta-constructions that points most clearly to an incipient restructuring occurring as the result of intensive language contact.

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Less convincing cases have been made for preverbal ya as a past/perfective marker and for invariant va as a future/irrealis marker. Examples of preverbal va include: (7)

- yo va a contá a ti una cosa 'I'm going to tell you something' (Barnet 1966) - ¿y nélle lo muchachito va pendé su Paña de nuté? 'And those boys are going to depend on that Spain of yours?' (Morúa Delgado 1975) - ¿Qué yo te va a dicí ...? 'What can I say to you?' (Benítez del Cristo 1930) - Así yo no va murí 'I'm not going to die like that' (Cabrera 1971) - Ese otro yo me lo va yéun ... Yo va sabé si su boca no jabla mentira ... 'I'm not going to swallow [eat] that other one ... I'm going to find out if his mouth tells lies' (Cabrera 1983) - Cuanto yo va vini de filósofo bautizamiento ... 'How many philosophical baptisms will I have seen ..." (Francisco Fernández, El bautizo [Montes Huidobro 1987]) - yo va etá divrití nese casa 'I'm going to have a good time in that house' (Mellado y Montaña 1975) - Yo va matá mi materiá 'I'm going to finish off my material' (Rodríguez 1969)

Spanish and Portuguese commonly use a periphrastic future construction ir a + INFINITIVE; in Spanish the third person singular is va a + INFINITIVE, pronounced va + Vinf. Thus the Afro-Cuban examples could very well be unmodified Spanish structures, except for the use of the third person singular form as invariant particle. Some subtle cases of Afro-Hispanic va suggest that contact with Yoruba and other Nigerian languages gave this construction a boost in bozal speech. In standard Yoruba (essentially a 20th century creation), the future particle is yio (usually pronounced as yo); however in many vernacular varieties, the particle is á. This is very close to Spanish va, which in consonantweak Caribbean Spanish often loses its initial consonant in rapid speech.4 This fortuitous near-identity would reinforce an already prevalent Afro-Hispanic construction. In this case, Papiamentu influence can easily be ruled out, since Papiamentu uses preverbal lo (from Ptg. logo 'then, later'), which precedes subject pronouns (lo mi bai T will go').

4) A joke told in Cuba has a good-looking woman receiving the 'compliment' te amo 'I love you' from a couple of thugs on a street corner. However, one of the low-lifes explains the full meaning of this abbreviated expression: primero te [v\amo[s\ a robar, y luego te [v]amo\s\ a violar 'first we're going to rob you, then we're going to rape you'. This illustrates not only loss of final /s/, but also of initial [v]/[b] in the periphrastic future construction.

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Possible use of ya as preverbal particle in Afro-Cuban bozal texts include: (8)

- Ya mi llegá la bují... 'I arrived at the hut [bohío]' (Cabrera Paz 1973) - yo ta yorá poque Calota ya ta morí 'I'm crying because Carlota died' (Ignacio Villa, "Calota ta morí" [Guirao 1938]) - ya yo jablá mimo hoy don Ciriaco ... ya yo cucha a usté ... T talked to Don Ciriaco just today ... I heard you ...' (Benitez del Cristo 1930) - Señó acade, ya yo ve poquito menos 'Mister mayor, I saw a little bit less' (Berenguer y Sed 1929) —ya yo brubí T returned' (Villaverde 1981) -ya yo no casa cunelle T didn't marry him' (Francisco Fernández, Los negros catedráticos [Montes Huidobro 1987]) -ya yo no puedí aguanta má un sofocació de ese T can't stand that suffocation' (Mellado y Montaña 1975) - ¿ya sumercé vinió? 'Did your grace come?' (Villaverde 1979)

It is difficult to unequivocally assign particle status to these elements, since ya is a commonly-used sentential adverb in Spanish. In most instances, bozal ya occurs before subject pronouns (like Papiamento furure/irrealis lo) rather than preverbally, as is the case with the particle ya/ja in other Ibero-Romance based creóles, as well as representing the most usual configuration in Spanish. When the subject is a full NP, ya appears after the subject in most bozal texts. In some instances, the placement of these elements in immediately preverbal position, together with the lack of subject-verb agreement in the case of va and the presence of accompanying adverbs with ya may signal grammaticalization of these elements as preverbal particles. In Yoruba, the particle most closely corresponding to the bozal use of va is ti: (9)

ó ti lo sílé 'he/she has already gone home'

In Yoruba, ti can be translated as 'now, already' just as in Spanish (Rowlands 1969: 76). Virtually identical combinations are found in neighboring languages with which many Afro-Cuban bozales would have spoken either natively or through previous contacts in Nigeria. It is not unreasonable to expect that Yoruba-speaking Africans who were attempting to learn Spanish in Cuban slave quarters would instinctively construct verb phrases in an already familiar pattern. Since Spanish already provided a series of monosyllabic verbal adjuncts or auxiliaries which could occur in positions identical to those of Kwa preverbal particles, it was but a small step to the restructuring of such words as ta, ya, va, etc. to take on new functions. In many cases, Spanish speakers would not notice that a familiar item was being used in a modified fashion, and thus it may be that Cuban bozal language actually contained a more radically restructured verb system than is suggested by the selection of texts surveyed above.

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The main impediment to proposing that Yoruba ti and similar particles in other Kwa languages influenced the use of ya as a preverbal particle in bozal language is the frequent placement of ya before the subject, particularly with pronominal subjects. This does not correspond to particle usage in Yoruba, but rather reflects the role of ya as a sentential adverb in Spanish. The frequent use of ya before pronominal subjects not only in bozal texts but also in contemporary Caribbean Spanish reflects the acquisition of subject clitic status by pronominal subjects in this dialect cluster. The use of non-inverted questions with pronominal subjects, of the sort ¿Qué ud quieres? 'What do you want?', provides additional evidence that monosyllabic pronominal subjects in vernacular Caribbean Spanish are becoming subject clitics, and therefore that they cannot be separated from the verb by adverbs or other adjuncts, but only by negative elements and object clitics (cf. Heap 1990a, 1990b, 1991).

4.

Creation of hybrid Spanish-Yoruba verbs in Afro-Cuban pidgin

A documented strategy employed by Yoruba-speaking bozales in 19th century Cuba (and presumably — although no written documentation exists — by speakers of other African languages) was the free creation of hybrid structures, employing a Spanish (or pidgin Spanish) morphosyntactic frame with an African lexical core. Thus in Lachatañeré's (Oh, mío Yemayá! [1938]) we find the Yoruba/Spanish chant: (10)

A la mofilé Changó tá mole ...

From Lydia Cabrera's writings come: (11)

- ¿Por qué tú coge owo Elégbara? Si é mimo dici tú ta olé y é te va agarra pinado su papalote ... 'Why did you take Elégbara's money? He says that you are a thief and he's going to catch you stealing his kite'(Cabrera 1983) - Ese otro yo me lo va yéun y a Migué no pasa ná ... 'I'm going to eat that other one and nothing will happen to Miguel' (Cabrera 1983) - Olofi ya okuó, Olofi ta mirando, ya ikú. 'Olofì died, Olofi is watching, he died' (Cabrera 1983) - Olofi no está aro. Olofí está óddara. 'Olofi is not bad [crippled]. Olofi is good' (Cabrera 1983) - Cómo va sé mano branco, si ta afé, ta prieto yo ... 'How can it be a white hand, since I'm brown, I'm black' (Cabrera 1970a) - Vamo siré 'Let's play' (Cabrera 1970a) - Mañana yo ikú 'Tomorrow I will die' (Cabrera 1970a)

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From the Afro-Cuban song 'Elegua quiere tambó' by Celia Cruz (Castellanos 1983: 57) comes the fragment: (12)

No hay Orisa como Elegua pa la ilé, porque siempre etá ofé ... Ochún ta weye weye ... 'There is no god like Elegua for the [ceremonial] house, because [he] is always watching ..."

These examples show the incorporation of Yoruba elements into Spanish sentences, sometimes slightly modified, and in other cases without modification. Thus owo 'money', yéun (Yoruba jun) 'to eat', olè 'thief, ofé 'to watch' (á ó f e '(s)he watches'), aro 'sick',  'husband', afé 'dark', ewe 'leaves', siré 'to play', etc. However, the texts also reflect Yoruba morphosyntax, including the at times tenouous or non-existent morphological difference between nouns, verbs and adjectives, and the attempt to create hybrid verbal constructions using Spanish elements to replace Yoruba particles, in conjunction with a Yoruba stem. In several instances, the results closely resemble verbal structures in Afro-Iberian creoles such as Papiamento, Palenquero or Cape Verdian Crioulo, but in which the case for an independent development can be made quite strongly. Consider, for example, the Hispano-Yoruba hybrid transcribed by Cabrera: "Olofi ya okuó, Olofi ta mirando, ya ikú". In this combination, ya seems to be acting as a preverbal particle, much as in Afro-Iberian creóles. In reality, however, this sentence embodies a subtle form of code-switching. In Yoruba, the root for 'die' is kú.5 This element can also be used as an adjectival verb, meaning 'be dead'. Thus ó kú can mean either '(s)he dies/died' or '(s)he is dead'. When modifying a noun, the adjectival form is kíkú. The corresponding noun is ikú 'death'. In the pidginized Yoruba used by the Lucumi Afro-Cuban religious cults, much of this grammatical information has been lost, so that, e.g. ikú can be used as a verb/adjective: mañana yo ikú 'tomorrow I will die/be dead' (cf. also Cabrera 1970c: 160). When combined With ya, as in Olofi ya okuó ... ya ikú 'Olofi is already dead/already died', there seems to be a prototypical creole formation in which ya operates as a preverbal [+anterior] particle. In the Spanish/Yoruba hybrid constructions transcribed by Lydia Cabrera, the fact of code-switching does not preclude analyzing ya as a clitic or verbal particle. The case of é mimo dici tú ta olé 'he himself says that you are a thief/are robbing' appears to embody ta as a preverbal particle. In Yoruba, ole is a noun meaning 'thief, while the verb 'rob' is jalè. Once more, in the pidgnized Yoruba used in El monte (Cabrera 1983), this distinction is usually lost, either because the speakers in question were not truly native speakers of Yoruba (whether or not they were born in Africa), or because code-switching between two languages with radically different morphosyntactic patterns resulted in 5) The form okuó is probably a combination of the {3sg.} subject clitic ó, the stem kú, and the rhetorical final -o, common in spoken Yoruba.

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canonical foll forms from Yoruba being used when a Yoruba item was inserted in a Spanish sentence.6 The hybrid combination Ud ta ole is thus ambiguous, meaning both 'you are (a) thief, and 'you steal/are stealing'. In the first interpretation, ta is used incorrectly as a copula with a predicate nominal, a usage also found in vestigial or semi-fluent usage in other regions. In the second meaning, ta is more clearly derived from the progressive auxiliary está, routinely pronounced as ta in vernacular Cuban Spanish. The resulting configuration, however, is superficially identical to quintessential Iberian-based creole constructions derived from ta plus the Romance infinitive. The combination vamo sire 'let's play', involves a Yoruba verb used identically to a Spanish infinitive; the superficial form of the Yoruba verb resembles a Spanish infinitive. Many of the other Yoruba items transcribed by Cabrera have the same canonical shape as Ibero-Romance infinitives: afé, molé, olé, etc. In the hybrid constructions characteristic of Afro-Cuban speech these items are not behaving as verbal infinitives, whether or not derived from a Yoruba verbal stem. Similarly, in the hybrid constructions, ta á está is not behaving as an auxiliary for a progressive construction, much less as a TMA "particle", but rather as a simple copula, introducing a patently foreign insertion.7 Despite the analysis of Yoruba-Spanish hybrid constructions in a fashion different from that of TMA PARTICLE + VERBAL STEM found in Afro-Iberian creoles, the superficial similarity with the latter phenomena has led to the inclusion of the hybrid constructions in the "evidence" of a former creole status for Cuban bozal Spanish, as well as to the purported similarities with Afro-Portuguese pidgins and creoles.8 Among Cuban bozales, purely Spanish constructions based on ta + 6) This same process is observable, e.g. in Ese otro yo me lo va yéun 'I will eat that other one'. In Yoruba jeun is an intransitive verb meaning 'eat'. As such, it can never be combined with an object clitic or NP, as in the example cited by Cabrera. The transitive verb 'eat' is ye; however in the Spanish-Yoruba hybrid, the longer intransitive form has been adopted. Alvarez Nazario (1974: 216) observes that 'negros criollos' (i.e. those born in Spanish America) are often unaware of the internal structure of borrowings from Yoruba and other African languages, and that "los descendientes de los antiguos esclavos emplean en expresiones mixtas el español y el anagó [= Yoruba: JML] : 'me voy pa(ra) el inlé' ['I'll eat it up'JML] ...". 7) The pattern is similar to the constructions based on hacer + ENGLISH WORD, at times found in the Spanish of Mexican-Americans from California and New Mexico: hacer fix 'to fix', hacer type 'to type', etc. (cf. Reyes 1976). 8) Given the importance of Lydia Cabrera's writings, in particular anthropological-religious studies such as El monte, to Afro-Caribbean creole theories, it is useful to consider how accurate and representative such texts might be as specimens of bozal speech in Cuba and elsewhere in the Caribbean. Cabrera's works are extensive and captivating, and the long segments written in African languages and in bozal and vernacular Cuban Spanish sound so convincing that they seem to be the transcription of actual recordings. For such scholars as Granda (1972), Perl (1982), and Otheguy (1973), Cabrera's Afro-Cuban anthropological studies are not only the most accessible source of bozal speech, but also the most trustworthy, given the author's clearly positive attitudes towards Afro-Cuban culture and her avowed

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Vinf were used in addition to the hybrid Spanish+Yoruba constructions, but not necessarily as part of a pan-Caribbean creole pattern. It is more likely that, having established a productive hybrid system in which Spanish ta could serve as a copula or generic verb introducing inserted borrowed elements, this same combination was extended to uninflected Spanish verbs (i.e. infinitives), with similar use. In other words, speakers of Yoruba and other African languages in which the noun/adjective verb distinction is marked differently from Spanish, or not at all, would freely combine Spanish verbs, nouns and adjectives with ta to create complex verbs with simple meanings.

5.

Bare infinitives and 3sg. verbs as (Yoruba-influenced) aorists

In Yoruba as in other Kwa and upper Congo-Benue languages, verbs can be used without preverbal particles, not only as imperatives, but also in aorist constructions, to express simple past or present action. The Afro-Hispanic bozal corpus contains abundant examples of bare infinitives (lacking final /t/) as well intention of describing it accurately. Missing in these writings is the mocking humor which characterized the habla de negros in the Cuban "teatro bufo", and in other writings from Spain and Latin America (although in such texts as Francisco y Francisca (1976) and Refranes de negros viejos (1970b) some glimpses of this tendency emerge). At the same time, many of her writings employ literary techniques of magical realism, complete with possible exaggeration of linguistic usage. For Ortiz (1940: 9), estos cuentos [Cabrera's Cuentos negros: JML] vienen a las prensas por una colaboración, la del folklore negro con su traductora blanca. Porque también el texto castellano es en realidad una traducción, y en rigor sea dicho, una segunda traducción. Del lenguaje africano ... en que las fábulas se imaginaron, éstas fueron vertidas en Cuba al idioma amestizado y dialectal de los negros criollos. Quizá la anciana morena que se las narró a Lydia ya las recibió de sus antepasados en lenguaje acriollado. Y de esta habla tuvo la coleccionista que pasarlas a una forma legible en castellano ... la autora ha hecho tarea difícil pero leal, y por tanto, muy meritoria, conservando a los cuentos su fuerte carácter exótico de fondo y de forma ... For Ortiz, then, the bozal language of Cabrera's writings is (at least) twice-removed from what might have once been an Afro-Cuban creole (cf. also Martínez Gordo 1982: 52). This position contrasts radically with, e.g. Granda's view that Cabrera's literary representation of bozal Spanish is as faithful as a tape recording or verbatim transcription. This is not to say that Cabrera used bozal Spanish to represent conversations held mostly or entirely in African languages, although many older Afro-Cubans did use African languages amongst themselves. In personal conversation, the late Lydia Cabrera described to the present writer the manner in which older bozales spoke throughout Cuba (not just in Havana, as Granda seems to imply), but both from her writings and her personal recollections it is clear that no bozal speaker used creoloid forms exclusively. Most combined creoloid, pidgin, and standard Spanish forms, not necessarily because the bozal language was "decreolizing", but because the creoloid elements often arose spontaneously as African-born Cubans evolved in their acquisition of Spanish.

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as third person singular forms used as invariant verbs; in fact, such combinations are much more frequent than putative combinations involving preverbal particles. It is not feasible to postulate Yoruba or other African languages as the source of such constructions in Afro-Hispanic pidgin, since use of a simple invariant verb is a concomitant of all pidginization and rudimentary second-language acquisition, as well as being found in vestigial and semi-fluent language (Lipski 1986, 1993b). However, in the Afro-Cuban bozal corpus where there is clear evidence of incipient restructuring in contact with Yoruba, the alternation between bare verbs and preverbal particles is particularly striking, since the distribution exactly parallels Yoruba usage. The alternation between the third person singular and the infinitive for the bare verb reflects competing strategies in the pidginization of Spanish, in which two highfrequency morphological variants are taken as templates for an invariant verbal stem. Examples of the bare infinitive in Afro-Cuban bozal speech include: (13)

- La vieja Asunción nunca jablá 'Old Asunción never speaks' (Ruíz García 1957) - yo también me calentó ... y cuando cuchá campana, yo me va pa la Tamisa 'I'm warming up too ... and when I hear the bell, I'm going to Artemisa' (Cabrera Paz 1973) - No, siñó, yo no matá ninguno, yo sentá atrá quitrín pa yegá prisa, prisa, na panadería 'No sir, I didn't kill anyone; I was sitting in the back of the carriage to get to the bakery fast' (Estrada y Zenea 1980) - Yo llevá ventidó muelto, aquí va clito ... 'I carried 22 corpses, here is Christ' (Feijóo 1966) - Torcuato tené que habíale ... Torcuato cogé guerrillero, Torcuato cambiá viejo po bueyes ... 'Torcuato has to talk to you ... Torcuato caught the guerrilla, Torcuato traded the old man for oxen' (Montenegro 1934) - si murí, mijó sería 'If he dies, it would be better' Ramón Méndez Quiñones, Alternate fragments from 'Pobre Sinda!' [1884] (Girón 1991:399-411)

In each of these examples the bare infinitive is behaving as an aorist; the same holds for most examples of the invariant third person singular found in AfroCuban bozal texts: (14)

- yo empeña mi ropa 'I pawned my clothes' (Ortiz 1985) - Yo alebanta sojo 'I raised my eyes' (Cabrera Paz 1973) - A mí no bebe aguariente, mi ama 'I don't drink whisky, master' (Merlin 1974) - Yo sabe lavá, planchá, jasé dulse y cosiná 'I know how to wash, iron, make sweets and cook' (Ballagas 1946: 92) - Yo va con uté, sí señó. 'I'm going with you, yes sir' (Cabrera 1983) - Yo no me ñama José, me ñama Cirilo 'My name isn't José, my name is Cirilo' (Villaverde 1979)

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- si yo sabe, yo dise a su mesé 'I'f I knew it, I would tell your grace' (Gelabert 1875) The juxtaposition of bare verbs and preverbal particles in the Afro-Cuban bozal corpus is consistent with the notion of partial restructuring along the lines of Yoruba structures; as can be seen from the above examples, the alternation between bare forms and preverbal particles occurs in many of the same texts, which is all the more remarkable since these documents were written by white native speakers of Spanish with little interest in delving into the linguistic peculiarities of Afro-Hispanic pidgin.

6.

Pleonastic lo as an incipient subject clitic in bozal Spanish

One subtle yet curious feature of certain purported Afro-Hispanic texts, both early and late, involves the pleonastic use of what are superficially direct object clitics, usually lo. In some instances the object clitic is used in conjunction with a transitive verb and an overt direct object NP (although not always exhibiting the correct morphological agreement), thus in effect a form of clitic doubling. In other cases the clitic is combined with an intransitive verb, where no question of absorbing an object theta role is at issue. Although most examples of pleonastic lo come from the 19th century Afro-Cuban corpus, sporadic attestations were found in earlier centuries. The Spanish Golden Age bozal corpus provides a few examples of intrusive object clitics: (15)

- ... no quitando la plensensia, que estos arfileres vivoz que lo yevaron se queja ... 'without your presence, that these sharp pins cause complaints' {Quiñones de Benavente. El negrito hablador y sin color anda la niña [Roseli 1874]} - ... le hallamo entre pajas, al ringoco del frío, aunque sin trigos, que lo segamo en agosto. 'We find it among the straw, in the cold, without wheat, we thrash it in August' {Lope de Vega, Mayor rey de los reyes [1930: t. VII]} - ¡Ay, siñor Jesum Cristo! ¿Qué facendas me lo pides? 'Oh lord Jesus Christ, what do you ask of me?' {Lope de Rueda, Comedia de los engañados [1908: t. II]} - ... Como só li la Mesé, lo manda el señó Retó qui venga cun la tandarte mañana la Prucisió. 'Since the master will be there, the Rector orders him to come with the flag tomorrow to the procession' {Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Villancico [1952]} - Riñigaxe di mi guelo, dun tiñojo xaritraco, xi me la debex un pello! {Jaime de Guete, Tes orina [1913]} - lo salte lo pé 'My feet are jumping' {Anon., 'Teque leque', Colombia, 17th c. [Perdomo Escobar 1976]}

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The 19th and early 20th century Afro-Cuban bozal corpus provides more examples of the pleonastic clitic lo, among them: (16)

- ¡brágame Dios la tragin que lo tiene la critiano! 'My goodness what outfits these Christians have' (Cabrera Paz 1973) - Negrito má fotuná no lo salí Ian Guinea bindita hora que branco me lo traé neta tierra. 'An unfortunate black I didn't leave Guinea, blessed be the moment when the white people brought me to this land' (Creto Gangá, "Canto de Bodas" [Cruz 1974]) - Yo no lo perdí doce mil y quinientos pesos para quedalo con uno cheche perdío. 'I didn't lose 2 500 pesos to end up with a loser' (Fernández, El negro cheche [Montes Huidobro 1987]) - ¿Y a oté, qué lo va ni lo viene, oté va viví enella? 'And you, who don't care one way or the other, are you going to live in it?' (Mellado y Montaña 1975)

The use of non-argument clitics, especially invariant /o, is found in some bilingual interlanguage varieties of Spanish in Latin America, reflecting syntactic peculiarities of indigenous languages (cf. Lipski 1994). Usually, Spanish lo, by virtue of its usual preverbal position, its invariant nature, and its clitic status, is reinterpreted as a transitivity or tense marker found in the native language. In Quecha-influenced Andean Spanish, for example, invariant lo accompanies all transitive verbs, regardless of the direct object. 9 In Nahuatl-influenced Spanish, invariant lo not only doubles direct objects, but also appears with some intransitive verbs. This dialect also offers clitic doubling with inanimate direct objects, use of lo as universally unmarked direct object clitic, pleonastic possessive articles, and interrogative DOs [Direct Objects]. Clitic doubling with lo was once common in indigenous

9) Lipski (1994) suggests that Andean Spanish invariant lo has replaced the Quechua direct object noun suffix -ta (or -man if following a verb of motion). This suffix is invariable, cliticizes to all direct object nouns whether definite or indefinite, and even attaches to questions and relative clauses. The accusative marker -ta does not occupy the identical syntactic position as the invariable lo of the corresponding Andean Spanish sentences, which would be roughly as indicated above. However, it would be easy for a speaker of Spanish interlanguage to interpret the clitic lo, statistically the most frequent, as some sort of transitivity marker comparable to Quechua -ta. Although in Quechua this element is always attached to the direct object noun, in a canonical Quechua OVS or SOV transitive sentence where the direct object immediately precedes the verb, -ta coincidentally comes just before the verb, i.e. in the identical position as Spanish proclitic lo. As interlanguage speakers develop greater fluency in Spanish, word order gravitates to the more usual V-0 for non­ clitic DOs. It is at this stage that lo, now recognized as an object clitic, remains behind in proclitic position, yielding the stable Andean Spanish clitic-doubled pattern.

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interlanguages in parts of Central America, including Pipil (a variety of Nahuatl) and Lenca in El Salvador and Honduras.10 Non-argument lo in the bozal texts described previously cannot be traced to a single substrate language, and the type of reanalysis proposed for Nahuatland Quechua-influenced Spanish is not at issue. No surviving Afro-Iberian creole makes use of pleonastic object clitics, nor is evidence of such usage to be found among vestigial Afro-Hispanic enclaves. Nonetheless, assuming that at least some of the configurations were actually produced in Afro-Hispanic interlanguage, the location of non-argumental lo — invariably in immediately preverbal enclitic position — is consistent with the nearly universal western and central African common denominator of SUBJECT clitics, despite the fact that the item in question is derived from a Spanish OBJECT clitic. In many African languages, subject pronouns are closely related to subject-verb agreement. A question as apparently straightforward as whether or not "null subjects" are permitted in African languages becomes entangled with syntactic characterization of "subject" position vs. agreement or inflectional marker. To further complicate matters, many African language families have dual series of "subject pronouns" — a free-standing stressable set which closely correspond in meaning and usage to Ibero-Romance subject pronouns, and preverbal clitics, which find Romance counterparts only in some northern Italian dialects. At the same time, proponents of a universally unmarked syntax during the creolization process frequently point to overt uninflected subject pronouns as the preferred option. An overview of subject pronoun behavior in key African language groupings will be useful in interpreting bozal language past and present. One of the first African language families to interact with Spanish and Portuguese is the Mande group, from the Senegambia. Many of these languages continued to be present in the Afro-American creole mix — in Spanish, British, and French American colonies — through the end of the 18th century. The Mande family is typified by the behavior of Mende. In this language, there are several sets of closely related subject clitics, which are used with different verbal tenses, with conjunctions, and in certain other constructions. There is also a series of emphatic (disjunctive) subject pronouns. Use of the subject clitic 10) In Nahuatl, no single element corresponds to the 'non-Spanish' uses of lo as shown above. However, more subtle forms of interlanguage transfer suggest themselves. Nahuatl forms sentences with a SVO word order similar to Spanish, but Nahuatl transitive verbs take a direct object prefix {qui in the 3rd person singular and quin in the 3rd person plural), which is also combined with direct object nouns, even when questioned. Here the correspondence between qui(n) and Spanish lo is even closer, since the corresponding Nahuatl element is also a clitic, albeit with different distributional characteristics. Nahuatl- and Pipil-influenced Spanish, unlike Andean varieties, frequently uses invariant lo for intransitive verbs and locative constructions, combined with frequent stem changes depending upon the class of verb.

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is obligatory, and when an optional emphatic pronoun is used, it must be followed by the subject clitic: ngia ngi tewe T (emph.) cut', where ngia is the disjunctive pronoun, and ngi is the subject clitic. In this language, subject clitics are best analyzed as situated in INFL (or, in an "expanded INFL" model of phrase structure, in AGRo). In this sense, Mende is a "null subject" language, since the only optionally occurring "subject pronoun" is in fact an agreement marker which does not occupy the subject's true argument position (as [SPEC, ip])Mandinka has a similar distribution of emphatic subject pronouns and subject clitics. The first person singular subject clitic is a velar nasal with a high tone, alternating with m- and n-; the first person plural subject clitic is similar, but with a low tone.11 The Atlantic family of languages (typified by Wolof, Fula, and Diola), also from northwestern Africa, was another earlier player in Afro-Hispanic linguistic encounters. Subject pronouns in Atlantic languages often exhibit the same disjunctive pronoun/clitic split found among the Mande group. Among Kwa and non-Bantu Benue-Congo languages (including the Akan languages of Ghana — Twi, Fante and Ashante — as well as the major languages of Nigeria such as Yoruba, Igbo, Efik, Ijo, and Ibibio, all of which were prominent in Afro-Hispanic contacts), it is more usual to find a distinction between emphatic subject pronouns and subject clitics; when emphatic pronouns are used, the clitic is normally absent. The largest African language family to come into contact with Spanish and Portuguese is the Bantu family; the principal Bantu languages which entered the mix are those spoken in Angola and the former Portuguese Congo, including kiKongo, kiMbundu, uMbundu, and related languages. These languages share a much greater similarity and even mutual intelligibility than the members of the other major African language families. Among the Bantu languages, optional free-standing (and emphatic) pronouns are combined with obligatory preverbal subject clitics. Although the fiali subject pronouns vary widely among African languages, the subject clitics are typologically quite similar. All are monosyllabic, and many consist of a single vowel or consonant which is prefixed to the verb. The greatest cross-linguistic similarity concerns the first-person singular subject clitic, which takes the form of a nasal prefix mor a homorganic nasal, alternating with the CV combination mi- (with 11) Rowlands (1959) observes that since the tonal distinctions are often lost on Europeans, "Mandinkas tend to use Emphatic forms in speaking to Europeans in many situations where they would use unemphatic forms among themselves. This corresponds to putting stress on a Pronoun in English to ensure clarity". This suggests that the use of emphatic pronouns to reinforce subject position (e.g. Ibero-Romance use of (a)mi instead of yoleu) could work in the opposite direction, with Africans deliberately chosing emphatic disjunctive pronouns in their dealings with Europeans, who then overgeneralized their notions about pronouns in African languages (cf. Lipski 1991).

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alternative form mo-) in a surprising variety of languages, from the Senegambia to southern Africa. To observers unfamiliar with the languages in question, preverbal subject clitics may be confused with the verb itself. No major African language allows for free elimination of ALL subject marking, except for imperative constructions in many languages. Subject clitics — which are prefixes — take the place of verbal suffixes, which mark subjectverb agreement in Romance. To most African speakers, leaving off a subject clitic renders the sentence as "incomplete" as would a Spanish verb stem from which the inflectional suffix had been truncated. On the other hand, no major African language group marks subject-verb agreement enclitically (postverbally), although Bantu languages typically combine both prefixes and suffixes in creating verb complexes. Several Afro-Lusitanian creoles, formed in close symbiosis with African languages which exhibit the pronoun/subject clitic duality, show how originally Portuguese elements — at times supplemented by fortuitous similarities with homologous African forms — can be transformed into a system of free-standing emphatic or focused pronouns together with a new form of subject-verb agree­ ment: subject clitics. The case of Guinea-Bissau Kriyôl is illustrative. Kriyôl has a full set of subject clitics, including n, bu and i in the singular, and no, bo and e in the plural. These subject pronouns are obligatory preverbal constituents, except for some sentences containing a third person NP as subject. Kriyôl also contains a set of disjunctive/contrastive pronouns: ami, abó, el, anós, abós, and élis (Kihm 1994). In addition to carrying contrastive focus, these pronouns must combine with the subject clitic pronoun to produce grammatical utterances:12 (17)

Ami n ta kria limarya 'As for me, I raise cattle' Abó gora ku bu tene caga, abó bu ta bin panya-1 'Now you who have got a wound, are you going to catch it?'

No Afro-Hispanic bozal texts examined to date contain transparent cases of Ibero-Romance pronouns being used as subject clitics; we do not find, for example, constructions such as *Juan él sabe or *yo m(i) sabe (i.e. without a topicalized subject set off by an intonational pause), as might occur in some northern Italian dialects and in some vernacular varieties of contemporary 12) Among the surrounding Atlantic and Mande languages of Guinea-Bissau, the first person singular subject clitic is normally a syllabic nasal, while the third person singular subject clitic contains a single vowel. Kriyôl has replaced Portuguese subject-verb agreement via verbal suffixes (which allows Portuguese to be a "null subject" language) with obligatory preverbal clitics, while reserving Portuguese free-standing pronouns (in this case derived from the disjunctive object pronouns in combination with the preposition a) for true pronominal argument subjects and/or as topicalized NPs.

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French. However, the possibility that lo and similar elements derived from Spanish object clitics may have operated as quasi-subject clitics in partially stabilized bozal language is worth pursuing. Although literary stereotyping frequently ascribed fanciful speech patterns to marginalized groups, these stereotypes invariably had some basis in true dialectal or interlanguage features. There is no other Spanish linguistic stereotype known to Golden Age and 19th century Caribbean authors which introduces pleonastic object clitics in a fashion which is consistently different from prevailing Spanish usage. There are, moreover, demographic facts which enhance the plausibility that some varieties of Afro-Hispanic pidgin began to incorporate lo into the verb with the morphological value of subject clitic. First, whereas subject clitics are generally required across all major West and Central African language families, the combination of an emphatic subject pronoun or full NP + subject clitic occurs predominantly in the Mande and Atlantic families, and the Bantu languages. The Mande languages represent the first major African language family to interface with Portuguese and Spanish, as witnessed by the frequent use of the ethnic designation Mandinga in early Afro-Hispanic texts. Moreover, the presence of speakers of Mande languages remained strong in the Afro-Hispanic mix at least through the end of the 18th century, given the intense Portuguese slave trade in northwest Africa, using the Cape Verde Islands as a transfer station. Bantu languages first enter the Afro-Hispanic linguistic profile towards the middle of the 17th century, when references to Congo, Monicongo and Angola become frequent in Afro-Hispanic literature. Speakers of these languages were present in Portugal and Spain since the turn of the 16th century, but their numbers were comparatively low at first, increasing rapidly after 1640, when Portugal began exporting slaves from the Portuguese Congo and Angola in large numbers. 13) One collateral verification of the insertion of Bantu elements into Afro-Hispanic language comes in the evolution of phonetic patterns as evidenced in the literary imitations. Many bozal texts are characterized by the shift of /r/ to l\l in all positions, a stereotype which became so characteristic of Afro-Hispanic pidgin that the 17th century humorist Quevedo (1988: 127) quipped that to speak guineo {bozal Spanish), "sabrás guineo en volviendo las rr 11, y al contrario: como Francisco, Flancico; primo, plimo" 'You will speak Guineo by changing r into / and vice versa, like...'. It is in fact not until the beginning of the 17th century, with such works as the "Entremés de los negros" of Simón Aguado (ca. 1602), that literary Afro-Hispanic language begins to systematically depict the interchange of III and /r/, usually in favor of the former sound. Quevedo's oft-quoted stereotype was produced only a few decades later. By this time, Africans from Bantu-speaking areas of the Congo Basin and Angola were present in large numbers, both in Spain and in Spanish-American colonies, and the recurring absence of a distinction between /1/ and /r/ in these languages begins to seep into literary authors' representations of bozal speech (Lipski 1995). An additional trait implicating Bantu influence is the continual confusion of /1/ and /d/ in later bozal texts; in the principal Bantu languages which interfaced with Portuguese and Spanish, /1/ and /d/ are in

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In 19th century Cuba, the two most prominent African languages were Yoruba and kiKongo. The former language does not combine emphatic subject pronouns with subject clitics, while the latter language does. In addition to the prominence of Yoruba in Afro-Cuban santería rituals, Yoruba may have contributed to the incipient grammaticalization of preverbal particles, as discussed previously. KiKongo may have contributed double negation to AfroCuban pidgin,14 and may conceivably have nudged lo into incorporating into the verb as a subject clitic.

7.

Development of INFL in Afro-Hispanic pidgin: clitics and particles

Since in the West African and Bantu languages which exhibit the EMPHATIC PRONOUN + SUBJECT CLITIC configuration the subject clitic occupies a position in INFL (more specifically, as AGR-So), these languages are technically null subject languages, just like Spanish. In this fashion, one would expect to find partially restructured Afro-Hispanic phrases in which lo serves as subject clitic both with null subjects and with overt pronominal and nominal subjects. In all the examples shown here, negatives and adverbs all precede lo, as befits its clitic status. Indeed, the fact that Spanish preverbal lo always occupies the immediately preverbal slot even in clitic clusters increases the likelihood that this prominent item would be reinterpreted as an invariant subject clitic by speakers of developing Afro-Hispanic pidgins. One possible approach to the combination of null subjects with faulty subject-verb agreement is to adopt the perspective that the first stages of AfroHispanic pidgin (as represented by the texts of the Cancioneiro Geral, Reinosa's Coplas, Lope de Rueda's characters, etc.) are characterized by a reduced syntax in which there are no functional heads (hence no functional projections), but only lexical heads and lexical projections. There is a significant, although highly controversial, research paradigm which attributes certain aspects of early child language to the lack of functional projections (cf. for example Aldridge 1988; Déprez and Pierce 1993; Hyams and Wexler 1993; Lebeaux 1988; Pierce 1992; Radford 1988, 1990). The interest arises from the observation that early child speech across a wide variety of languages tends to allow null subjects, even when the adult languages rigorously require overt subjects (e.g. English).15 complementary distribution. Prior to the middle of the 17th century, Afro-Hispanic language was the result of contact with West African languages, the vast majority of which distinguish /1/and/r/. 14) This is hinted at by Schwegler (1996). Lipski (1996b, 1998a) suggests that Haitian creole may lie at the root of double negation structures in Afro-Cuban texts. 15) For some observers, this is simply proof of the "unmarked" status of the positive setting of a "null subject parameter", but the eventual acquisition of non-null subject languages in the absence of negative evidence (e.g. explicit correction) is rendered difficult if not impossible

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If we accept the notion that a normal matrix sentence is a projection of the functional head INFL, then the canonical "subject" position is [SPEC, IP]. In a grammar which does not contain functional heads like INFL, there is no mechanism for generating a VP-external "subject" position. In accounting for the frequent subjectless sentences in early child speech, e.g. in English, some have claimed that the category INFL has not yet developed (e.g. Aldridge 1988, Radford 1990 for detailed analyses which claim that early child language lacks subject-verb concord of the sort which justifies the INFL postulate), hence there is no way for the external subject position [SPEC, IP] to be projected. Lebeaux (1988) goes even further, in claiming that in earliest child speech, what appear to be subjectless sentences are not even VPs, but simply the bare lexical entry for the verb. According to the principles and parameters approach to syntax, the subject theta-role is not projected by the lexical entry for a verb, but rather by the "extended projection principle". Thus if only the arguments selected by the verb are projected, a "subjectless sentence" will result.16 Although there is considerable discussion over the details of the proposal, the notion that early child language contains no functional projections is supported by the absence of articles, complementizers, and stable subject-verb agreement, even in rich-AGR languages such as Spanish. However, in extending the "no functional head" claim to pidgins and other forms of secondlanguage learners' speech, one must be careful not to confuse metaphor with reality. Early child speech, regardless of the theoretical model chosen to represent it, represents a developmentally immature grammar, in which certain notions have yet to emerge as in adult grammars. Thus it is that children at the "two word" stage need little else except bare nouns, verbs, and some adjectives, by such an approach. Similarly, the "subset principle", according to which children first tend to acquire a proper subset of adult language, would — if negative evidence is not allowed — also require that early child language use only overt subjects, since this configuration is a proper subset of adult null-subject grammars of languages like Spanish, in which both null and overt subjects are possible. These theoretical considerations notwithstanding, small children routinely produce all sorts of "small clauses" (in the sense of Radford 1988), without giving any indication that they are defiantly flaunting universal markedness constraints or struggling to overcome an innate parameter setting. As a result, many investigators have proposed that child grammars are themselves a proper subset of the adult grammars, in the sense of allowing fewer elements as heads, and therefore containing fewer syntactic projections. Although there is considerable variety among the available proposals, they coincide in suggesting that early child language has a structurally reduced syntax in comparison with adult language. 16) Not all child language sentences lack a subject; another line of approach is to attribute lack of an overt subject to processing constraints, which limit "sentences" to two major constituents: either subject+verb or verb+complement. Another approach is to analyze overt elements occurring in the canonical "subject" position as topics, not instantiating a 1-role (= theta-role) of the sentence itself. In Spanish, where subjects are also allowed in the basegenerated VP-internal position, even the claim that no functional projections exist should allow for some overt subjects to appear, if no other processing constraints are operative.

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and dispense entirely with prepositions, articles, complementizers, agreement markers, etc. In many respects, pidginized and rudimentary second-language learner speech is similar to child language, and in imitating pidgins, untrained or insensitive observers usually substitute their own notion of "baby talk". Indeed, "baby talk" as deliberate output by superstrate speakers has been suggested as a factor in pidgin and creole formation. Although this scenario is unlikely in most instances, attitudes of intolerance and perceived inferiority of a subordinate group do at times elicit baby-talk speech from fluent adult speakers. Some early bozal texts, in which displaced Africans were cast as overgrown children, drew more heavily from the writers' ideas about baby talk than from any observations of legitimate Afro-Hispanic pidgin. Despite real and perceived similarities between child language and second-language learners/pidgin speakers, the latter are in possession of fully mature grammars of one or more languages, and have activated whatever resources Universal Grammar makes available to all natural language speakers. Even when struggling to acquire a new language under difficult and even threatening conditions, there is no reason to suppose that individuals in possession of a fully developed grammar will revert to syntactic patterns characteristic of earlier developmental stages. If functional heads are scarce or absent in rudimentary pidgins and second language learners' speech, it is not because the speakers lack the grammatical competence to project such categories, but only because bare-bones communication is often possible without heavy reliance on non-lexical categories. It is also likely that pidgins and second-language learners' speech will not categorically eliminate all functional heads, but may selectively fail to project certain types of heads, especially those which deviate most significantly from patterns in the speakers' native languages. The bozal Spanish and Portuguese corpus shows many instances of deficient or nonexistent subject-verb agreement, which suggests that INFL, or at least the AGR component, was not a developed category in Afro-Hispanic pidgin. Among the early texts the lack of consistent agreement manifested itself in many different fashions, most prominently the third person singular, the uninflected infinitive, and the first person plural, especially the invariant copula samo(s) (Lipski 1996a, 1996c). Most of these examples also contain overt subject pronouns, which makes it untenable to claim that all forms of bozal Spanish lacked INFL, hence a [SPEC, IP] subject position. However, the 15th and early 16th century texts come closest to the vision of an Afro-Hispanic pidgin lacking most functional projections. This was the period in which few Africans had come into contact with European languages, and the black African community in the Iberian Peninsula was so small that no Afro-Hispanic speech group could form. The use of preverbal particles and the pleonastic preverbal lo both represent the same phenomenon: instantiating the functional category INFL in Afro-Hispanic pidgin.

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Afro-Cuban bozal Spanish shows some examples of null subjects, particularly in conjoined constructions or when recoverable from the immediately preceding discourse. (18)

From Cabrera (1976): - chiva ese que uté me da tiene do tetas. ¿Quién ha vito eso? Tiene do. 'That goat that you gave me has two udders. Who ever saw such a thing? It has two.' - Na dotó, né corné lo chicharró caliente, [0] bebé de l'agua fría, y to la noche [0] pasá de lo catre a lo tibó 'The doctor ate the hot pork rinds, he drank cold water, and spent all night at the bedside' - Hoy me encontrá con soldá y [0] me punta con ecopeta, [0] me pinchá con bayoneta, [0] dicie que me va matá, que neye va acabá con pacífico insurrecto 'Today I ran into some soldiers, they pointed their guns at me, they poked me with their bayonets, they said they were going to kill me, they were going to finish off the pacifist insurrectionists' - Palero no toca campanita pa Nganga, [0] no toca ghiro, [0] no toca la matraca, [0] no toca pito pa Cuatro Trillo. [0] No tiene tanta ramienta, [0] no tiene túnico ni banico. 'The palero' doesn't ring the bell for Nganga, he doesn't play the güiro, he doesn't play the flute for the four Trillos. He doesn't have any implements, he doesn't have a robe or a fan'. From (Cabrera 1975): - Sienta, yo manda que sienta. Y ¿[0] sabe por qué? 'Sit down, I order you to sit down. Do you know why?'

These examples suggest that Afro-Hispanic and Chinese-Spanish pidgins17 were lacking an AGR/INFL node entirely, at least in their most rudimentary forms. As such, they had no ready syntactic position for a subject, and thus the subject could be freely omitted, just as in early developmental stages of Spanish. With 17) The small but important Chinese pidgin Spanish corpus (Lipski 1998b, 1999) shows a greater preference for null subjects in the presence of invariant verbs. Like Spanish, Cantonese permits null subjects. The manner in which null subjects are licensed is quite different however, given that Chinese languages have no subject-verb agreement, and arguably have no INFL node whatsoever. Subject identification is effected through discourselevel constraints, intimately linked to the possibility for null and non-gap topics, and syntactic binding of null subjects by discourse antecedents (cf. Chung 1984; Cole 1987; Gilligan 1987; Hermon and Yoon 1989; Huang 1984; Jaeggli and Safir 1989; Raposo 1986; Rizzi 1986; Suñer and Yépez 1988; Wheeler 1982). Cantonese also permits null (definite) direct objects, a configuration which is not allowed in Spanish, except for some Andean varieties characterized by Spanish-Quechua bilingualism. The high degree of null subjects in Cantonese (which are often preferred over overt pronominal subjects in normal discourse contexts) is often carried over to Chinese pidgin Spanish, a feature which runs against the normal stable/expanded pidgin and creole tendency to employ overt subject pronouns to compensate for loss of verbal inflection.

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further syntactic development of the pidgins, laying the groundwork for incipient restructuring and possible creolization, AGR began to emerge, generally in the form of preverbal particles before an invariant verb stem. The creation of an INFL node concomitantly provided for the syntactic representation of subjects, while at the same time opening the possibility for subject clitics which could either occupy the external subject position (as phonological clitics) or the AGR0 position (as true syntactic clitics). These developments were never carried to completion due to the transitory nature of Afro-Hispanic bozal pidgin, but the potential existed for a stable INFL which facilitated the introduction of subject clitics; invariant lo was the first contender for this status.

8.

Conclusions

Afro-Hispanic bozal language never underwent complete restructuring due to its limited status as a native or near-native language. However, in 19th century Cuba the conditions favoring restructuring briefly existed in some of the larger sugar plantations, and reconstruction of the initial gambits in this direction suggests a process of creolization which would ultimately have led to a language combining features found in Papiamentu, Palenquero, and Cape Verdian/Guinea-Bissau Creole. What happened instead was the transitory creation of mixed-language verb phrases — during the decades when Yorubaspeaking communities existed in Cuba — together with the partial displacement of existing Spanish structures to more closely match those of the bozal speakers' native languages. This scenario reconstructed with the help of the Afro-Cuban data potentially sheds light on the formation of fully-developed Afro-Iberian creoles. The principal difference between Afro-Caribbean bozal Spanish and the above-mentioned creoles is that in the 19th century Caribbean, contact with significant native or near-native models of Spanish was never removed to the extent found in those Afro-American societies where creole languages emerged. Speakers of Yoruba, kiKongo, and other languages did not enjoy the degree of personal freedom and interaction with native Spanish speakers as, say, the average German Gastarbeiter, but because Afro-Cuban pidgin was not formed in maroon communities or slave holding stations, there was never a total separation from the full Spanish-speaking community. A key factor in the rise and fall of bozal Spanish is the inevitable presence of a group of intermediaries, namely slave drivers, overseers, teamsters, and other suppliers of goods and services who provided the linguistic and cultural bridges between bozal slaves and the surrounding Spanish-speaking population. These intermediaries — known as mayorales, contramayorales, capataces and mayordomos — were invariably free blacks and mulattoes. Although born in the colonies and speaking Spanish natively, given their own relative isolation from wider

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segments of the Spanish-speaking population, they may have used an ethnically marked variety. There is some evidence, for example, that the gender-invariant third person pronoun nelle, the invariant copula son, and the invariant verb va 'to go' were retained among the more marginalized sectors of the native-born and Spanish-speaking Afro-Cuban population. African-born bozales in a Caribbean plantation environment would hear, in decreasing order of frequency, (1) the pidginized Spanish of other non-native Spanish speakers, including other African-born workers as well as laborers from other Caribbean islands who spoke Afro-Atlantic creoles natively, and whose approximations to Spanish would be nudged closer to creoloid structures; (2) Cuban-born workers, including foremen and supply personnel, all of whom spoke nonstandard varieties of Spanish, and some of whom may have used ethnolinguistically marked forms; (3) native speakers of prestige dialects of Spanish. In the plantation environment, contact with the third group would be minimal, and even slaves living in the cities often had little direct contact with the speech of the ruling classes. It is the interface between the bozales and the intersection of the first and second groups — that is, other Africans as well as speakers of creoles formed in contact with West African languages — that was responsible for the restructuring that shaped Afro-Cuban speech. The African-influenced constructions surveyed above, which run the gamut from second language learners' approximations to radical departures from Spanish grammar, are not the result of decreolization, but rather represent the full extent of the AfroHispanic linguistic interface. Africans in the 19th century Spanish Caribbean reinforced each other's use of Spanish, in direct proportion to the structural homogeneity of their respective native languages. In the case of Yoruba or kiKongo and their African neighbors, this grammatical congruity was quite high. The urgency to speak a crisis variety of Spanish pidgin with other Africans and Caribbean-born workers — which if left to itself would encourage radical creolization — was tempered by the proportionately greater part of the average communicative day of the Cuban bozal which could be spent using a shared native language with other Africans. This demographic configuration had rarely existed in the past, but the massive ethnic homogenization which resulted from the final wave of slave importation into the Spanish Caribbean significantly altered the acquisitional model by modifying the relative amounts of time spent speaking Spanish or an African language. And when these bozales did speak Spanish, it was frequently to (nonstandard) Spanish-speaking overseers, which further dilutes the proportion of the acquisitional spectrum which provided input only from other pidginizing speakers. The resulting variety of Spanish combines indisputable substratal features, deriving from the considerable percentage of time bozales from major African ethnic groups spent speaking their own language and the ready acceptance of substratum-influenced Spanish constructions by fellow bozales. This is the clearest available evidence of contact-induced alteration of Spanish as a result of the African diaspora, not

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the abrupt creolization that took place in maroon communities and slave depots, but rather the gradual emergence of an interlanguage containing coherent substratal features superimposed on an ever-closer approximation to received Spanish. Caribbean bozal Spanish in its least coherent form was a structurally reduced variety of Spanish sharing features with other learners' modes and not likely to coalesce into a stable creole. When a more homogeneous and more readily accessible substratum was present, as in the Yoruba- and kiKongospeaking Afro-Cuban communities, the resulting interlanguage shared similarities with partially restructured varieties of Spanish in the Andean region, where comparable demographic and sociolinguistic conditions obtained. By treating contact-induced bozal Spanish as a steadily evolving interlanguage rather than as the product of interrupted transmission which produces creolization, a more accurate picture of events shaping 19th century Afro-Carib­ bean Spanish can be obtained. If the evolved bozal interlanguage did not leave as lasting an imprint on Caribbean Spanish as Quechua- and Aymara-based interlanguages have left on Andean Spanish, the answer must be sought in the rapid loss of African languages among successive generations of Caribbeanborn Afro-Cubans, as compared with the continued presence of indigenous languages in the same communities which underlie Andean Spanish.

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1976. Francisco y Francisca: chascarrillos de negros viejos. Miami: Editorial . R. 1979. Reglas de congo. Miami: Editorial C. R. 1983. El monte. 3rd ed. Miami: Editorial . R. 1984. Vocabulario congo: el bantú que se habla en Cuba. Miami: Downtown Book Center. Cabrera Paz, Manuel. 1973. "Fragment of poem". In Oscar Fernández de la Vega and Alberto Pamies, eds. Iniciación a la poesía afro-americana. Miami: Ediciones Universal, 12231. Castellanos, Isabel. 1983. Eleguá quiere tambó: cosmovisión religiosa afrocubana en las canciones populares. Cali: Universidad del Valle. Chung, Sandra. 1984. "Identifiability and null objects in Chamorro". BLS 10: 116-30. Cole, Peter. 1987. "Null objects in universal grammar". Linguistic Inquiry 18: 597-612. Cruz, Mary. 1974. Creto Gangá. Havana: Instituto Cubano del Libro 'Contemporáneos'. Cruz, Sor Juana Inés de la. 1952. Obras completas de Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz II: villancicos y letras sacras. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica. Curtin, Philip. 1969. The Atlantic Slave Trade: a Census. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Déprez, Viviane and Amy Pierce. 1993. "Negation and fiinctional projections in early grammar". Linguistic Inquiry 24: 25-67. Eltis, David. 1977. "The export of slaves from Africa, 1821-1843". Journal of Economic History 37: 409-33. Estrada y Zenea, Ildefonso. 1980. El quitrín. Havana: Editorial Letras Cubanas. Feijóo, Samuel, ed. 1966. Sabiduría guajira. Havana: Editorial Universitaria. —. 1979. Cuentos cubanos de humor. Havana: Editorial Letras Cubanas. Gallenga, A. 1873. The Pearl of the Antilles. London: Chapman and Hall. Gelabert, Francisco de Paula. 1875. Cuadros de Costumbres cubanas. Havana: Imprenta de la Botica de Santo Domingo. Gilligan, Gary. 1987. "A cross-linguistic approach to the pro-drop parameter". Ph. D. dissertation, University of Southern California. Girón, Socorro. 1991. Vida y obra de Ramón Méndez Quiñones. 3rd ed. San Juan: Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña. Granda, Germán de. 1972. "Estado actual y perspectivas de la investigación sobre hablas criollas en Hispanomérica". Anuario de Letras 10: 5-27. —. 1973a. De la matrice africaine de la "langue congo" de Cuba. Dakar: Centre de Hautes Etudes Afro-Ibéro-Americanes, Université de Dakar, no. 19. —. 1973b. "Materiales léxicos para la determinación de la matriz africana de la 'lengua congo' de Cuba". Revista Española de Lingüística 3: 55-79. Guete, Jaime de. 1913. Comedia intitulada Tesorina. Tomo I: Teatro español del siglo XVI. Madrid: Sociedad de Bibliófilos Madrileños, Imprenta de Fortanet, 150-69. Guirao, Ramón. 1938. Orbita de la poesía afrocubana 1928-1937. Havana: Ucar García. Heap, David. 1990a. "Les questions à sujet pronominal préposé dans les dialectes de l'espagnol des Caraïbes". Journal of the Atlantic Provinces Linguistic

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Warner-Lewis, Maureen. 1971. "Trinidad Yoruba-notes on survivals". Caribbean Quarterly 17: 40-9. —. 1982. "The Yorùba language in Trinidad". Ph. D. dissertation, University of the West Indies. Wheeler, Dana. 1982. "Object deletion in Portuguese". In James Lantolf and Gregory Stone, eds. Current Research in Romance Languages. Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club,, 207-20. Yai, Olabiyi Babalola. 1978. "Influence Yoruba dans la poésie cubaine: Nicolás Guillen et la tradition poétique yoruba". Actes du XLIIe Congrès International des Américanistes, Vol. VI. Paris: Société des Américanistes, 643-58.

John M. Lipski Dept. of Spanish, Italian and Potuguese N352 Burrowes Building Pennsylvania State University University Park, PA 16802 USA [email protected]

Centre africain et périphérie portugaise dans le Créole santiagais du Cap Vert?

Jürgen Lang Université d'Erlangen-Nuremberg

Le problème1 La créolisation d'une langue présuppose un travail individuel de personnes alloglottes qui, ignorant cette langue, cherchent à analyser des discours tenus en elle à l'aide des catégories de leurs propres langues. Cette analyse se fait non seulement en vue d'une compréhension momentanée de ce qui est dit, mais surtout en vue d'une communication prolongée avec les locuteurs de cette langue. Une langue est dite "créole" dans la mesure où elle conserve les traces de cette première et inévitable démarche. On peut donc s'attendre à trouver dans les créoles des structures qui déri­ vent de structures caractérisant leurs langues dites "de substrat", sans que, bien entendu, ces structures soient nécessairement identiques à celles des "substrats" (cf., pour cette réserve, Lang 1996: 66). On peut encore s'attendre à trouver, dans n'importe quel créole, des structures inédites, surgies dans le processus de la créolisation ou plus tard, au cours de l'histoire de ce créole. Pris ensemble ces deux types de structures, d'ailleurs souvent difficiles à distinguer les unes des autres, forment ce qu'on pourrait appeler les structures "exotiques" d'un créole par rapport à celles déjà présentes dans ce qu'on est convenu d'appeler sa langue "debase". Je me propose d'offrir, à une autre occasion, une liste de telles structures "exotiques" pour le créole de l'île de Santiago au Cap Vert (cf. aussi Lang 1994). Dans ce qui suit, je présenterai deux ensembles de structures repérées dans ce créole qui, par contre, semblent être de véritables calques de structures portugaises. Qu'on puisse aussi trouver, dans un créole, des structures imitant de très près celles de sa langue de base, cela pourrait paraître surprenant pour ceux qui adhèrent à une conception de la créolisation proche de celle que je viens de 1) Je remercie tous ceux qui, à Ratisbonne, ont participé à la discussion de cette contribution et tout particulièrement John Ladhams pour son observation pertinente au sujet de la péri­ phrase portugaise estar fazendo, estar af azer.

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rappeler. Je m'efforcerai, après une présentation sommaire des faits en question, de lever cette contradiction.

Les faits Le créole santiagais dispose d'une série considérable de verbes auxiliaires pour la formation de formes verbales composées et d'affixes pour la formation de mots dérivés. Or, on trouve à presque tous ces auxiliaires et affixes des modèles portugais, tant matériels que fonctionnels. Tableau 1: Périphrases

verbales

CR. SANTIAGAIS

PORTUGAIS

périphrases modales: debe fase pode fase ten ki fase

dever fazer poder fazer ter de/que fazer

périphrases diathetiques: dexa fase fase fase pò fase

deixar fazer fazer fazer pôr a fazer

périphrases aspectuelles: ara fase arma fase bá ta fase ben fase bira ta fase dexa di fase fika ta fase labánta na fase para (di/ku) fase pasa ta fase pega ta/na fase po ta/na fase sai ta/na fase sta pa fase sta ta/na fase torna fase txiga fase txiga di fase

— — ir a fazer/fazendo vir a fazer

— deixar de fazer fìcar a fazer/fazendo

— parar de fazer passar a fazer pegar a fazer/e fazer pôr-se a fazer sair a fazer/fazendo estar para/por fazer estar a fazer/fazendo tornar a fazer

— chegar a fazer

périphrases de taxe: fálta fase kunsa fase

—

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471

Sur les deux tableaux suivants j'ai inscrit, dans la colonne de gauche, toutes les périphrases verbales et tous les affixes que j'ai rencontrés dans ce créole avec, à côté, dans la colonne de droite, leurs équivalents en portugais moderne. Pour le portugais d'aujourd'hui, par contre, les deux tableaux n'enregistrent que les périphrases et les affixes qui trouvent une contrepartie en créole. Si l'on ajoutait les autres, on verrait que le portugais moderne est bien plus riche en auxiliaires et en affixes que le créole de Santiago. Tableau 2: Affixes CR. SANTIAGAIS

PORTUGAIS

modifications: -inhu/-inha -on/-óna dis-/dizra-/re-/ri-

-inho/-inha -ao/-ona de(s)re-

évolutions: substantifs: -áda s. -áns(i)a s. -aria s. -(i)(n)dádi s. -dura s. -éns(i)a s. -ésa/-éza s. -mentu s. -son s. -ura s. adjectifs: -éntuadj. -ós/-osu/-ozuadj. adverbes: -menti adv. compositions prolexématiques: -anti s./adj. -dor/-deras./adj. -eru/-eras./adj.

-ada s. -ância/-ança s. -aria s. -(i)dade s. -dura s. -ência s. -eza s. -mento s. -sao/-çao s. -ura s. -ento/-enta adj. -oso/-osa adj. -mente adv. -ante s./adj. -dorAdora, -deiro/-deira s./adj. -eiro/-eira s./adj.

Sur le premier tableau, les périphrases verbales ont été groupées selon les caté­ gories verbales de Roman Jakobson auxquelles on peut les rattacher (cf. Jakobson 1974): périphrases modales exprimant la nécessité ou la possibilité, périphrases diathétiques ou de voix à valeur factitive ou permissive, périphrases aspectuelles à valeur ingressive, progressive, durative, égressive, répétitive et

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autres, et périphrases de taxe exprimant la postériorité, plus précisément, ce qui s'est produit après ou a failli se produire après. Le sens des périphrases créoles qui trouvent leur équivalents en portugais est sensiblement le même qu'en portugais. C'est pourquoi je me permets de les laisser sans traduction. Celui des autres n'est pas toujours aisé à rendre en por­ tugais ou en français. Essayons toujours: ára fase algun kusa peut se traduire par manquer faire qc; arma fase algun kusa, c'est 'faire qc. un tout petit peu'; bira ta fase algun kusa est une des nombreuses possibilités qu'a ce créole de se référer au début du procès; lahànta na fase algun kusa signifie, très approxi­ mativement, 'prendre l'habitude de faire qc'; txiga fase algun kusa — à ne pas confondre avec txiga di fase algun kusa — est à peu près 'atteindre le degré de maturité nécessaire pour faire qc'. On dira par exemple: Kel minina dja txiga kása 'Cette jeune fille a déjà atteint l'âge de se marier'. Restent les deux périphrases que j'ai appelées "de taxe". Fálta fase algun kusa, c'est à peu près '(faire qc.) à en faillir faire une autre'. Un enfant, auquel on avait jeté un sort qui l'empêchait d'uriner, raconte: N spreme N fálta móre. (RS) 'J'ai pressé à en faillir mourir'.

Avec fálta fase algun kusa on énonce donc une conséquence qui a failli se produire. Kunsa fase algun kusa, c'est tout simplement 'faire qc. après (qu'on a fait autre chose)': Mudjer, nha da mininu márna, nha kunsa bâti! (Silva 1987: 232,1. 31) 'Madame, allaitez d'abord cet enfant et lavez votre linge après!'

Or, dans la phrase créole il n'y a d'équivalent ni pour le d'abord, ni pour le après de la version française. L'expression du rapport temporel est donc le fait de la périphrase. Kunsa, qui paraît remonter au portugais começar 'commencer', ne se comporte d'ailleurs pas comme d'autres verbes de ce créole qui peuvent servir d'auxiliaires: il ne peut jamais remplir la fonction verbale à lui seul, n'est donc jamais "verbe plein", et n'admet ni les désinences verbales ni la négation. Sa place dans la phrase, par contre, est celle d'un auxiliaire, et les locuteurs semblent y voir un verbe. Les affixes du deuxième tableau correspondent à autant de procédés pour la formation de mots dérivés. Ils ont été groupés selon des critères proposés par Eugenio Coseriu (cf. Coseriu 1977). Ces critères fournissent trois classes: celle des "modifications", qui ne changent pas la catégorie verbale du mot de base (exemple français: maison —» maisonnette), celles des "évolutions", dont la finalité consiste, précisément, à permettre de tels changements (exemple fran­ çais: changer → changement), et, finalement, celle des "compositions prolexématiques", compositions à partir de deux éléments de base, l'un lexical, l'autre

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de nature pronominale (exemple français: plonger + "sujet pronominal" → plongeur). Il est facile de montrer que tous les affixes de la colonne gauche sont productifs dans le créole de Santiago. Ainsi, pour ne donner que quelques exemples, ce créole a-t-il tiré du syntagme ka ta médu 'ne pas avoir peur' un surnom Katamedinhu 'le petit Sans-peur'; de sa préposition riba 'sur, au-dessus' il a tiré un ribóna, augmentatif (on dira, par exemple: E mora la ribóna (RS) 'Il habite là tout en haut'); au verbe créole karapati 'serrer' correspond un diskarapati 'lâcher', au verbe djobe 'regarder attentivement' un radjobe 'regarder encore une fois' et au verbe konsola 'consoler' un substantif konsolànsa 'consolation' (cf. pg. consolo, consolaçao); de son ka bale 'ne rien valoir' le créole a tiré un substantif kabalindádi pour désigner l'attribut qui est le propre des vauriens, et de son rapariga 'amante' il a tiré un adjectif raparigéntu pour caractériser ceux qui s'offrent beaucoup de maîtresses. Dans certains cas, le créole a réussi à redonner une productivité à des affixes pétrifiés d'origine latine qui apparaissent dans des mots portugais restés transparents (cf. pg. -sao, -çâo et cr. -son). Au lieu de choisir entre la paire -dor/ -dora et la paire -deiro/-deira de sa langue de base, le créole a retenu -dor, pour le sexe masculin, et -dera, pour le sexe féminin. Les deux tableaux mériteraient encore de longues explications. Mais l'espace dont je dispose ainsi que quelques doutes que je n'ai pas pu lever, m'empêchent d'entrer dans les détails. Juste une remarque concernant les cas, moins fréquents, où l'on ne trouve pas d'équivalent, en portugais moderne, pour un auxiliare ou un affixe créole. Dans ces cas il semble bien qu'on ait le choix entre deux explications: ou le modèle portugais a existé à une époque antérieure (cela pourrait être le cas de bira ta fase, par exemple), ou il s'agit bel et bien d'inventions créoles (cela semble être le cas de txiga fase, fálta fase et kunsa fase). Les inventions créoles confirmeraient tout simplement ce que personne ne met en doute: à savoir, que des innovations peuvent surgir à tout moment dans l'histoire d'une langue, notamment dans les domaines largement exploités par celle-ci. Les cas du premier type, par contre, viendraient renforcer encore l'impression d'une étroite dépendance du créole santiagais par rapport à sa langue de base dans les deux domaines envisagés. Dans ce qui suit, je partirai de l'évidence de cette dépendance.

Caractère spécifique des parallélismes observés Ce que j'aimerais souligner d'abord, en vue d'une explication historique de cette dépendance, c'est que les correspondances créolo-portugaises que nous venons de constater, ne se réduisent pas à ces affinités matérielles et sémantiques entre éléments isolés qu'on trouve presque partout, lorsqu'on compare un créole avec sa langue de base. Ce que nous venons de constater, c'est une quasi-identité

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morphologique et fonctionnelle de procédés grammaticaux pour la formation d'expressions complexes. Dans le cas des auxiliaires, il s'agit de procédés grammaticaux tout court, dans le cas des affixes, de procédés appartenant à ce qu'on a appelé la grammaire du vocabulaire. On peut même dire que, dans les cas qui nous occupent, les ressemblances concernent plus encore les procédés que leur expression, puisque dans les périphrases, par exemple, l'emploi ou non de particules joignant le verbe principal à l'auxiliaire a été systématiquement remodelé, en créole, en fonction des particules disponibles dans cette langue. Grâce à leurs procédés périphrastiques et dérivationnels, le créole et le portugais disposent, chacun, d'une conjugaison et d'un vocabulaire secondaires où l'arbitraire du signe linguistique cède la place à une motivation relative. Or, ce qui frappe, c'est que, si les procédés pour la formation de cette conjugaison et de ce vocabulaire secondaires sont devenus largement identiques pour les deux langues, les conjugaisons et les vocabulaires primaires, auxquels ces procédés s'appliquent, le sont beaucoup moins. En ce sens, on peut dire, qu'on trouve les plus grandes convergences entre créole et portugais à la périphérie, tandis qu'au centre les divergences s'accumulent. Un bref rappel de ce qu'est la conjugaison primaire de ce créole, permet­ tra d'apprécier ce contraste dans le domaine de la conjugaison. La conjugaison primaire, non-périphrastique, du créole de Santiago est axée sur une opposition d'aspect entre formes imperfectives, marquées par la particule ta, et formes sans ta, à valeur perfective dans la plupart des contextes. À l'intérieur de l'imperfectif on a une deuxième opposition aspectuelle entre les formes duratives, marquées par la particule sa (ce qui, ensemble avec la marque de l'imperfectivité, donne sa ta), et les formes sans sa, interprétées généralement comme étant non duratives. En plus de cela, il existe la possibilité de marquer l'antériorité (par le suffixe -ba), le passif (par le suffixe -du) et un mode d'appellation controversée (par la particule ál). Tenant compte de toutes les combinaisons effectivement employées, on en arrive à un ensemble de 20 formes non-périphrastiques auxquelles on peut opposer 13 formes portugaises, en faisant abstraction, bien entendu, de la variation de la personne et du nombre, ainsi que des formes composées, donc périphrastiques. Pour ce qui est de la complexité, la conjugaison créole n'a donc rien à envier à la conjugaison portugaise. Mais pour ce qui est des fonctions distinguées et de la place qui leur est accordée dans le système, cette conjugai­ son non-périphrastique du créole se situe à mille lieues de la portugaise. On voit mal comment on pourrait reconstruire ou, du moins, imaginer une suite d'innovations qui aurait transformé la conjugaison primaire du portugais, même d'un portugais populaire et interdialectal du XVe siècle, dans la conjugaison primaire du créole de Santiago. Or, c'est bien cela qui devrait être possible si la créolisation n'était autre chose qu'une série précipitée de changements à l'inté­ rieur d'une langue.

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L'espace me manque pour montrer combien les mots simples du créole de Santiago — et surtout ceux qui appartiennent au vieux fonds — diffèrent, eux aussi, de leurs ancêtres portugais: de par leur prononciation, de par leurs struc­ tures phonologiques et syllabiques, de par leurs signifiés, leur morphologie et leurs constructions.

Explication historique Après ces considérations d'ordre contrastif, passons maintenant au problème de l'explication historique. Comment ces périphrases et ces procédés de formation de mots d'origine visiblement portugaise ont-ils pu entrer dans le créole de Santiago? C'est le caractère transparent des expressions périphrastiques et des mots dérivés formés grâce à ces procédés qui va nous suggérer une réponse. Dans leurs efforts pour s'approprier des segments des discours portugais qu'ils entendaient, les créateurs africains du créole de Santiago se sont maintes fois trompés, comme tous les créateurs de créoles de par le monde. Ils se sont trompés sur les limites entre les mots et sur les signifiés et les fonctions à attri­ buer aux segments retenus. Il semble raisonnable de penser qu'ils étaient inca­ pables, à plus forte raison, d'analyser correctement des périphrases et des mots complexes. S'il leur arrivait de retenir des formes périphrastiques ou des mots complexes de la langue de base, ils ne les auront pas retenus, dans un premier temps, en tant que tels. Je vais donner deux exemples de ce qui pouvait arriver, dans ces circonstances, aux périphrases verbales de la langue de base. Il semble en effet que toutes les particules verbales qu'on peut trouver devant le verbe, dans le créole de Santiago, remontent, d'une façon ou d'une autre, à des auxiliaires de la langue de base. La forme durative du créole de Santiago, son sa ta fase 'être en train de faire', proviendrait de la 3 e personne du singulier du présent de l'indi­ catif de la périphrase portugaise está a fazer ou estáfazendo (le gérondif portu­ gais, de toute façon, n'a pas survécu dans le "crioulo fundo" de Santiago).2 Cette périphrase était hautement fréquente, et son auxiliaire se prononçait à l'époque plus ou moins [(e)s'ta]. Cet auxiliaire (éventuellement suivi de la préposition a) aurait donc, d'un côté, été adapté à la structure syllabique cano­ nique du créole naissant (consonne + voyelle, consonne + voyelle, etc.), le [(e)s'ta(ɐ)] passant à un [sɐtɐ] (de la même façon que l'adjectif pg. escuro "sombre" — à l'époque: [(e)s'kuru] — passait à cr. sukuru [su'kuru]). De l'autre côté, l'auxiliaire portugais aurait été coupé en deux pour livrer deux particules 2) Le gérondif se maintient, dans cette périphrase, au Brésil, tandis qu'au Portugal il a été remplacé, presque dans toutes les variétés, par l'infinitif précédé de la préposition a: está a fazer (cf. Teyssier 1984: 84). Cette dernière variante de la périphrase peut avoir eu cours, elle aussi, depuis bien longtemps, dans certains milieux populaires, avant de pénétrer dans le standard européen.

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aspectuelles, recherchées, peut-être, dans leurs essais d'analyser des discours portugais, par des locuteurs qui, dans leur propre langue, disposaient d'une double opposition aspectuelle de ce genre. Cette explication de la genèse du complexe sa ta expliquerait en même temps celle du simple ta.3 On pourrait ajouter que des prononciations plus populaires du type ta ['ta] au lieu de está [(e)s'ta] peuvent déjà avoir eu cours, en portugais, à l'époque de la formation du créole de Santiago. On les rencontre aujourd'hui dans beaucoup de dialectes tant portugais que brésiliens. Il se peut même que de telles prononciations raccourcies étaient plus fréquentes, dans les discours portugais qui parvenaient aux oreilles des créateurs africains du créole de Santiago, que les autres — de la même façon qu'est bien plus fréquente, aujourd'hui, dans le créole de Santiago, la simple marque de l'imperfectivité ta que la marque complexe de la durativité sa ta. Pour ce qui est de la marque modale ál, le plus simple semble être de la faire remonter à la suite há de contenue dans la périphrase portugaise há de fazer (3 e personne du singulier du présent de l'indicatif). Le signifié du mode créole marqué par ál — difficile à cerner de près — est, de toute façon, proche de celui de la périphrase portugaise, et la dérivation phonétique ne pose pas de problème. En effet, le créole de Santiago n'admet pas de [d] en position finale de syllabe. C'est ainsi qu'on trouve deux variantes pour les constructions où la préposition di 'de' se trouve placée entre deux mots, l'un se terminant par une voyelle et l'autre commençant par une consonne: '(le) propriétaire de (la) maison' se dit ou dónu di kása ou dónu-l kása, 'dans la maison' ou dentu di kása ou dentu-l kása etc.4 Le passage du portugais há de au créole ál est donc parfaitement régulier, du moins devant les particules verbales ou verbes commençant par une consonne, c'est à dire — vu la tendance du créole à faire commencer les sylla­ bes et les mots par une consonne — dans l'écrasante majorité des cas. En résumé:

3) Après avoir rédigé ce passage, je trouve, dans le Petit dictionnaire étymologique du Kriol de Guinée-Bissau et Casamance de Jean-Louis Rougé, s.v. ta marqueur de l'habituel, ce commentaire: "Provient certainement de l'abrègement d'une ancienne forme sa ta, à laquelle M. Barros fait allusion et qui existe encore au Cap Vert; à Ziguinchor, on emploie encore sa dans l'expression ki sa. Ce sa ta provient vraisemblablement du verbe estar. Dans la littéra­ ture portugaise du XVIème siècle (Gil Vicente, Chiado) on trouve dans la bouche d'africains de formes telles que sata, santar au lieu de estar". En simplifiant un peu, on peut dire que, dans le créole du Guinée-Bissau et de Casamance, s'est aujourd'hui la préposition na 'à, en' qui, devant les prédicats, remplit la fonction de notre sa ta. 4) En fait, il existe une troisième possibilité, sans intérêt pour la question qui nous occupe, qui consiste à faire l'économie de la préposition: dónu kása, dentu kása etc.

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(es)tá (fazendo/ a fazer)

cr.

(sa) ta (faze)

477

háde (fazer)

ál

(faze)

Dans un premier temps, les périphrases portugaises está fazendo/a fazer et há de fazer n'auraient donc pas été adoptées en tant que telles, leurs auxiliaires auraient plutôt fourni une partie du matériel qu'il fallait pour la confection de la conjugaison primaire du créole. Ce n'est que plus tard que le créole a effectivement emprunté une de ces deux structures, à savoir celle de está a fazer, en créant la périphrase sta na fas e ou sta ta fase, avec substitution de la préposition portugaise a, inexistante en créole, par la préposition na ou la particule ta, en parfaite harmonie avec le sens de la périphrase et la fonction de ces deux particules créoles. D'une façon générale on peut dire que pour adopter des procédés gram­ maticaux il faut avoir rencontré des expressions complexes, les avoir reconnues en tant que telles et avoir compris le mode de leur formation. C'est dire qu'il faut être au moins partiellement bilingue. Or, la créolisation présuppose, justement, un conflit entre l'incompréhension et un besoin urgent de communiquer. Il est donc improbable que les périphrases d'origine visiblement portugaise du créole de Santiago remontent à la créolisation. Ce sont plutôt de simples emprunts structuraux d'une langue à une autre, en milieu au moins partiellement bilingue. Emprunts facilités, bien sûr, par les affinités materielles et sémantiques entre le créole et sa langue de base et rendus possibles par la cohabitation prolongée de ces deux langues sur un même sol. Les chances pour que les locuteurs du créole procèdent à de tels emprunts augmentent dans la mesure où la nécessité de la créolisation diminue. Il ne faut pas craindre, pour autant, que le créole se dissolve sous peu dans le portugais. Nous n'avons pas repéré des périphrases et des procédés de formation de mots portugais dans le créole de Santiago. Ce que nous avons rencontré, ce sont des procédés créoles que les locuteurs du créole ont créés en s'inspirant du portugais. Tout emprunt d'une langue à une autre demande une adaptation de ce qu'on emprunte à ce qui est déjà en place. Qu'on pense à ce qui a été dit au sujet des particules dans les périphrases portugaises et créoles, par exemple. Si les structures que nous venons d'étudier sont des emprunts du créole au portugais, c'est qu'elles n'appartiennent donc pas à l'héritage portugais de ce créole. Cette distinction entre héritage et emprunts me paraît essentielle. Cet héritage portugais existe, évidemment, dans les créoles portugais. Mais il faut le chercher ailleurs. Il faut le chercher dans la matière phonique et sémantique fournie, il y a plus de cinq cents ans, par les discours des locuteurs portugais et non pas dans les structures de ces créoles (cf. Lang 1981 et 1996).

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Je terminerai sur quelques réflexions concernant, d'une part, l'emploi du terme de restructuration dans les études créoles et, d'autre part, l'existence de différents degrés de créolisation.

Créolisation et restructuration Disons tout de suite que le terme de restructuration convient très bien à la créa­ tion de périphrases verbales, inspirée du portugais, que nous avons observée dans le créole de Santiago. Cette création suppose en effet, au niveau du discours, une réanalyse de certaines suites [E] [bá] [[ta] [kánta]] 'Il (y) alla en chantant' ↓↓↓↓ [E] [[bá] [ta] [kánta]] 'Il était en train de chanter' et, au niveau de la langue, une restructuration du vocabulaire et de la gram­ maire: à un verbe bá 'aller' qui, jusqu'alors, appartenait exclusivement au lexi­ que, est attribuée la faculté de fonctionner, en plus, en tant qu'instrument grammatical. Que les créateurs de ces périphrases se soient inspirés du portugais (cf. pg. Ele vai cantando) ne change rien au fait, que nous nous sommes efforcés de mettre en évidence, qu'il s'agit là d'innovations surgies au cours de l'histoire de ce créole et non pas de faits de créolisation. De la même façon, des périphrases verbales peuvent naître, dans n'importe quelle langue et à n'importe quel moment, à l'imitation d'une autre langue ou sans modèle (cf. pour le fr. aller faire qc. Lang et Neumann-Holzschuh 1999). Une argumentation analogue s'impose pour la création, dans le créole santiagais, des procédés de formation de mots dont il a été question plus haut. Il est plus délicat de répondre à la question, implicite dans le thème de ce congrès, si le terme de restructuration convient aussi aux faits de créolisation eux-mêmes. Au nombre de ces faits, nous avons rangé, on s'en souvient, la transformation de certains auxiliaires portugais en marqueurs verbaux créoles. En principe, je ne vois pas d'inconvénient à ce qu'on dise d'un créole, confronté avec sa langue de base, qu'il constitue une version plus ou moins restructurée de celle-ci. Mais dès qu'on veut désigner, avec ce terme de restructuration, un processus psychique individuel, je ne crois plus qu'il convienne de l'appliquer à la créolisation d'une langue. Les Africains qui venaient d'entrer en contact avec les Portugais ne pouvaient pas restructurer ou réanalyser le portugais pour la simple raison que, pour restructurer, il faut déjà connaître une structure et, pour réanalyser, il faut déjà disposer d'une analyse. Les Africains ont donc simplement analysé et structuré ce qui, pour le moment, n'était pour eux qu'une matière informe, non structurée, fournie par les discours en langue de base qui parvenaient à leurs oreilles. Et l'on ne peut pas

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s'empêcher de penser qu'ils l'ont fait en recourant aux seules structures linguis­ tiques dont ils disposaient déjà, à savoir celles de leurs langues d'origine. Revenons encore une fois à l'exemple des auxiliaires et des marqueurs verbaux de notre créole pour rendre cette idée plus claire. Selon notre recons­ truction, les locuteurs du créole de Santiago qui ont crée les périphrases verbales présentées dans le tableau 1 disposaient déjà du verbe bá 'aller' et ils disaient déjà, si besoin en était, E bá ta kánta 'Il (y) alla en chantant'. Ils pouvaient donc réanalyser de telles phrases dont ils connaissaient déjà une analyse et restructurer un lexique et une grammaire créoles dont ils disposaient déjà (en augmentant le nombre de verbes pouvant fonctionner comme auxiliai­ res et en enrichissant, par là, la conjugaison périphrastique des verbes). Il en allait tout autrement de la création des marqueurs verbaux qui forment la conjugaison primaire, non-périphrastique, de ce créole. Ce ne sont pas des créolisants mais des créolisateurs qui les ont crées. Ces créolisateurs, qui ne disposaient pas de la grammaire du portugais (sinon, pourquoi l'aurait-ils tout de suite changée de fond en comble?) et n'arrivaient donc pas à analyser 'correctement' les discours portugais, ont tout simplement cherché à analyser et à structurer ces discours en se construisant une grammaire pour cette langue. En le faisant, ils ont pu prendre pour des marqueurs verbaux ce qui, pour les Portugais, étaient des auxiliaires.

Différents degrés de créolisation En disant que, sous la réserve que je viens de faire, je ne vois pas d'inconvénient à ce qu'on dise d'un créole, confronté avec sa langue de base, qu'il constitue une version plus ou moins restructurée de celle-ci, j'ai déjà fait allusion à la possibilité que différents créoles et différentes variétés sociales et/ou stylisti­ ques d'un même créole puissent correspondre à différents degrés de créolisation de cette langue. C'est tout d'abord l'évidence des faits qui nous incite à l'admet­ tre. Il semble bien, par exemple, qu'aux îles du Cap Vert le créole de Sao Vicente soit plus proche du portugais que celui de Santiago. J'essaierai de montrer qu'il n'est pas toujours nécessaire de recourir pour l'explication de telles différences au terme de décréolisation, c'est-à-dire à des différences dans le nombre d'emprunts (voir plus haut) de ces créoles à leur langue de base en situation de contact. La créolisation d'une langue commence par un processus d'apprentissage non-guidé de celle-ci par des individus parlant d'autres langues. La première démarche de personnes adultes apprenant une langue totalement étrangère dans de telles circonstances est universellement la même. Dans leurs efforts de comprendre comment s'articule, dans la matière phonique des discours qu'ils entendent, un sens qu'ils devinent, ces adultes partent, bon gré mal gré et jusqu'à nouvel ordre, de l'hypothèse que la langue en question fonctionne exactement

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comme celle(s) qu'ils connaissent déjà. De fausses ségmentations — fausses du point de vue de la langue cible — et l'attribution de signifiés inexistants dans cette langue aux segments ainsi retenus, en sont l'inévitable conséquence. Pour que de tels essais naisse un créole, il faut que certaines conditions sociales soient remplies. D'une part, il faut que les apprenants se trouvent dans une certaine dépendance sociale par rapport aux locuteurs de la langue de base et qu'ils ne disposent pas, pour la communication entre eux, d'une autre langue qui ne soit pas cette langue cible. Et d'autre part, il faut que, tôt ou tard, le désir et le besoin de communiquer avec les compagnons de sort l'emporte chez eux sur celui de communiquer avec les maîtres qui parlent la langue de base. À partir du moment où le but de la communication horizontale prend ainsi le dessus sur celui de la communication verticale, les erreurs d'analyse qui résul­ tent de la démarche décrite plus haut ne seront plus corrigées. L'intérêt se déplacera vers la recherche d'un compromis entre différentes hypothèses d'analyse, toutes déviantes, pour l'interprétation des discours entendus dans la langue de base. Il paraît donc légitime de tenir compte, pour l'explication des différences dans le degré de créolisation qu'on constate entre différentes (variétés de) langues créoles, de la vitesse avec laquelle le deuxième des objectifs mention­ nés plus haut relève le premier. Dans les cas où la communication verticale reste pendant longtemps l'objectif dominant, il naîtra, vraisemblablement, un créole relativement proche de la langue de base, donc peu créolisé (cas 1). Si, par contre, le but de la communication horizontale l'emporte très tôt, le créole naissant se constituera à une plus grande distance de la langue de base, et l'on aura un créole fortement créolisé (cas 2): langue de base (par ex. portugaise)

cas 1

créole structuralement plus proche de la langue de base

La distance structurale entre les différentes langues de substrat peut, certes, jouer elle aussi un rôle. Dans certains cas cette distance aura été tellement grande qu'un compromis n'est devenu possible qu'à proximité de la langue de base.

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Ces réflexions concernant différents degrés de créolisation d'une même langue de base montrent encore une fois que la créolisation ne doit pas être comprise comme étant un travail mental de restructuration d'une langue: si les créolisateurs employaient effectivement dans un travail mental de restructura­ tion de la langue de base le temps qui s'écoule entre la mise en place des condi­ tions sociales permettant l'essor d'un créole et sa naissance, il faudrait alors s'attendre à ce que le degré de restructuration augmente proportionnellement au temps qui s'écoule entre ces deux moments. Or, il semble que c'est plutôt le contraire: plus vite le besoin et le désir d'une communication horizontale impo­ sent un compromis entre les créolisateurs et plus grande sera la distance entre le créole naissant et sa langue de base.

Bibliographie Coseriu, Eugenio. 1977. "Inhaltliche Wortbildungslehre (am Beispiel des Typs coupepapier)". Dans Herbert E. Brekle et Dieter Kastovsky, éds. Perspektiven der Wortbil­ dungsforschung, Beiträge zum Wuppertaler Wortbildungskolloquium vom 9.-10. Juli 1976. Bonn: Bouvier, 48-61. Jakobson, Roman. 1974. "Verschieber, Verbkategorien und das russische Verb". Dans Roman Jakobson. Form und Sinn. Sprachwissenschaftliche Betrachtungen. München: Fink [première version en anglais 1957], 35-53. Lang, Jürgen. 1981. "Was ist Kreolisierung?". Dans Logos Semantikos. Studia linguistica in honorem Eugenio Coseriu, vol. V. Berlin, New York, Madrid: de Gruyter, Gredos, 197-209. —. 1994. "Estruturas eventualmente africanas no crioulo de Cabo Verde (Santiago)". Papia 3,2: 171-6. —. 1996. "Dans quel sens la créolisation est-elle un métissage?" Études Créoles 19: 62-8. Lang, Jürgen et Ingrid Neumann-Holzschuh. 1999. "Reanalyse und Grammatikalisierung. Zur Einführung in diesen Band". Dans Jürgen Lang et Ingrid Neumann-Holzschuh, éds. Reanalyse und Grammatikalisierung in den romanischen Sprachen. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Rouge, Jean-Louis. 1988. Petit dictionnaire étymologique du Kriol de Guinée-Bissau et Casamance. Bissau (Guiné-Bissau): Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisa. Silva, Tomé Várela da, éd. 1987. Na bóka noti, Volumi — I. Praia: Institutu Kauberdianu di Libru. Teyssier, Paul. 1984. História da língua portuguesa, 2a edição. Lisboa: Sá da Costa [première version en français 1980]. Les exemples suivis de (RS) ont été confirmés par notre collaborateur capverdien André dos Reis Santos, originaire de João Teves, Santiago.

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Jürgen Lang Friedrich Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg Seminar tur Romanische Philologie Bismarckstr. 1 91054 Erlangen Germany [email protected]

Subject Index A agreement marker 149, 163-4, 166, 175, 180,454,459 Amsterdam school 29 ancestral language 32, 52, 54-5 angma 316, 330-1 anterior 85, 131, 139, 141, 143-4, 146, 150-1,289-91,447 aorist 443, 449-50 apprentices 281,296-300 areal contact 23 article 10, 14, 31, 34, 41, 45, 61, 113, 132, 147-50, 163, 181, 199, 200, 255, 257, 259, 261-5, 269, 275, 309, 322, 363, 365, 369, 383, 386-7, 389, 391-3, 416, 425-7, 452, 458 aspect 2, 3, 10-1, 23, 89, 90, 102, 110, 118, 126-7, 131, 160-1, 169, 171,212, 224, 227-9, 231, 234, 238-9, 241, 2445, 256, 291, 293, 306, 372, 378, 393, 397,415-6,443,474 Atlantic creoles 34, 122, 185-6, 198, 333, 406 auxiliary 78, 130, 149, 169, 229, 231-3, 235-6, 239, 290, 395, 397, 441-2, 448, 472, 474-5

code-switching 14, 75, 117, 410, 414-5, 420-1,423-4,432-3,447 cognitive anthropology 338-9 completive 128, 238, 293, 302 computational economy 175 conservative creole 383 constraint 310,315,330-1,336 constructive approach 9, 48 continuum 3, 7, 13-4, 21-2, 30, 32-4, 70, 98,101, 108, 111, 127-9, 210, 216-7, 219, 223, 243, 363, 365, 373, 379-80, 409,416,418-20 copula 45, 60, 61, 85, 113, 127, 169, 17780, 199-200, 227, 232, 255-9, 261-3, 265, 269, 286, 292, 322, 395, 402, 406, 435, 442-3, 448, 459, 462 creoleness 2, 6, 8, 12, 18, 24, 38, 186, 187, 189, 194, 212, 248-9, 253, 257, 261-2, 264, 268, 272-3, 383-4, 389, 401,403,406 creolization 1-5, 9-11, 13-17, 19, 24-5, 28-9, 31, 38, 41-2, 47-9, 58-61, 70, 81, 100, 115, 117, 120, 122, 125-6, 135, 146, 159, 215-7, 241, 244, 247-51, 268, 271-3, 295-6, 354, 361-3, 368-74, 3767, 379-80, 384, 386-87, 390-91, 394, 404-5, 437, 453, 461, 469, 474, 477-81 creoloid 17, 24, 36, 119, 437, 449, 462

 basilect 126,383,388,416,418 black-to-white ratio 185,193,199 blending 279, 428 borrowing 22, 32, 81, 107-8, 110-2, 326, 354,423-5,429,431

 child language 73, 75, 80, 457-9, 465 clitic pronoun 149,164,178,455 coda 310,326,329-32 code-mixing 73,75,420-1

D decreolization 4, 7, 11, 14, 18, 20-23, 25, 27, 75, 78, 121, 126-7, 157, 217-8, 2245, 238-41, 247, 250, 272, 372-3, 376, 380, 384-5, 387-9, 391, 394, 402, 40911,413-21,432-3,462,479 degrees of restructuring 3, 7, 9, 13-14, 16, 20, 41, 45, 60, 216, 242, 247, 363, 387, 398, 432, 479 deletion 127, 256, 310, 315-6, 325-6, 3313,468

484

SUBJECT INDEX

demographics 11, 185, 192, 194, 196, 198, 212, 219, 221, 223, 226, 249, 2512,271,274,438 derivation 10, 86, 91-7, 103-4, 106-7, 110, 112,115-7 dialects in contact 31 differential creolization 12, 217, 247-8, 251-3, 258, 262, 264, 268, 271-2 differential restructuring 387, 389 diffusion 9, 37, 38, 61, 82, 122, 194, 209, 210,241,245,306,400,407 disfranchising act 67 durative aspect 378

habitual 99, 126, 229, 232, 234, 239, 255, 257-8, 291-3, 415, 424, 441, 443 horizontal communication 342, 480-1

E

I

eco-linguistic 338 ecology 69, 71, 73, 75, 83, 127, 248, 275, 380, 388 epenthesis 12, 310, 323, 326-31, 334-5 ethnoclassification 338, 341 ex-slave narratives 254, 271-2, 274

iconicity 174 imperfect learning 75 imperfect replication 69, 75-6 imperfect shift 32 implicational scale 257, 260-1 independency hypothesis 338 indigenization 19 infinitive 102, 131, 150-1, 154, 166, 258, 314, 395, 441-2, 444, 448, 450, 459, 465 inflection 86-8, 99, 101-3, 106-7, 111, 113,115,117,123,261,460 innovation 15, 132, 237, 374, 400, 428, 430, 432 interference 7, 75-6, 90, 109-10, 117, 199, 216, 277, 310, 325, 327-8, 330, 332, 334, 410, 415, 420-21, 424-25, 427-28, 433, 440, 453, 456 interlanguage 14, 28, 32, 75, 216, 258, 326-7, 334, 437, 452-53, 456, 463 intermediate creóles 11, 217, 219, 225, 234-5, 238-9, 241-2 intertwining 11, 19, 33, 117, 119, 421

F finiteness marker 164, 169, 171, 180 foreigner talk 12, 122, 147, 283, 296, 301, 305,340 founder effect 28 Freetown 12,276-81,284-5,288,294, 296-300, 305, 307 full restructuring 32 future 78, 86, 125, 136-8, 142, 144-6, 151, 155-8, 162, 168, 187, 200, 415, 432-3, 436, 444-5

G generation 1, 14, 69, 74, 92, 155, 192, 211, 296, 343, 351, 371, 374-5, 412, 437,441 genesis 4, 10, 17-8, 22, 31, 34, 47-8, 61-3, 82-3, 97, 99-103, 107, 109-11, 113-4, 118-9, 122-3, 125-7, 135, 148, 150, 153, 161, 195-6, 209, 211-2, 217, 241,

244-5, 255, 273-4, 296, 305, 307, 336, 376, 381, 388, 392, 403, 405-7, 476 gradual basilectalization 43, 45, 59 grammatical gender 391, 402 grammaticalization 1, 5, 6, 10-1, 58, 110, 135, 137-40, 142-6, 149, 154-5, 156-8, 161-2, 164, 177, 179-80, 195, 285-86, 306, 386-7, 393, 407, 445, 457

H

J jargon 12, 20, 26, 281-7, 289, 293-6, 3001,304-5

485

SUBJECT INDEX

K koineization 19, 379 L language change 4-6, 9, 11, 14, 16-8, 28, 39, 66-7, 69-71, 73-4, 76-8, 86, 89, 94, 110, 119, 125-7, 133, 138-40, 142, 146, 149, 154, 163-4, 175, 177, 179, 188, 215-7, 221, 227, 231, 241, 244, 272, 313, 322, 337, 340, 344, 364, 372, 385, 391, 394, 402-3, 406, 409, 411, 416-7, 425, 430-3, 478 language contact 3, 4, 6, 9, 11-2, 15-6, 1821, 23-5, 27, 29, 32, 38-9, 44-52, 55-7, 60, 66-74, 76-7, 83, 85, 97-8, 100-3, 106-7, 111-2, 115, 117, 150, 185, 193, 195, 197, 215, 218, 220-3, 225, 228, 239, 241, 245, 248, 250, 271, 274-6, 278, 294-5, 300, 325-6, 330, 342-3, 356, 361, 375-6, 378, 380, 385, 413, 419, 423, 427, 430, 433, 444, 450, 454, 457,459,461,478-9 language drift 28, 32, 86, 91-2, 94, 99, 111,115,117 language evolution 2, 6, 9, 10, 13-4, 39, 59, 66, 68, 70-2, 77, 79-81, 83, 99, 120, 125-6, 128, 131-2, 137, 139, 145, 149, 155,264,419,456,465 language shift 12, 19, 31, 47, 136, 140, 215-7, 228, 240-2, 249, 251, 356, 406, 409,413,423,431-4,456 language transfer 125 language transmission 6, 14, 68-9, 71, 734, 77, 91, 112, 148, 192, 215, 244, 378, 406, 437, 463 leveling 20, 39, 224, 311, 325, 330, 332, 335 lexical productivity 351 Liberated Africans 12, 275-88, 294-301, 304-5 loanword 310,326-7,329-32,335-36 loss of features 32

lumbalú 416,422,434,436 M markedness 71, 82, 122, 175-77, 183, 326, 458 Maroons 128, 277-8, 280-1, 284, 286, 294, 297, 300-1 MIC (medium for interethnic communi­ cation) 9, 48, 51-5, 57-8, 60, 72-4 missionaries 12, 50, 71, 277, 281, 284-7, 294, 340-2, 349, 356 monogenesis 419 morphology 25, 35, 86, 92, 95, 107, 1113, 117, 129, 181, 259, 263, 335, 354, 432 morphosyntax 13, 123, 129, 168, 447, 466 motivation 8, 11, 57, 87, 91, 105-6, 114, 156, 174, 186, 195-6, 198, 369, 474

N negator 394-6 normal transmission 28, 31, 68, 71 Nova Scotians 276-8, 280-1, 284, 286, 288,294,297,300-1

 object clitics 437, 446, 451, 453, 456 osmosis 74, 76 P past 19, 23, 42, 61, 70, 79, 100, 108, 112, 125, 129-32, 136-37, 139, 141-4, 150-2, 154, 165, 168, 177, 181, 187, 200, 227, 229, 232-7, 239-41, 250, 256-9, 261-5, 269, 287, 289-91, 302, 327, 355, 357, 395, 418, 430-1, 442-4, 450, 453, 462 past participle 129, 130-1, 141, 150-1, 154,236,257,395,442 perfect 13, 73, 100, 126, 128, 130-2, 1367, 139-42, 144, 159-60, 181, 235-7, 257, 260-2, 269, 283, 290, 444, 474 periphrastic construction 145, 150-1, 322

486

SUBJECT INDEX

phoneme 169 phonogenesis 169, 180 phonological shift 23 phonology 90, 97, 127, 224, 272, 310, 327, 333-6, 341 pidginization 19, 22, 24, 28, 42, 47-9, 59, 81, 113-4, 117, 120, 244, 296, 342, 450 pidginization index 22 post-creole 20, 22, 24, 30, 34, 135, 243, 247,340,418-9,421 predicate marker 164, 170-1, 175, 180, 256 present habitual 230 present relevance 144-6,155-6 prestige 32, 109, 410, 422-3, 427, 462 preverbal particles 441, 443, 445, 449, 451,457,459,461 primary leveling 32 progressive 45, 78, 126, 133, 156, 179, 181, 239, 285-6, 322, 363, 372, 393, 417,424,441-3,448,471 pronouns 11, 39, 52, 78, 113, 116, 132, 157, 164, 166, 169-71, 177, 179-80, 199, 258-59, 263, 337, 390-91, 427-9, 435, 453-5, 465 prototype 10, 15, 17, 65, 79-80, 82, 91, 97-8, 100-1, 106, 112, 117, 120, 135, 160, 183, 290, 383-4, 402-3, 406 prototypicality 387, 403

R radical creole 7, 16, 42, 66, 197, 216, 218, 235, 241-2, 247 radicalness 7, 11, 13, 185, 188-95,207, 386-7 rainbow hypothesis 12, 248, 268 reanalysis 5, 6, 10-1, 15, 17, 62, 88, 108, 125-7, 130, 132, 148-50, 153-8, 176, 231-2, 234-5, 237-8, 386-7, 407, 453, 478 reduplication 54, 96, 112, 129, 329 Regent 280, 286-97, 299-300, 306 relative past 239

relexification 3, 9, 45-6, 62, 75, 354 repidginization 384, 407 restructuring 1, 3-7, 9-16, 19, 22, 24-5, 27, 31, 33, 35-6, 41-3, 45, 57, 60, 66, 68-9, 71, 73, 75-7, 80-1, 128-9, 132-3, 135, 147-9, 152-4, 156, 162-3, 172-4, 180-1, 185-6, 189, 193-4, 196-9, 210, 216-8, 227, 241-2, 247, 251-2, 271, 276, 287, 294-6, 309, 325, 332, 338, 340, 348-9, 355-6, 383-92, 397, 401-2, 409-11, 414-9, 422-3, 425, 429-30, 437, 439, 441, 444-5, 450-1, 461, 478, 481 result 4, 10, 20-1, 32, 45, 47-8, 50, 54-5, 60, 86, 89, 100-3, 107, 111-2, 126, 130, 135-6, 138-41, 143-44, 146-47, 149, 154-6, 158, 188, 192, 197, 216, 218-9, 221, 224, 237, 239, 241-2, 247, 255-6, 296, 317, 330, 338, 386, 410-1, 416, 418-21, 425, 430, 444, 457-8, 462 resultant state 130-2,139,141 resultative 129-30, 136, 139, 140 rote-processing 175

S second language acquisition (SLA) 49, 216,326-7,331-2 secondary leveling 32 semi-creole 2, 7, 8, 18-25, 27, 29, 31-2, 35, 38, 70, 80, 101, 210, 212, 217, 241, 247-8, 258, 271-3, 368, 373, 406 serial verb 126-7, 187, 227, 244, 396-7 shift 217 Sierra Leone 12, 119, 226, 275-9, 281-3, 285-6, 288, 291-2, 294, 296, 301, 3057,438 simplification 25, 32, 119, 147, 215-6, 281,283,392 social factors 20,218,222,337,433 South African philological school 28 spontaneous development 28, 441 stative 129-31,153,230-31,289-90 stress 90, 108, 115, 177,454 stressed pronoun 178

487

SUBJECT INDEX

structural break 383,389,402 structural features 6, 11, 25, 32, 66-7, 745,79-80,164,250 subject clitics 11, 163, 446, 453-5, 457, 461 subject pronoun 57, 163-7, 169-71, 17780, 264, 390-1, 428-30, 436, 445, 4537, 459-60 substrate 2, 4-9, 11-2, 15, 25, 27, 30, 32, 59, 68, 70, 73-7, 81, 100, 113, 119, 171, 181, 185-7, 197, 212, 215-6, 218, 224, 227, 231-2, 234-5, 237-8, 241-2, 249, 301, 309-10, 325-32, 335-7, 339, 374, 376, 386, 395, 401, 437, 453, 463, 469, 480 superstrate 2, 6-9, 11-4, 20, 100, 108, 195, 216, 218, 222-3, 225, 227, 231, 239, 241-2, 244, 249-51, 261, 293, 295-6, 301, 305, 315, 386, 409-11, 416, 418, 422-3, 425, 427, 432, 459 syllable 12, 90, 116, 127, 187, 189, 200, 309, 310-1, 313, 315-6, 325-8, 330-1, 333, 336, 427, 443, 455 syncretism 173,416 syntax 18, 35, 37, 86, 97, 127, 129, 181, 238, 272, 337, 406, 432, 453, 457-8

216, 224, 232, 234, 241, 295, 321, 3256,331-2,449,460 tense 10-1,23, 89, 114, 118, 129, 132, 135-6, 145-6, 150-3, 158, 166-9, 171-3, 175, 177, 180-1, 212, 217, 224, 227-31, 234, 236, 238-9, 241, 244-5, 258-9, 261-3, 265, 269, 290, 306, 415-6, 443, 452 theory 2, 3, 6, 10-2, 19-20, 22-3, 27-8, 301, 42, 71, 97, 136, 244, 271, 296, 310, 325, 327, 333-5, 383, 419, 465, 467 TMA markers 45, 126, 130, 397-401 TMA system 7, 45, 58, 126, 130, 132, 200, 209, 217, 228-30, 234, 239-41, 244-5, 274, 289, 293-5, 337, 394, 402, 448 token frequency 11, 163, 175-7, 179, 181 tone 10, 86-7, 89-90, 94-5, 97-9, 111-2, 115-7,127,181,201,454 typology 6, 17-8, 39, 67, 80, 82-3, 85, 183, 215, 241, 245, 274, 407, 465

T

W

target language 8, 9, 11-2, 31-2, 41, 43, 45, 47, 54, 72-6, 88, 90, 114, 133, 195, 209, 240-2, 283, 327, 409 tendency 3, 5, 6, 11, 20, 25, 32, 46, 59, 77, 87, 90, 96, 100, 108, 126, 130, 135,

V verb phrase 445, 461 verb system 14,33,437,441,446 vertical communication 480

word formation 161,350-1,356,470, 472, 475, 477-8

Z zero morpheme 175

Language Index A Aboriginal English Kriol 112 African American Vernacular English 7, 8, 12, 19-20, 22-5, 33, 35-8, 40, 67, 78, 82, 127, 188-9, 193, 201, 207-8, 213, 216, 236-7, 242, 244-5, 247-52, 254, 256,271-4,276,412,419,435 Afrikaans 9, 19-22, 27-9, 31, 33-4, 36, 3840,85,120,172-4,210-1 Afro-Caribbean creole 433, 448 Afro-Iberian creoles 438, 447-8, 461 Akan 46, 226, 231, 235, 237, 244, 334-6, 454 American English 2, 12, 35-7, 68, 82, 166,236,251,273 American Indian English 31, 34 Andean Spanish 438, 452-3, 463 Angolar Portuguese Creole 88 Annobonese 89, 203 Appalachian English 236 Arabic 101, 149, 179 Assamese 114 Atlantic English Creoles 49, 60-2, 209, 306 Austronesian 98, 179, 187

 Baba Malay 112 Bahamian Creole 22 Bambara 53,93,96,118 Bantu 46, 53, 58, 60, 67, 86, 89, 98, 227, 328, 336, 413, 426, 439-40, 454-7 Barbadian Creole/Bajan 11,192,194-5, 197-8, 201, 205, 207-10, 215-9, 223-4, 227-43, 245, 309, 405 Bay Island English 23 Belize Creole 216,227 Bengali 53,114 Benue-Congo languages 439, 442, 449, 454 Berbice Dutch 68, 100, 122, 309, 334

Bermudan English 188-9, 201, 206, 208 Bight of Benin Portuguese Creole 196 Bislama 112 Boni 310,313,323-4 bozal Spanish 14, 27, 437-8, 448-9, 451, 456, 459-63, 465 Brazilian Vernacular Portuguese 20-1, 25, 31,32,36,203-4,206 British regional dialects 11, 22, 258 Broken 112,171,183,307

 Cajun French 102, 391-3, 398, 406 Cantonese 326,335-6,460 Capeverdean Creole 101, 177, 182, 187-8, 190-1, 203-5, 207, 447, 461, 469-79 Carib 55 Caribbean Creole French 20, 384 Caribbean Vernacular Spanish 2, 14, 21, 26-7, 32-3, 36, 39, 186, 198, 209, 410, 413-4, 418-9, 434-40, 442-4, 446, 4489,451,457,461,463-7 Caymanian English 22 Chinese 65, 86-7, 101, 122, 130, 351-2, 358, 460 Chinese Pidgin 87, 122 Chinook Jargon 87, 114, 120 Chrau 94-5,116,123 Cornish English 233 D Danish 172 Delaware Jargon 87 Dominican Spanish 15, 26-7, 31, 35, 1889, 203-5, 210 Dutch 21,27-8,35,88, 100, 109, 111-2, 172-3, 176, 186, 192, 195, 226, 314-5, 324, 328, 349 E Early Modern English 230, 234, 236 Eastern Ijo 100

490

LANGUAGE INDEX

English (Creoles) 2, 5, 9, 11-2, 18, 20-4, 30, 34-5, 37-40, 48-52, 54-7, 59, 62-3, 66, 68, 70, 73, 78, 82-3, 87-8, 90, 92, 101,108-9,111-2,115,123,127-8, 130-1, 133, 139, 141, 143, 159, 162, 164, 170, 177-8, 180, 186, 190, 192-5, 197, 199, 201, 208-9, 212, 217-9, 2225, 227-30, 232-3, 235-45, 250, 256, 258-9, 261, 263, 273-6, 279, 281-8, 290-7, 300-1, 305-7, 313, 315, 323-4, 326-8, 330-1, 335-6, 339, 344-5, 348-9, 352-8, 405-7, 418-20, 425, 435-6, 443, 448, 454, 457-8, 466-7 Eskimo Pidgin 87, 123 Ewe 46,331,334,336,394

F FaD'Ambu 89,112 Fanakalo 87,90 Fante 46, 334-5, 454 Fijian 95, 119 Fon 46, 53, 59, 438 Fongbe 231,329 French (Creoles) 2, 5, 9-11, 13, 19, 29-30, 33, 40, 43, 45-6, 48, 50, 52-60, 62-3, 66, 68, 77, 79, 81, 88, 101-2, 106-13, 119, 121, 128-33, 135, 139, 141, 143, 145-61, 164, 167-9, 186, 190, 193-4, 196, 198, 208, 210-3, 217, 230-1, 241, 284, 326, 329, 364, 380-1, 389, 394-5, 404-7, 453, 456, 467 Fula 326, 454

G Gaelic 55,225,232 Garó 94, 119 Gastarbeiterdeutsch 113-4 Gbe 46, 53, 59, 217, 226, 231, 235, 237, 328-9,331,333 Gengbe 231,329,333 German 15, 28, 93, 96, 114, 120, 140, 342, 347-50, 352-6, 434, 461 Greek 101

Guadeloupe French Creole 17, 108, 140, 151, 158, 187-8, 193, 197, 202, 205, 207-8, 405 Guinea Coast Creole English 66 Guinea-Bissau Creole 178-9, 455, 461 Gullah 12, 22-4, 35, 78-9, 187-8, 193-4, 201, 205, 207-8, 210, 243-4, 248-52, 275-6 Guyanese English Creole 90, 143, 216-8, 233, 236, 238, 241 Guyanese French Creole 108,118,13940, 141-3, 149, 155-6, 158, 188, 202, 205, 207-8, 383, 390, 394, 397, 399 H Haitian Creole 2, 7, 10, 13, 18, 36, 45-6, 57, 59-60, 62-3, 66, 88-9, 96, 101, 10310, 113-4, 119, 122, 126, 128-30, 132, 137, 139-43, 147, 155-6, 158, 160, 162, 188, 193-4, 197, 202, 205, 207-8, 210, 215-7, 244, 274, 296, 307, 383-7, 3901, 393-5, 397, 399-402, 406, 457 Hawaiian Pidgin English 113-4 Hiberno English 11, 68, 216, 227, 231-3, 240, 242, 244-5 Hottentot 28-9 I Indian Ocean Creoles 374, 383, 391 Isicamtho 74, 81 Isle de France Creole 33, 62, 119, 209, 404 Italian 455

J Jamaican Creole 2, 7, 21-2, 34, 78-9, 108, .111-2, 118-9, 126-8, 133, 143, 187-8, 193-4, 201, 205, 207-8, 215, 217, 227, 242,244,277-8,286,415 Japanese 101,121,326-7,334

 Kannada 107 Kewa 341

491

LANGUAGE INDEX

Khasi 95, 122 Khmer 94 Kikongo 89, 227, 231, 237, 328-9, 331, 333-4, 336, 413, 426, 438-40, 454, 457, 461-3 Kituba 89, 98, 244 Koriki Trade Motu 199 Krio 12, 128, 143, 275-7, 279, 290-3, 300-2, 304-7 Kwa 65, 226, 328, 439, 443, 445-6, 449, 454 L Lahu 96,116,120-1 Latin 36, 103, 131, 136, 140, 143,211, 324, 328, 412, 414, 419, 429, 432, 434, 436, 449, 452, 465 Lesser Antillean French Creole 20, 46, 390, 393, 399, 401 Liberian English 309,331,336 Lingala 98 Louisiana French Creole 13, 102, 130, 139-41, 147, 156-8, 161, 188, 202, 205, 207-8, 383-5, 387-91, 393-6, 398-403, 406-7

M Malagasy 30, 53-4, 58, 60 Malay 29, 36, 342, 348 Malay Afrikaans 29, 36 Maltese 179 Mandarin 326-7 Mande 93,116,453-6 Mandinka 93,454,467 marginal French 377-8, 390, 404 Martinique French Creole 15, 44, 46, 56, 62, 122, 128, 158, 188, 190-1, 193, 202, 205, 207-8, 274, 296, 371, 377, 394 Mauritian Creole 30, 45, 54, 58, 60-1, 889, 96, 101, 108, 118-9, 129-30, 139-43, 145-7, 150, 155-6, 158-9, 167, 187-8, 193, 202, 205, 207, 356, 375, 380 Medieval Literary Scots 236

Middle English 137, 141, 144, 159, 161, 236, 244 Middle French 137,155,158 Mioko 348 Miskito Coast Creole 22 Mobilian Jargon 87, 120 Mota 171-2

N Nahuatl 107,452-3 Ndjuka 88-9, 96, 98-9, 108, 112, 120, 217,310,313,324 Negerhollands 2, 15, 88-9, 96, 112, 120, 187-9,193,203-5,207 New Guinea Pidgin 122, 342, 357 Niger-Congo 98, 116, 187

 Occitan 173-4 Old Scandinavian 172 Orange River Afrikaans 29, 40 P Palenquero 14, 26-7, 33, 39, 309, 409-36, 447,461 Papiamentu 26, 90, 107, 118, 121, 143, 150, 161, 187-8, 193, 203-5, 309, 4425,447,461 pidgin Spanish 441-2, 446, 451, 460-1, 466 Portuguese 2, 8, 15, 19, 21-2, 25-6, 33, 35-6, 39, 51, 66, 88, 90, 100, 108-9, 123, 143, 177, 186, 189-90, 193, 203-4, 210, 292, 361, 424, 436, 438, 440, 442, 444, 453-6, 459, 467-8, 470-9 Principense 112 Proto-Indo-European 103 Q Québécois French 68 Quechua 453, 463

R Rapanui 95-6, 119

492

LANGUAGE INDEX

Reunion Creole 30, 42, 54, 137-40, 142, 146-50, 154-8, 158-9, 164, 167-9, 171, 174, 182, 193, 362, 365-6, 368, 373, 375, 379-80 Réunionnais Vernacular French 7, 19-20, 22, 29-31, 39, 53-4, 101-2, 139, 215-6, 369, 374 Romance 7, 14, 18, 67-8, 70, 83, 86, 98, 136, 143-4, 160, 173, 196, 336,406, 434, 448, 453, 455, 465, 467-8 Russenorsk 87, 119 Russian 86-7, 91-3, 96, 104-5, 115, 122

S Samoan 95, 121 Sango 98,114-5,121-2 Sao Tomense 112,187-8,190-3,203-6 Saramaccan 2, 15, 22, 42, 66, 88-92, 96, 99, 112, 116, 121-3, 127-9, 217, 305, 310,313,323,333 Seychelles Creole 42, 137, 139-40, 142-3, 145, 147, 149-50, 153-60, 164-9, 171, Shona 326,336 Singapore English 242 Sinhala 100 Solomon Islands Pij in 112, 114 Soninke 115-7 Sorbian 175-6 Southern (US white vernacular) English 237, 250, 256 Spanish (Creoles) 9, 14, 19-20, 26-7, 32, 36-7, 40, 55, 107-8, 121, 137, 140, 143, 150, 186, 198, 211, 327, 410-34, 43661,465-8 Sranan 12, 15, 17, 22, 66, 81, 108, 111-2, 118, 127-8, 143, 161, 177, 187-8, 192, 194-5, 198, 201, 205, 207-9, 215-7, 239, 242-3, 245, 292, 305, 309-11, 3137,321-4,327-35,404 Sri Lanka Portuguese Creole 100, 122 St. Helena English 356 St. Kitts English Creole 187, 192-5, 1978,201,205,207-8,309

St. Lucian French Creole 88, 139, 161, 158 St. Thomas French 188-9,202,206 Surinamese creóles 21,227,323,325 SW English dialects 228-32, 234-5, 2401,243-4 Swedish 172, 174

T Taiwanese Mandarin 242 Tamil 53, 100 Thai 65 Tok Boi 343,356 Tok Pisin 11, 13, 37, 88-90, 93, 96, 99, 108-10, 112, 114, 121-3, 137, 143, 161, 164, 170-1, 174, 178, 180, 183, 337, 339-46, 349-50, 352-7 Tok Waitman 342 Tokelauan 96 Tolai 348, 354, 357 Trinidadian English Creole 217-8, 233, 235, 237-8, 241 Tupi 25 Twi 46, 328-32, 454

V Vallader Romanisch 173-4 Vietnamese 89 Vulgar Latin 86, 131

W West African Pidgin English 12, 67, 90, 276, 291-2, 301-2 Wolof 53, 454 Y Yiddish 107 Yoruba 294-5, 306, 325, 333, 335, 43841, 443.9, 451, 454, 457, 461, 463, 466-8 Z Zulu 87, 90