Typological Studies in Language
Creoles, their Substrates, and Language Typology
edited by Claire Lefebure
95
Creoles, their Substrates, and Language Typology
Typological Studies in Language (TSL) A companion series to the journal Studies in Language. Volumes in this series are functionally and typologically oriented, covering specific topics in language by collecting together data from a wide variety of languages and language typologies.
Editor Spike Gildea University of Oregon
Editorial Board Balthasar Bickel Leip1ig
John Haiman St Paul
Marianne Mithun Santa Barbara
Bernard Comrie Leip1ig I Santa Barbara
Martin Haspelmath Leipzig
Doris L. Payne Eugene, OR
Denis Creissels Lyon
Bernd Heine Koln
Franz Plank Konstanz
William Croft Albuquerque
Paul J. Hopper Pittsburgh
Anna Siewierska Lancaster
Nicholas Evans Canberra
Andrej A. Kibrik Moscow
Dan I. Slobin Berkeley
Carol Genetti Santa Barbara
Franti.Sek Lichtenberk Auckland
Sandra A. Thompson Santa Barbara
Volume95
Creoles, their Substrates, and Language Typology Edited by Claire Lefebvre
Creoles, their Substrates, and Language Typology Edited by
Claire Lefebvre University of Quebec at Montreal
John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam I Philadelphia
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 Creoles, their substrates, and language typology I edited by Claire Lefebvre. p. em. (Typological Studies in Language, ISSN 0167-7373 ; v. 95) Includes bibliographical references and index. Creole dialects. 2. Typology (Linguistics) I. Lefebvre, Claire.
1.
PM7831.C737 417:22--dC22
2011 2010042474
ISBN 978 90 272 o676 3 (Hb ; alk. paper) ISBN 978 90 2;72 8743 4 (Eb) © 2011 -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 36224 · 1020 ME Amsterdam· The Netherlands John Benjamins North America· P.O. Box 27519 ·Philadelphia PA 19118-0519 ·usA
Table of contents
Preface
IX
Part I. Introduction The problem of the typological classification of creoles
3
Claire Lefebvre Part II. Creoles spoken in Africa and in the Caribbean :hd6 influence on Santome: Evidence from verb serialisation
37
Tjerk Hagemeijer and Ota Ogie A Wolof trace in the verbal system of the Portuguese Creole of Santiago Island (Cape Verde)
61
!Urgen Lang Substrate influences in Kriyol: Guinea-Bissau and Casamance Portuguese-related Creole
81
AlainKihm One substrate. two creoles: The development of segmental inventories in St. Lucian and Haitian
105
Anne-Marie Brousseau. Substrate features in the properties of verbs in three Atlantic creoles: Haitian Creole, Saramaccan and Papiamentu
127
Claire Lefebvre Assessing the nature and role of substrate influence in the formation and development of the creoles of Suriname
Bettina Migge
155
VI
Creoles, their Substrates, and Language Typology
African substrata! influence on the countertactual in Belizean Creole
181
Genevieve Escure Substrate features in Nicaraguan, Providence and San Andres Creole Englishes: A comparison with Twi
201
Angela Bartens Palenque(ro ): The search for its African substrate
225
Armin Schwegler Part III. Creoles spoken in Asia Convergence-to-substratum and the passives in Singapore English
253
BaoZhiming Tone in Singlish: Substrate features from Sinitic and Malay
271
Lisa Lim The Cantonese substrate in China Coast Pidgin
Umberto Ansaldo, Stephen Matthews and Geoff Smith Substrate influences in Mindanao Chabacano
303
Anthony P. Gra.nt Negation in Ternate Chabacano
325
Eeva Sippola Aspect and directionality in Kupang Malay serial verb constructions: Calquing on the grammars of substrate languages
June Jacob a.nd Cha.rles R Gtimes Sri Lanka Malay and its Lankan adstrates
Umberto Ansaldo Dravidian features in the Sri Lankan Malay verb
Peter Slomanson
337
Table of contents
Part IV. Creoles spoken in the Pacific Papuan Malay of New Guinea: Melanesian influence on verb and clause structure
413
Mark Donohue The influence of Arandic languages on Central Australian Aboriginal English
437
Harold Koch Roper River Aboriginal language features in Australian Kriol: Considering semantic categories
Jennifer Munro Substrate influences on New South Wales Pidgin: The origin of -im and -fela
Ha.rold Koch Limits of the substrate: Substrate grammatical influence in Solomon Islands Pijin
513
Angela Terrill Substrate reinforcement and the retention of Pan-Pacific Pidgin features in modern contact varieties
531
Jeff Siegel The copula in Hawai'i Creole English and substrate reinforcement
557
Sarah ]. Roberts KOn traduit Ia langue en fran~ais": Substrate influence in the TMA system ofTayo
575
Ba.rbara. Sandeman Part V. Conclusion Creoles and language typology
599
Bernard Comrie Index of authors
613
Index of languages and language families
619
Index of subjects
623
vn
Preface
This book is about creoles, their contributing languages, and language typology. At the tum of the millennium, the issue of the typological classification of creoles gave rise to a relatively large body of literature. It soon became evident to me that discussions on the topic would benefit a great deal from detailed case studies of creoles and their contributing languages, with special attention to their substrate languages. I therefore organised a one-day workshop on creoles and their substrates within the context of the 2007 International Conference on Historical Linguistics. In view of the success of the workshop, and given the interest in the theme, I decided to enlarge the scope of the originally planned book to a much wider sample of creole languages. This initiative resulted in the project that eventually led to this book. The bulk of the content of this book consists of 25 chapters comparing some 30 creoles and their respective substrate languages. As the substrate languages of these creoles are typologically different. the detailed investigation of substrate features in the creoles leads to a particular answer to the question of the typological classification ofcreoles. Thus, the first chapter, by myselt~ introduces the material analysed in the various chapters of this book from the point of view of language typology. The last chapter, by Bernard Comrie, which echoes the first, provides the typologist's point of view on the problem of the typological classification of creole languages and on the theoretical questions at stake in the discussion of this issue. I would like to thank all the authors who contributed to this book for bearing with the comparative approach set forth as a methodological tool at the beginning of this project and for their collaboration in reducing the length of their chapters and in addressing comments and questions by several reviewers. This brings me naturally to the review process adopted tor the production of this book. Each chapter was commented on by at least three readers. I would like to thank the following scholars for their thorough reviews of a subset of chapters: Umberto Ansaldo, Angela Bartens, Anne-Marie Brousseau, Hugo Cardoso, Clancy Clements, Marta Dijkhoff, Genevieve Escure, Antony Grant, Tjerk Hagemeijer, Christine Jourdan. Alain Kihm, Harold Koch, Lisa Lim, Angelika Lutz, Stephen Matthews, Bettina Migge, Robert Papen, Kevin Rottet, Jeff Siegel, Anand Syea, and Bao Zhiming. Naturally, I also commented on all the chapters. Lucie Kearns and Zofia Laubitz copy-edited the manuscript. I would like to thank them for the wonderful job they have accomplished considering the number oflanguages involved in the book, as well as the large number of non-native speakers of English who authored chapters of this book. Thanks to Annie Trudel for her assistance in the preparation of the indexes and in the submission of the final manuscript to the publishers. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for its financial contribution to the production of the final manuscript. Claire Lefebvre Universite du Quebec aMontreal, Montreal, December 1, 2009
Introduction
The problem of the typological classification of creoles* Claire Lefebvre Universite du Quebec aMontreal
This book contains 25 chapters bearing on detailed comparisons of some 30 creoles and their substrate languages. AB the substrate languages of these creoles are typologically different, the detailed investigation of substrate features in the creoles leads to a particular answer to the question of how creoles should be classified typologically. The present chapter therefore introduces the material analysed in the chapters of this book from the point of view oflanguage typology. I begin with a discussion of the problem of the typological classification of creole languages, and of the aims and limitations of this chapter. The bulk of the chapter provides an overview of the results of the research contained in the various chapters. First, I outline the ways in which the typological features ofthe substrate languages are manifested in the creoles. Second, I lay out a global picture of the variation found among creoles for various subsystems of the grammar. To a great extent, this variation reflects that displayed by the substrate languages of the creoles. Third, based on each author's proposals, I review the processes that led to such a situation and the constraints that are acting upon them. The chapter ends with my overall evaluation of the problem of the typological classification of creoles.
1.
The problem
Since creole languages draw their properties from both their substrate and superstrate sources, the typological classification of creoles has long been a major issue for creolists, typologists, and linguists in general Several proposals have been put forward in the literature. Because the labels of the lexical entries of creoles are derived from their superstrate languages, creoles have often been genealogically classified with their superstrate language. For example, Hall ( 19 50: 20 3) classifies Haitian Creole as a French dialect: "Haitian Creole is to be classified
The research underlying this chapter was partially financed by SSHRCC. I would like to thank Renee LambertBretiere for her assistance in documenting various aspects of the content ofthis chapter, and Annie Trudelfor contributing to producing the map showing the distribution of the creoles under investigation in this book. I am also grateful to the following colleagues for their insightful comments on an earlier version of this chapter: Umberto Ansaldo, Chuck Grimes, Harold Koch, Jiirgen Lang, Usa Urn, Stephen Matthews, Jeff Siegel, Armin Schwegler, Peter Slomanson and Bao Zhiming. Thanks to Andree Belanger for formatting the manuscript
4
Claire Lefebvre
among the Romance languages, and especially among the northern group of the Gallo- Romance branch, on the basis of its systematic phonological, morphologicaL syntactical and lexical correspondences:' Goodman (1964: 136) makes a similar statement: "I do feel impelled to restate, however, that on the basis of no purely linguistic criteria for genetic relationship which have thus far been advanced, including that of'parente syntaxique' advanced by Sylvain (1936: 121-122), can Creole French be classified with any specific language other than French:' Some authors have further claimed that, even from a typological point of view, creoles pair with their superstrate languages. Chaudenson (2003: 38), for example, writes: "[Les creoles sont] des idiomes issus des langues europeennes et qui se sont formes dans les societes coloniales entre le XVIe et XVIIIe siecles" ["[Creoles are] idioms that emerged from European languages and were formed in colonial societies between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries"] [our translation from French] . He further writes: "Si fon se place un point de vue typologique, la distance entre le fran~ais et les cn~oles fran~ais est assez restreinte" (p. 177) ["From a typological point of view, the distance between French and the French creoles is quite small"] [our translation from French]. Because the properties of a creole's lexical entries are derived from those of its substrate languages, some scholars have classified creoles as hybrid languages. Adam (1883:47) makes the following statement: "I go so far as to claim ... that the so-called patois of Guyana and Trinidad constitute Negro-Aryan dialects. By that I mean that the Guinean Negroes who were transported to the colonies adopted the words of French but. as much as possible, kept the phonetics and grammar of their mother tongues ... Such a formation is clearly hybrid ... The grammar is no different from the general grammar of the languages of Guinea" [our translation from French]. Speaking of Haitian Creole, Sylvain ( 19 36: 178) observes that: "We are in the presence of a French that has been cast in the mould of African syntax or ... of an Ewe language with a French vocabulary" [our translation from French]. Lefebvre (1998) shows at some length that. even though the phonological representations of Haitian Creole lexical entries are drawn from French phonetic strings, Haitian Creole shares its lexical properties, morphosyntax, concatenation prindples and the salient features of its parametric values with its West African substrate languages. In this approach, creole languages would pair typologically with their substrate languages rather than with their superstrate. A third approach is Bickerton's (1984) proposal that children, who are exposed to the impoverished pidgin grammar and lexicon spoken by their parents, fill in the gaps by drawing on language universal principles, thus creating a creole. The resulting creole languages are claimed to manifest only the unmarked values oflanguage. Further, due to the way they emerge, all creole languages are claimed to be alike. This may suggest that, from a typological point of view, creole languages constitute an identifiable group of languages that can be set apart from other natural languages. To my knowledge, Bickerton never went as far as to making this claim. McWhorter (2001), however, did, very specifically, as he wrote that: "Creole grammars constitute a synchronically identifiable class." This claim builds on an earlier one (McWhorter 1998:790) that creole languages constitute a "synchronically definable typological class." As can be seen from this brief summary of the major positions on the typological classification of creole languages, the topic is a controversial one. It has been the subject of hot debates as witnessed by the papers in, for example, the following volumes: Muysken and Smith (1986), Substrata 1'ersus Universals in Creole Genesis; the special issue of Linguistic Typology: "Creoles: A
a
The problem of the typologic:al classification of creoles
Structura-l Typer (2001); Michaelis (2008), Roots of Creole Structures: Weighing the Contribution ofSubstrates and Superstrates; Neumann-Holzschuh and Schneider (2001), Degrees ofRestru.cturing in Creole Languages; and Ansaldo et al (2007), Deconstructing Creole. 1
2.
Aims and limitations of this chapter
This chapter explores the problem of the typological classification of creole languages on the basis of a representative sample of some 30 creoles that have emerged from typologically different substrate languages. Creoles that have African languages as their substrates are Belizean Creole, Haitian Creole, Kriyol, Ndyuka, Nicaraguan, Palenque(ro), Pamaka, Papiamentu, Portuguese Creole of Santiago Island, Providence Island Creole, Saramaccan/Saamaka, San Andres Islands Creole, Santome, Sranan Tango and St. Lucian; those that have Asian languages as their substrates are China Coast Pidgin, Kupang Malay, Mindanao Chabacano, Singapore English or Singlish, Sri Lanka(n) Malay and Ternate Chabacano; those that have Pacific languages as their substrates are Central Australian Aboriginal English (CAAE), Hawai'i Creole, Kriol, New South Wales Pidgin (NSWP), Papuan Malay, Solomon Islands Pijin and Tayo. The location of these languages is indicated on the world map below. As can be seen above, for ease of presentation, the creoles have been grouped by geographical area. In the case of creoles spoken in Africa or in the Caribbean, the substrate languages are all from the same language family: Niger-Congo. However, in the case of creoles spoken in Asia and in the Pacific, the situation is not as simple. For example, several Malay-based creoles are described in this volume. While Malay itself is an Austronesian language (western branch), the substrate languages that are involved in the Malay-based creoles are varied. Kupang Malay has other Austronesian languages (central branch) as its substrate languages. Papuan Malay has various (non-Austronesian) Papuan languages as its substrate languages. Sri Lanka(n) Malay has substrate languages that belong in different language families, with Tamil, a Dravidian language, and Sinhala, an Indo-European language, as two major substrate languages (in Slomanson's view) or adstrate languages (in Ansaldo's view). CAAE, Kriol and NSWP have Australian languages as their substrate languages. Tok Pisin, Bislama, Solomon Islands Pijin and Tayo, spoken in the Pacific, have mainly Austronesian languages as their substrate, as does Chabacano spoken in the Philippines. In the list of creole languages enumerated above, all except four are commonly referred to as creoles. China Coast Pidgin and New South Wales Pidgin are commonly referred to as pidgins on the basis of the fact that they do not have native speakers (as opposed to creoles, which do have native speakers). In the literature on the "New Englishes" of the world, Singapore English and Central Australian Aboriginal English are generally considered to be varieties of English. In this chapter, I will use the term Kcreole" as an overall term for the languages referred to as such, as well as for these two pidgins and these two varieties of"New Englishes': In doing this, I do not want to open a debate on the status of these four contact languages. The reason for using the term "creole" is merely practical. But it is also in line with the fact that scholars have started referring to 1.
See also Lim and Gisborne (2009), The 7ypology of Asian Englishes.
Q\
()
j[
-
~
~,,;=~
·•
."'• ..•
.
-~· "'"'
41&
~ ~
-
~
r
~
-~
'\loo
~
8'
• .,•
•
Cl
"''
~
otj~~"1~ •. ...... - ,•,-
i
•
•
'e
.., @!I /;. -.... 1. Hawai'i Creole 2. Belizean Creole 3. Nicaraguan Creole 4. San Andres Creole
5. Palenque(ro) 6. Hatitian Creole 7. Providence Creole
8. St. lucian Creole 9. Papiarnentu 10. Sararnaccan!Saamaka Pam aka Ndyuka Sranan Tongo 11. Santiago Island Creole
Map 1. Creole languages discussed in this book
12. Casamance Creole 13. Kriyol 14. Santome 15. Sri Lanka(n) Malay
19. Mindanao Chabacano 20. Ternate Chabacano 21. Melanesian Pidgin 22. Kupang Malay
16. China Coast Pidgin 17. Chinese Pidgin English 18. Singapore English
23. Papuan Malay 24. Tok Pisin 25. Solomon Island's Pijin
26. 27. 28. 29.
Bislarna Kriol New South Wales Pidgin Tayo
The problem of the typologic:al classification of creoles
pidgins and creoles as PCs, suggesting that they fall within a single category (e. g., Hancock 1980; Mufwene 1990; Mi.ihlhausler 1980, 1986). The rationale behind this grouping is that the creation of pidgins and of creoles involves the same processes (e.g., Lefebvre 1998). As for the two varieties of English referred to above, the context in which they emerged differs from that in which the plantation creoles were created. These two contexts, however, share an important feature. They both involve multilingual communities in need of a lingua franca. Hence, Singapore English was created in a multilingual community- involving Malay and several Sinitic languages- in need of a lingua franca. Likewise, Central Australian Aboriginal Pidgin was also created in a multilingual community- involving several Australian languages - that needed a lingua franca. Furthermore, the creation of these New Englishes makes use of the same processes that are at work in the formation of pidgins and creoles (see the chapters by Baa, Koch and Siegel). Finally, this grouping is in line with Koch (a), who considers the variety of CAAE he is reporting on in this volume as a post-pidgin variety that is quite distinct from other varieties also referred to as CAAE (such as those discussed in Eades 1991, 1996), which in fact constitute dialects of English. The book contains 25 chapters that set out detailed comparisons of subsystems of the above sample of creoles with their respective major substrate languages. The major subsystems of ereales' grammars and lexicons discussed in this book include segmental inventories, pronouns, case systems, the syntactic properties of verbs, copulas, Tense-Mood-Aspect (TMA), negation, serial verbs and discourse structures. The results of these comparisons constitute test cases for the various positions summarised above on the typological classification of creoles. As will be seen below, the bulk of the data argue that creoles are best typologically classified with their substrate languages. As will be further discussed in Section 4.2, this may reflect the fact that, except for two chapters, all the chapters in this book discuss data that belong in the lexical or in the syntactic components of the grammar. These are two components in which we expect substrate features to manifest themselves in the creoles, due to the processes that create creoles' lexicons and syntax (see Section 3.3). As for the phonological component of the grammar, it is discussed in only two chapters. Brousseau addresses the source of the segmental inventories of Haitian and St. Lucian creoles, and Lim discusses the source of tones in Singlish. More detailed comparisons of segmental inventories, prosodic and syllabic structures of creoles and their contributing languages are needed for a thorough discussion of the typological features of creoles in this component of the grammar. The same remark applies to word order. The fact that there are so few chapters on the phonological component of the grammar and none on word order is not intentional. It simply reflects the fact that few authors volunteered chapters on the phonology and none on word order. I now turn to a discussion of the results from a global perspective.
3·
Overview of the results
First, I will summarise the various ways in which the typological features of the substrates are manifested in creoles. Next I will consider data from various subsystems of the grammar across creoles from different substrate languages, showing that the typological differences between these data reflect the typological differences between the substrate languages. Then I will review the various processes proposed to account for the presence of substrate features in the creoles.
7
8
Claire Lefebvre
Finally, I will provide an overview of the various constraints invoked by authors to explain why some substrate features did or did not make their way into the creoles.
3.1
Ways in which the typological features of the substrate are manifested in creoles
3.1.1
Creoles spoken in Africa and in the Caribbean
Hagemeijerand Ogie study the inventory of serial verb constructions (SVC) in Santome and Edo. They conclude that "pretty much the full range of types ofSVCs in Edo can also be found in Santome." They note, however, that "the languages often differ with respect to the more fine-grained properties of SVCs, which is expected from many centuries of independent development and, foremost, due to the creolisation process itself.' Lang compares the manifestation of Aspect in Santiago Creole and in Wolof. He shows that "... the Santiago Creole progressive has retained only the progressive meaning of the imperfective variety of the Wolof'situative~ abandoning its 'situative' meaning:' He suggests that levelling accounts for the difference between the two: "This simplification would have occurred to ease the joining of other groups whose language may have had a progressive, but not a 'situative' with a progressive meaning in the imperfective." In the same vein, Migge compares the Tense, Mood and Aspect systems of the Surinamese creoles with those of the Gbe languages. While the com paris on between the two sets manifests many similarities, Migge notes that substrate influence is not a "unified process" since "its operation and outcomes appear to take different forms, most likely due to its interaction with other processes and sources:' Escure studies the influence of the substrate languages ofBelize Creole on its tense and mood system: "... maintenance of African elements, including the intact preservation of some essential verbal morphology such as ANT me and its counterfactual structure. Direct African antecedents have been found for this structure (Ibibio/Efik, Kituba, Swahili and generally Bantoid languages). Its anteriority morpheme, the specific shape of its futurity/irrealis marker and its related counterfactual combinations appear to closely mirror aspects of Bantu morphology, as well as the semantics of hypothetical events." In her chapter on the phonology of Haitian and St Lucian, Brousseau compares the segmental inventories of the two creoles with those of French and of Fongbe in order to evaluate the impact of the substrate languages on the development of these systems. She concludes that "The influence of the substrate is pervasive in the inventories of the two creoles, even for cases where we could convincingly argue for the role of Universal Grammar:' Lefebvre compares the properties of verbs in three Atlantic creoles - Haitian, Saramaccan and Papiamentu - with those of their contributing languages: Fongbe, an important substrate language, and French, English and Spanish, the respective lexifier languages of the three creoles. The verbal properties that are compared are the following: BODY-state expressions, WEATHER verbs, raising verbs, control verbs, double-object verbs and serial verbs. The three-way comparison shows that first, the properties of verbs in the three creoles often contrast with those of the corresponding verbs in their respective superstrate languages; second, these properties systematically parallel those of the corresponding verbs in their substrate languages; and third, the properties of the substrate verbs manifest themselves in all three creoles, in spite of the fact that they have different superstrate languages.
The problem of the typologic:al classification of creoles
Bartens compares some 30 phonological, morphosyntactic and lexical features in Twi and in the English-based creoles spoken on San Andres and Old Providence (Colombia) and on the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua. Her conclusion is the following: "In a number of cases, it was impossible to make a case for exclusive substrate influence and it seems preferable to speak of convergence. However, there are also many language structures for which substrate influence offers the most likely explanation:' As for Schwegler, he compares Palenquero and Kikongo. His assessment of the situation is as follows: "... We have noted that substrata! influence can be detected in multiple domains: in the creole's lexicon, where dozens of words are traceable to Kikongo etyma; in its phonology, where several features (including prenasalisation, the free [d], [r] and [1] alternations, and peculiar intonational patterns) point to Kikongo roots; and in its morphosyntax, where nominal pluralisations with ma and reiterative PIN marking in the singular (e.g., yo i kele-lo 'I want it'), and a host of other traits are similarly suggestive of Kikongo input." However, Palenquero has not preserved the class-concord agreement system that characterises many Bantu languages. To sum up, the creoles with a Niger-Congo substrate discussed in the first part of the book all appear to manifest features of their substrate languages. As some authors note, however, certain substrate features may not appear in the creole due to interaction between various processes (e.g., transfer and levelling in Lang's chapter, several processes in Migge's chapter) (see also Section 3.3). Kriyol. spoken in Guinea-Bissau, departs from this general tendency. Kihm's explanation of why this is so will be discussed in Section 3.4. 3.1.2
Creoles spoken in Asia
Two chapters concern Singapore English!Singlish (two appellations for the same language variety), one about syntax, the other about phonology. Bao compares the patterns of the passive constructions in the Singaporean component of the International Corpus of English with the substrate passive constructions. He shows that the substrate passives are adversative and that the Singapore English passives exhibit a clear adversative bias. Furthermore, he shows that the quantitative analysis supports two distinct mechanisms of substratum influence: "the abrupt substratum transfer (the locally derived passives) and the gradual convergence-to-substratum (the English-derived passives):' Lim's chapter focuses on the origin of tones in Singlish, the mesolectal!basilectal variety of English spoken in Singapore. Singlish has two major substrate languages: the Sinitic substrate languages, which have tones, and Malay, which does not A first hypothesis would posit that the tone observed in Singlish originates in the Sinitic substrate languages. As Lim points out, however, the situation is more complex. As she puts it, "even when the foa.ture of tone may be ascribed to the tone language substrates, the actual realisation in terms of prosodic patterns - for instance, in the case of Singlish, the location of the H tone at word or phrase level- can be influenced by the prosody of a non-tone language; in the case of Singlish, this is Malay. What is also significant is that this is the language of a population - the Peranakans - that is recognised as having been an earlier or founder population in the ecology, which therefore exerts a significant influence on the structure of the emergent contact language." In their comparative study of serial verbs, classifiers, properties of verbs, copulas, negation, TMA, pronouns, Wh-interrogatives, topic-comment structures and compounds, Ansaldo, Matthews and Smith argue that Cantonese typological features are reproduced in China Coast Pidgin.
9
10
Claire Lefebvre
Grant and Sippola study two creole varieties spoken in the Philippines: Mindanao Chabacano (MC) and Ternate Chabacano (TC), respectively. Grant concludes that "between Spanish, Central Philippine languages and some sort of Manila Bay Creole, almost all the grammar of MC could be included as 'substrate features:' As for Sippola, she concludes her study of negation as follows: "... It can be affirmed that the main pattern of Ternate Chabacano negation follows its adstrate language Tagalog when distinguishing the standard clausal negation and the negation of existentials and possession." The chapter by Jacob and Grimes describes the serial verb constructions of Kupang Malay and those ofits substrate languages. The parallel between the structures, functions, and semantics of SVCs in Kupang and those in the substrate languages is quite striking, whereas there are simply no parallels found with standard Malay grammar. There are two chapters on Sri Lanka(n) Malay (SLM). Ansaldo shows that the Lankan case system has been reproduced in SLM: "SLM has developed agglutinative morphology with incipient fusional tendencies in the nominal system, which indicates a typological shift away from the isolating type." As for Tense and Aspect, the results are split between the two contributing languages. While tense reflects the Lankan tense system, the as pectual system retains some of the aspectual categories of Malay. Slomanson's study of the morphosyntax of SLM leads him to the following conclusion: "... The morphosyntax of SLM substantially reflects influence from the Sri Lanka(n) sprachbund [... ] While a small number of features and processes from vehicular Malay persist in SLM, such as the fixed pre-verbal position of those functional contrasts directly marked on lexical verbs and the categorial flexibility of adjectives, the language's morphosyntax has incorporated more features from its Shonam model language than it has retained from vehicular
Mala}( To sum up, the creoles spoken in Asia all appear to manifest features of their substrate languages. 3.1.3
Creoles spoken in the Pacific
Donohue investigates the serial verb constructions of Papuan Malay and its substrate languages. His conclusion is that Papuan Malay SVCs manifest the properties of its New Guinea Papuan substrate languages. The first chapter by Koch (hereafter Koch a) discusses data from three areas of the grammar of CAAE, and compares it with Kaytetye, one of the Arandic substrate languages. It shows how two relatively exotic grammatical categories found in Kaytetye (and other Arandic languages) -"dyadic" in kinship nouns and "associated motion" in verbs- are replicated in CAAE using formal material derived from English. Koch (a) further compares the use of CAAE prepositions, whose forms are from English, with Kaytetye case functions. He concludes that "the organisation of the semantic 'functions' of the cases is replicated in considerable detail in the use of the CAAE prepositions" (see Section 3.2.5). Munro considers pronouns, TMA markers and case in Kriol and its substrate Australian languages. She reaches a conclusion similar to that ofthe aforementioned authors: The properties of the lexical items involved in the Kriol subsystems of the grammar reproduce those of its substrate languages. She emphasises the fact that Aboriginal languages are agglutinating languages and how the properties of the affixes are reproduced in free morphemes in the creole (see Section 4.3).
The problem of the typologic:al classification of creoles
In his study of N SWP and its contributing languages, Koch (hereafter Koch b) shows that the grammatical features of zero expression third-person singular objects and Noun Phrase head nouns are indirectly reflected in -im and -fela, respectively. Siegel considers pan-Pacific Pidgin features in modern contact varieties. Many grammatical features of Pacific Pidgin English, NSWP and Chinese Pidgin English were attested in the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu), Solomon Islands, New Guinea Islands, Hawai'i and the Northern Territory of Australia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the creole that later developed in each of these locations, a different subset of these "Pan-Pacific" features was retained. Siegel examines nine of these features to see whether their presence or absence in each of the five modern contact varieties can be accounted for by the presence or absence of the same features in the substrate languages. The results show that "for at least seven of the nine Pan- Pacific features, when the feature is present in the contact variety, a corresponding feature is also present in the substrate languages, and when it is absent in the contact variety, it is absent in the substrate languages." The chapter by Roberts "presents comparative and diachronic evidence indicating that substrate patterns played a significant role in the development of the copula in Hawai'i Creole English (HCE). The predominantly Cantonese, Portuguese, Hawaiian, and Japanese substrate did not contribute much to the innovation oflexical forms since HCE drew on a pre-existing pidgin, but the transference and reinforcement of semantic and syntactic properties from these languages with the exception of Japanese - is detectible in the copula system that arose in H CE:' About Tayo, Sandeman writes: "Research carried out to date on Tayo indicates that many of its structures depart radically from what has been considered a 'typical' creole pattern; instead, they appear to more closely resemble structures in the substrate languages:' Her specific study of the TMA subsystem illustrates this more general claim. To sum up, here again the creoles appear to manifest the properties of their substrate languages. Since the last chapter of this section, by Terrill on Solomon Islands Pijin, is dedicated to constraints on transference, it will be discussed in Section 3.4. 3.1.4
Summary
The data reported on in this section show that, to a great extent, creoles reproduce the features of their substrate languages. This conclusion becomes even more evident when we compare subsystems of the grammar across creoles.
3.2
Subsystems of the grammar across creoles
This section considers subsystems of the grammar across creoles from typologically different substrates. The following subsystems will be discussed in tum: pronominal forms, classifiers, TMA systems, negation, semantic case systems, transitivity markers, the properties of verbs, serial verbs, verb-doubling phenomena and discourse structures. In the paragraphs that follow, it is shown that typological differences between subsystems of the grammar across creoles reveal typological differences between their respective substrate languages.
11
12
Claire Lefebvre
3.2.1
Pronomina.l fm·ms
Creole languages differ with respect to their pronominal inventories. For example, Kriol has a pronominal system that distinguishes between singular, dual and plural pronouns, and also between first-person plural inclusive and exclusive. These forms are all constructed on the basis of English pronominal forms (e.g., mi < me, yu
Table 1. The pronomlnal system ofKriol (adapted from Munro 2004: 123) Singular
Dual
Plural
yunduhala dubala
yumop
yunmi
wi
mindubalalminbala
melabat/mela
ailmi
yu
2 3
im inclusive exclusive
olabat
Table 2. The pronominal system of Haitian Creole (from Valdman et al. 1981; Fattier 1998, vol. 2: 850)
mwen ou/[wu]
li nou
yo
'I, me' 'you (sG)'
HAITIAN
'he/she/it/him/her' 'we/UB/you (PL)' 'they/them'
2. Note that, as is reported in Lefebvre (1998: 142), traditional Fongbe grammars (e.g., Anonymous 1983) sometimes represent the form meaning 'we' as ml (bearing a complex1ow-high tone) and the form meaning 'you (PL)' as mi (bearing a mid-tone). Mid and low-high tones are phonetic variants (see Capo 1991); the distinction between the two is thus phonemically irrelevant Furthermore, extensive fieldwork by Brousseau (1995) on the tonological specification of the form m{ reveals that this form always bears a phonological high tone.
The problem of the typologic:al classification of creoles
Table 3. The pronominal system of Alawa (Munro 2004: 122) Singular
Dual
Plural
wurru yirrurla
wulu yilurla
nyanu ngarru
nyalu ngalu
ngina
nyagana nurla (M) nga durla (F)
2 3
inclusive exclusive
Table 4. The pronominal system ofKriol substrate languages (adapted from Munro 2004: 121)
2 3
Singular
Dual
Plural
"
""" "
"" ""
"
inclusive exclusive
Table 5. The pronominal system ofFongbe (= (18) in Brousseau 1995) ny£ hwe
e(ye) m{
>-e
i,me' 'you (so)' 'he/she/it/him/her' 'we/us/you (PL)' 'they/them'
for second-person singular and plural, and it has a first-person plural inclusive/exclusive distinction, like the Philippine languages. 3.2.2
Classifiers
Not all creole languages have classifiers. As expected, classifiers are found only in those creoles whose substrate languages have them. For example, noun phrases in China Coast Pidgin (Ansaldo, Matthews and Smith) have the patterns [NUM-CL-N] and [DEM-CL-N), reproducing the classifiers of its Sinitic substrate languages. 3.2.3
TMA systems
The TMA systems of creole languages exhibit variation. This is supported by the comparison of the Kriol TMA system reproduced in Table 6 from Munro, with that of Haitian Creole in Table 7 from Lefebvre (1996). In this book, TMA systems are documented for the following creoles: Surinamese (Migge), Tayo (Sandeman), Sri Lanka(n) Malay (Ansaldo, Slomanson), Kriyol (Kihm), China Coast Pidgin (Ansaldo, Matthews and Smith), Santiago Creole (Lang) and Kriol (Munro). Again, all authors agree that the features of the TMA systems of these creoles most resemble those of their
13
14
Claire Lefebvre
Table 6. The TMA system ofKriol (=Table 6 in Munro) Realis tense
bin 0
Irrealis mood
Aspect
oldei stil stat onli jes -bat
Past Present
Continuative Durative Incipient Limitational Proximal Pro12:essive Habitual
yusdu
garra -l mait gin
gan lafda
Obligatory (Future) Definite lsG Potential Abilitive Inabilitive Necessary
Table 7. The TMA system ofHaitianCreole (from Lefebvre 1996:239) ANTERIOR
IRREALIS
NON-COMPLETE
Past or Past perfect
Definite future
Imperfective
te
ap
ap
Indefinite future
a-va Subjunctive pou
Table 8. Irwentories of'IMA markers in Haitian Creole and Fongbe (= (115) in Lefebvre 1996:263) NON-COMPLETE
ANTERIOR
IRREALIS
Past or Past perfect
Definite future
H
F
H
F
te
kO
ap
n4
Habitual H
Imperfective F
H
F
n3
ap
c(O••• we
Indefinite future H
F
a-va
na-wd
Subjunctive H
F
pou
n{
respective substrates, such that, the typological differences between them manifest typological differences between their substrate languages. Munro shows that the semantics associated with the categories of tense, mood and aspect reflects substrate features, such as the distinction between past punctual and past continuous aspect, and the expression of future and potential mood. She remarks that "evitative" mood, tound in TMA systems of the substrate languages, is not manifested in Kriol She explains this absence by the unavailability of an appropriate form in the superstrate language to transfer evitative mood to (see Section 3.4). The TMA systems of Atlantic creoles reproduce the particularities of their West African substrate languages. This is illustrated in Table 8 for Haitian Creole and Fongbe from Lefebvre (1996 and the references therein).
The problem of the typologic:al classification of creoles
Except for the fact that it does not distinguish between definite and indefinite future, the TMA system of Saramaccan is very similar to those of Haitian and Fongbe. It encodes tense, mood and aspect by means of an inventory of TMA markers made up of the marker of anteriority bi (< English been), the future marker 6 (< English go), the subjunctive marker fu (< English for), and the imperfective marker ta (
3- The TMA system of Papiamentu used to be seen as departing from that of the other Caribbean creoles (e.g., Muysken 1981b). The analysis in Kouwenberg and Lefebvre (2007), however, shows that the TMA system of this language is in fact quite similar to those of the other Caribbean creoles and thus to those of its Gbe substrate languages.
15
16
Claire Lefebvre
In his comparison of SLM with its superstrate and adstrate (Sinhala) languages, Ansaldo concludes that the TMA system of SLM draws from both its sources. Slomanson argues in his comparison of SLM with its superstrate and Shonam substrate language, that, in SLM, TMA categories are pre-verbal bound markers modelled on Shonam: "There are clear parallels in the functional contrasts that are explicitly morphologised in SLM, using processes comparable or identical to those that we find in Shonam, such as inflection and agglutination (... )." Furthermore, he shows that SLM manifests contrastive tense marking, just as Shonam does. The fact that Ansaldo and Slomanson do not reach exactly the same conclusion appears to be linked to the fact that they do not evaluate the role of the various contributing languages in the same way. While Ansaldo emphasises the role of Sinhala and Tamil, Slomanson focuses on Shonam. 3.2.4 Negation Negation, which is discussed for several creoles - Ternate Chabacano (Sippola), China Coast Pidgin (Ansaldo, Matthews and Smith), Belizean Creole (Escure), Mindanao Chabacano (Grant) and Sri Lanka(n) Malay (Slomanson) - is another subsystem of the grammar in which creoles manifest the typological differences of their substrates. For example, Sippola shows that the properties of the negation system in Ternate Chabacano, namely standard clausal negation and negation of existentials and possession, are analogous to what is observed in Tagalog. Another example comes from Belizean Creole which encodes past negation by a morpheme (neva) that is different from that used to encode general negation. Past negation markers are also found in the Mrican substrate languages of Belizean Creole such as lbibio, Mandinka and Swahili. In Sri Lanka(n) Malay, there is an interaction between the expression of negation and finiteness. Slomanson shows that SLM has two etymologically unrelated negation markers, the choice of which is solely determined by the finiteness of an associated verb. He further shows that overt tense morphology is suppressed when a lexical verb is negated. Both these features of negation are attributed to Shonam. As Slomanson mentions, the second feature is not found in other substrate languages of Sri Lanka(n) Malay such as Sinhala. 3.2.5 Semantic case systems Some creoles manitest overt semantic cases and some do not Creoles that do manifest overt semantic cases are those whose substrate languages do so as well. In this book. the case systems of three creoles are documented: Sri Lanka(n) Malay and its Sinhala adstrate (Ansaldo), Kriol and its Australian substrate languages such as Alawa (Munro), and CAAE and its Australian substrate languages such as Kaytetye (Koch a). As will be seen below, all three reproduce the case inventories of their respective substrate languages. Ansaldo shows that the case system of SLM reproduces the Sinhala case system almost to perfection. This is shown in Table 9. Ansaldo sees one difference between the creole and the Sinhala case systems: "In SLM, Genitive and Locative receive different marking; SLM therefore has a specialised Possessive marker, an innovation in relation to the adstrates." Munro and Koch (a) both show that the Australian creoles they study reproduce the case inventories of their respective substrate languages. In this case, however, the inventories are realised as prepositions instead of as suffixes. Table 10, from Munro, shows the similarity in the case systems of Kriol and Alawa. There is one difference: In Alawa, "Accompaniment is [... ] not marked
The problem of the typologic:al classification of creoles
Table 9. The semantic case systems ofSLM and ofSinhala (adapted from Table 2 inAnsaldo) Functions expressed Agent Experiencer Goal Beneficiary Possessor Patient Possession Location Instrwnent Source Assodation
SINH ALA
SRI LANKA(N) MALAY
Case suflrus (forms not given)
Case suffixes
Nominative Dative Dative Dative Dative Accusative Genitivenocative Genitivenocative Instrwnental/ablative Instrwnental/ablative Comitative
Nominative Dative Dative Dative Dative Definite object marking Genitive Locative Instrwnental/ablative Instrwnental/ablative Comitative
-"
_,umg -1Jang _,Jang -1Jang -yang
-pe -ka
-ring -ring
-le
Table 10. The semantic case systems of Kriol and Alawa (from Munro) Functions expressed
ALAWA
KR.JOL
Case suffixes
Prepositions
Location
-rru 'allative'
langa, la
Goal
-rru 'allati ve'
langa, la
Source
-yunu 'ablative'
burrum, brom
Possession
-ja 'genitive'
blang, bla
Purpose
-ja 'genitive'
blonJY bla
Instrwnent
-rri 'instrwnental'
garra
Accompaniment
(no case; nominal suffix -wanjt)
garra
through a case suffix as such. The fact that Accompaniment is expressed with the same form as Instrument in Kriol is therefore unexpected:'4 Table 11 from Koch (a) shows the similarity in the case systems of CAAE and Kaytetye. As Table 11 shows, however, some CAAE prepositions may correspond to more than one form in the substrate language. As Koch (a) comments: "The syncretism in the expression of the Locative and Allative by longa and the use offrom to express a number of semantic functions that are distinguished in Kaytetye does not seem to indicate a simplification of the system of semantic functions so much as the lack of available lexical items in English that could be recruited for their expression" (see Section 3.4).
4· Harold Koch (p.c.) comments: i believe the Location function should be -rri 'locative' (Sharpe 1972: 62)- the same form as Instrwnent. If this is correct, a second difference between Alawa and Kriol is the fact that Location and Instrwnent are expressed differently in the latter. (This may reflect the grammar of other substrate languages rather than Alawa: Australian languages differ as to whether they express Instrwnent by a form identical to Locative or something else (usually Ergative or the 'having' case); it seems that Kriol garra (from gotfem) reflects the latter strategy, which was probably present in some of the Kriol substratwn languages.")
17
18
Claire Lefebvre
Table 11. The case systelll8 ofCAAE and Kaytetye (adapted from Table 3 in Koch a) Functions expressed Location Instrumental Goal Purpose Specific location/goal Terminative Perlative Source Cause Comparison Material source Prior condition Aversive Possessive Purpose Purpose Recipient Proprietive Proprietive Privative
Case suffixes
CAAE Prepositions
-le, -nge 'locative' -le, -nge 'locative' -warle 'allative' -warle 'allative' x N -let-nge/-warle -wartetye 'terminative' -a,Jgkwerre 'perlative' -theye 'ablative' -theye 'ablative' -theye 'ablative' -penhe 'sequentive' -penhe 'sequentive' -ketye 'aversive' -arenge 'possessive' -warle 'allative' -we 'dative' -we 'dative' -akake 'proprietive' -akake 'proprietive' -wanenye 'privative'
longa longa longa longa x longa right up longa through lo,Jga from from from from from from blong(int)a blong(int)a for for with gottem,got (got) no
KAYTJ!TYJ!
To sum up, the data on semantic case discussed above show that SLM, Kriol and CAAE feature different subsets of cases. Each subset in the creoles corresponds to the respective subset of the creoles' substrate languages, within the limits imposed by the constraints that act on the processes responsible for this state of affairs (for further discussion, see Section 3.4).
Transitivity markers Creole languages vary with respect to the availability of transitivity markers, which attach to transitive verbs, thus allowing for a grammatical distinction between transitive and intransitive verbs. By hypothesis, transitivity markers should manifest themselves in creoles whose substrate languages make a grammatical distinction between transitive and intransitive verbs. Thus, this feature is expected not to appear in creole languages with a West African substrate since the latter do not feature this distinction. This expectation is borne out by the data, as no Caribbean or West Mrican creole has been reported to have transitivity markers. However, transitivity markers are expected to appear in creole languages with Austronesian substrate languages such as Tangoan, Kwaio or Tolai, since the latter do feature this distinction. Siegel identifies the availability of transitivity markers as a Pan-Pacific Pidgin feature. For example, they are found in the three dialects of Melanesian Pidgin reported on in (1) to ( 3) (= (82) to (84) in Siegel). 3.2.6
The problem of the typologic:al classification of creoles
(1)
(2)
(3)
stll 'commit theft' kuk'cook.' bon 'be burning'
stll-im 'steal [something]' kuk-um 'cook [something]' bon-em 'burn [something]'
luk1ook' stil 'commit theft' dig 'dig'
luk-im 'see' stil-im 'steal [something]' dig-im siton 'dig up a stone'
bruk 'break, be broken' kuk'cook.' wok 'work, be busy>
bruk-im 'break. tear' kuk-im 'cook [something]' wok-im 'to make [something], build'
BISLAMA (Crowley 2004: 77) PIJIN (Keesl..ng n.d.) ToKPISIN (Mosel1980:41)
The presence of a transitivity marker in these dialects of Melanesian Pidgin reproduces the pattern of their substrate languages, as is shown in (4) to (6) ( = (86) to (88) in Siegel). (4)
(5)
For Btslam.a:
sua-i 'paddle [something]' inu-mi 'drink, swallow [something]'
keco 'be hanging'
keco-ci 'hang [something]'
For Pijin:
aga 1ook' beri 'commit theft' takwe 'dig' (6)
TANGOAN
sua 'to paddle' inu 'drink'
KWAIO
aga-si-a 'see (it)' beri-a 'steal it' takwe-a fou 'dig up a stone'
For Tok Pisin:
gumu 'dive, bath' tang! 'cry, weep' ngarau 'be afraid'
(Camden 1979:90)
(Keesing n.d.) To LAI
gumu-e 'dive for [something]' tani-e 'mourn for [someone or something]' ngarau-ane 'be afraid of [someone or something]' (Mosel1980: 42-43)
This would appear to be just like the other cases discussed so far were it not for the fact that some creoles spoken in the Pacific region do manifest transitivity markers while their substrate languages do not This is the case, for example, of creoles that have Australian languages as their substrate languages. For example, Kriol manifests a transitivity marker, as shown in (7) (= (85) in Siegel). (7)
rid 'read'
kuk'cook.'
barn 'be burning'
rid-im 'read [something]' KRioL kuk-um 'cook [something]' barn-im 'burn [something or someone]' (Sandefur & Sandefur 1979)
CAAE and NSWP also manifest transitivity markers (Koch a and b). These three creoles all have Australian languages as their substrates that do not manifest transitivity markers. A possible conelusion would be that, in these cases, the presence of transitivity markers on the verb cannot be claimed to reproduce a feature of the substrate languages. Nevertheless, Koch (b) argues that the development of transitivity markers on verbs in these creoles was motivated by the properties of their substrate languages. His argument can be summarised as follows: Australian languages have a syntactic ergative case system whereby the subject of a transitive verb bears Ergative case
19
20
Claire Lefebvre
and that of an intransitive verb bears Nominative case (Blake 1987; Koch 2007). This case system reflects a deeper typological characteristic of Australian languages: Every verb "is either strictly transitive ... or strictly intransitive" (Dixon 1980: 378). Koch (b) thus suggests that Kergative casemarking of NPs is a surface manifestation of a deep lexico-grammatical principle of language organisation, namely the rigid distinction between transitive and intransitive verbs (and hence clause types). And it is this grammatical principle, ingrained in the consciousness of AL speakers, that was influential in promoting, in the developing pidgin, the polarisation in form between transitive verbs (VERBim) and intransitive verbs (VERB). The existence of a recognisable termination -im (and perhaps its minor variant -it) was exploited by native speakers of 'ergative' languages to keep separate the two categories of verbs which their internalised grammars led them to expect in the pidgin they were learning, and whose distinctiveness could not otherwise be signalled." Siegel further comments: "lt seems clear that having a marked distinction between transitive and intransitive verbs may have reinforced the use of the feature." At the end of this discussion, there remains the question of whether the syntactic ergative case system of these Australian languages has been reproduced in the relevant creoles. The answer to this question is no. This topic will be addressed in Section 3.4. 3.2.7 The properties of1'erbs In the same vein, verbs and verb classes do not have the same properties in all creoles. Again, the properties of creole verbs manifest those of their substrate languages. This is evidenced by data presented by Lefebvre and by Bartens for Caribbean creoles, by Koch (a) for CAAE, and by Ansaldo, Matthews and Smith for China Coast Pidgin. For example, CAAE has associated motion verbs modelled on its substrate Australian languages (Koch a). Creoles without such substrate languages do not manifest this feature. Caribbean creoles have double-object verbs, like their substrate languages (Lefebvre). As Michaelis and Haspelmath (2003) note, double-object verbs are found only in those creoles whose substrates manifest the construction. 3.2.8 Serial verbs Serial verb constructions are available in some creoles but not in others. They exist in creoles whose substrate has the construction (e.g., creoles with a West African or a Sinitic substrate). They are not available in creoles whose substrate does not have the construction (e.g., creoles with an Australian substrate). Furthermore, although there might be some overlap between the concatenation of verbs in languages that teature this construction, by hypothesis, the concatenation of verbs might not necessarily be the same for all the languages that manifest the construction. In this book, serial verbs are documented for Santome (Hagemeijer and Ogie), Kupuang Malay (Jacob and Grimes), Papuan Malay (Donohue), and China Coast English (Ansaldo, Matthews and Smith). According to all these authors, the concatenations of verbs in the above-mentioned creoles replicate those found in their respective substrates. While the authors do provide the possible concatenations of verbs in the languages they study, they do not list the impossible ones (a task which would have been far beyond what was expected of them). The fuller identification of differential concatenations of verbs among the creoles under investigation will therefore have to await future research.
The problem of the typologic:al classification of creoles
3.2.9 Verb -doubling phenomena Creole languages also vary with respect to the availability of verb-doubling phenomena. These are partially discussed in Hagemeijer and Ogie, and in Bartens. They involve four constructions: temporal adverbial, causal adverbial and factive clauses, as well as the predicate cleft construction. The full range of these constructions is shown in (8) for Haitian Creole and Fongbe. (8)
a
TEMPORAL ADVERBIAL
Wd Jan wa Rive Jan rive
(tr616)
bj epi
Mar£ yl. Mari patL
FoNGBE HAITIAN
arrive John arrive as-soon-as and-then Mary leave ~ soon as John arrived, Mary left' b.
(= (1) in Lefebvre 1994)
CAUSAL ADVERBIAL
Wii Jan wa utU Mar£ yl. Rive Jan rive Marl paN. arrive John arrive cause Mary leave 'Because John arrived, Mary left: C.
FONGBE HAITIAN
(= (2) in Lefebvre 1994)
FACTIVE
Wii q_e,eJan wa 6 Vivf nU nj tjn. FONGBE Rive rJ Jan rive fo manman li kontan. HAITIAN arrive oP John arrive DEF make(-happy) for mother his happy 'The fact that John arrived made his mother happy.' (= (3) in Lefebvre 1994) d.
PREDICATE CLEFT
Wd Se rive
we
Jan Jan
wa.
FONGBE
rh•e.
HAITIAN
it-is arrive it-is John arrive 'It is arrive that John did (not e.g. leave):
(= (4) in Lefebvre 1994)
Saramaccan also exhibits these four constructions, as is illustrated in (9). (9)
a.
TEMPORAL ADVERBIAL
Ko Rohit ko a wosu pala, hen Rowe go. arrive Rohit arrive Loc house as-soon-as and.then Rowe leave 1\s soon as Rohit arrived at the house, Rowe left: b.
(Lefebvre's field notes)
CAUSAL ADVERBIAL
Waka a
waka, a
ko wei.
SARAMACCAN
walk 3rd walk 3rd get tire 'Because she wa1ked, she got tired: C.
SARAMACCAN
(Lefebvre's field notes)
FACTIVE
Di waka a waka, hen mel a
ko wei.
walk 3rd walk it cause 3rd get tire 'The fact that she walked caused her to get tired:
SARAMACCAN
DEF
d.
(Lefebvre's field notes)
PREDICATE CLEFT
Waka a waka loutu dl wosu. walk 3rd walk go around DEF house 'He really wa1ked around the house:
SARAMACCAN
(= (llb) in van den Berg 1987: 104)
21
22
Claire Lefebvre
Papiamentu exhibits the same four constructions, as is shown in (10). (10)
a
TEMPORAL ADVERBIAL
Yega ku Juan a
yega, Maria a
arrive LOC John PERF arrive Mary ~ soon as John arrived, Mary left: b.
PERF
PAPIAMl!NTU
(Kearns 2008)
CAUSAL ADVERBIAL
E
yegt~
ku
Juan a
yega, Maria a
arrive COMP John PERF arrive Mary 'Because John has arrived, Mary left: DEF
C.
bal. go
PERF
bal. go
PAPIAMl!NTU
(Kearns 2008)
FACTIVE
E
yega ku
Juan a
yega
a
hasi su
mama fells.
arrive COMP John PERF arrive PERF make POSS mother happy 'The fact that John has arrived made his mother happy.'
PAPIAMl!NTU
DEF
d.
(Kearns 2008)
PREDICATE CLEFT
Ta kome el
a
kome.
it.is eat 3SG 'He has eaten:
PERF
eat
PAPIAMl!NTU
(= (332) in Maurer 1988: 141)
The fact that verb-doubling phenomena are available in Haitian Creole, Saramaccan, Papiamentu, and other Caribbean creoles such as Martinican Creole (Bernabe 1983), as well as in Santome, cannot be attributed to their superstrate languages (French, English, Portuguese, Spanish) since the latter do not manifest these phenomena. The fact that Caribbean creoles and Santome do manifest verb-doubling phenomena is most probably due, however, to their substrate languages, in which verb doubling is a typological feature. Not surprisingly, this particular cluster of phenomena are found only in creoles that have a West African substrate; they are not found in creoles spoken in Asia or in the Pacific. 3.2.10
Discourse structures
Discourse structures also vary among creoles. Once more, creoles reflect the typological differences of their substrate languages. For example, China Coast Pidgin reproduces the pattern of Cantonese, whereas Papuan Malay reproduces that of Melanesian languages. While China Coast Pidgin has a topic-comment discourse structure similar to the one tound in Cantonese (Ansaldo, Matthews and Smith), Papuan Malay makes use of tail-head linkage, a discourse strategy widely observed in the languages of Melanesia (Donohue). 3.2.11
Summary
The sample of data discussed in this section shows that creole languages vary with respect to their typological features and that this variation reflects the typological differences manifested by the respective substrate languages. I now turn to a discussion of the processes identified by the various authors to account for this state of affairs.
The problem of the typologic:al classification of creoles
3·3
Processes
Several processes have been called upon by various authors, as the means by which the substrate features are reproduced in the creoles. Most authors claim that the process of transfer plays a role (Ansaldo, Bao, Brousseau, Hagemejier and Ogie, Ansaldo, Matthews and Smith, Munro, Roberts, Schwegler, Siegel, and Terrill). This process, which goes back to Weinreich (1953: 1), refers to the use of features of their first language by learners who are speaking a second language. For Andersen (1983: 7), this process may also manifest itself in second language acquisition: "Transfer from a learner's previously acquired language (... ) is assumed to interact with the normal acquisitional process by causing the learner to perceive input in terms of certain aspects of the structure of the previously acquired language." For Siegel (1997: 120, 2001), transfer is the main process in the formation of creole languages: "Here I am defining substrate influence as the evidence of transfer (or interference) at an earlier stage of development. Transfer refers to speakers unconsciously carrying over teatures from one language (usually their first) when speaking (or trying to speak) another language." Other authors appeal to the process of calquing (Ansaldo, Hagemejier and Ogie, Jacob and Grimes, Ansaldo, Matthews and Smith, Migge). Keesing (1988) defines calquing as the process by which creole speakers copy the properties of their native languages when speaking a creole. A similar definition is given by Holm ( 1988: 86): "Calquing is a process whereby words or idioms in one language are translated word-for-word (or even morpheme-by-morpheme) into another." Jacobs and Grimes appeal to the process of relexification. Muysken (1981 a: 61) defines relexification as follows: "Given the concept oflexical entry, relexification can be defined as the process of vocabulary substitution in which the only information adopted from the target language in the lexical entry is the phonological representation." The process is presented in (11), adapted from Muysken's schema. (11)
J
SOURCE LANGUAGE
[
/phonology/1 [semantic] 1 [syntactic] 1
LEXIPffiR LANGUAGE
[
~
/
NEW LANGUAGE
[
/phonology/i [semantic]j [syntactic].
/phonology/1 [semantic], [syntactic];
J
1
J
This process is exemplified in (12) on the basis of Media Lengua. The lexical entry derived from Quechua and Spanish has the semantic and morphosyntactic properties drawn from the corresponding Quechua lexical entry, but a phonological form derived from a semantically related Spanish word.
23
24
Claire Lefebvre
(12)
[
[;E: l
=-~A
SPANISH
+V
NP-ta NPBEHUNGRY NP =
HUNGER
+ animate
/
MEDIA LENGUA
~a;-bri-na-/ [
NP-ta
l
NPBEHUNGRY NP =
+ animate
(= (18) in Muysken 1981a:62)
According to this definition, relexification is a mental process that builds a new lexical entry by copying a lexical entry, and by replacing its phonological representation with a new representation derived from another language. Lefebvre also appeals to the process of relexification, which, she argues, is best characterised as relabelling (Lefebvre 2008). Relabelling can be represented as in ( 13 ). Given a lexical entry, as in (13)a, assign this lexical entry a new phonological representation drawn from another language, as in ( 13b ), and eventually remove the original phonological representation, yielding (13c ). (13) a
[
/phonology/1 [semantic], [syntactic] 1
J
b.
[ /phonology/1 ,/phonology/y [semantic]; [syntactic],
c.
[
/phonology/y [semantic]; [syntactic];
J
J
The new lexical entries so formed have the semantic and syntactic properties of the original ones, and phonological representations derived from phonetic strings drawn from another language. 5 An example of a lexical entry formed by means of relabelling is provided in (14) on the basis of Haitian Creole and its source languages, French and Fongbe (taken as representative of the substrate languages). (For a detailed discussion of the semantics of the lexical entries involved, see Lefebvre 1997:69-70.)
5· The phonological representation derived from another language is identified as l rather than as j. The prime represents the fact that the new phonological fonn associated with a lexical entry is not that of language j, but rather a phonological form established on the basis of a phonetic form in language j interpreted with the phonological principles of language i (see Brousseau).
The problem of the typologic:al classification of creoles
(14)
a
b.
c.
!hU/1 'to murder' 'to mutilate' !hU/1, /ansasinen/j' (< Fr. assassiner 'to murder') 'to murder' 'to mutilate' /ansasinen/f 'to murder' 'tomutUate'
FoNGBB
PoNG BE/HAITIAN
HAITIAN
As has been pointed out in the literature, relexification/ relabelling may be viewed as a particular case of transfer (Naro 1978:337). Migge uses the term "reinterpretation": "... Substrate influence emerged in creoles because the creators of creoles structurally reinterpreted the kinds of superstrate structures that they encountered on the plantations according to the grammatical patterns and strategies of their L1s." I believe that Migge's use of the term "reinterpretation" corresponds to the process referred to as relexification/ relabelling above (see Lefebvre 2008 for further discussion of this point). Are all these processes equivalent? From a cognitive point of view, transfer/ calquing and relexification/relabelling are not entirely equivalent. While the former means that L1 material (e.g., phonological, semantic, syntactic properties) is dragged along into the L2 versions of individual speakers, the latter entails that L2 material (the labels oflexical entries) is incorporated in the L1 lexicon as a parallel label. In spite of this difference, the processes are similar in that they take the individual, that is the second language learner, as the locus where the processes take place. Furthermore, these processes are semantically driven; indeed, the lexical items that are associated by these processes must share at least partial semantics. For example, in (12), ya.rika.- be hungry' and ambre 'hunger' are semantically related, although they are not of the same syntactic category. Likewise, in (14) hit 'to murder, to mutilate' and assassiner 'to murder' overlap semantically, though they are not entirely equivalent The relevance of this state of affairs will be further explored in Section 3.4. Another process, "restructuring" (of the target language), is referred to by a few authors in the book (Ansaldo, Donohue and Slomanson). In my view, "restructuring" is conceptually different from the other processes discussed above. First. it refers to the learner acting upon the structure of L2 (see also Mufwene 2006, and the references therein). Thus, the process is not defined in terms of the individual, but in terms of the second language itself. Second, the semantic constraint (see below) involved in the first group of processes is absent from the concept of "restructuring:' Since the nature of the processes that determine the presence of substrate features in a given creole is still a matter of debate in the literature (see the references in Section 1), I shall leave further discussion of this issue to future research. In light of the above review, I now tum to a discussion of the constraints that favour or disfavour transfer/relabelling.
25
26
Claire Lefebvre
3·4
Constraints on transfer/relabelling
In this section, I shall use the terms "transfer/relabelling" to refer to all the processes discussed in Section 3.3 except "restructuring." The first constraint imposed on transfer/relabelling is provided by the very nature of the processes themselves. Indeed, as we saw above, these processes are semantically driven. Consequently, items that have semantic content can be transferred/relabelled. Those that do not, cannot be. A striking example of this state of affairs is provided in this book by data pertaining to case. As we saw in Section 3.2.5, the semantic case systems of creoles' substrate languages have been transterred/relabelled in the creoles either as suffixes (e.g., Sri Lanka(n) Malay) or as prepositions (e.g., Kriol and CAAE). In contrast, the syntactic case systems of substrate languages have not made their way into the resulting creoles. Siegel, Koch (a) and Munro all mention that the ergative case system of Australian languages has no parallel in Kriol, CAAE or in NSWP. Speaking of Mindanao Chabacano, Grant writes: Up till now, as Nolasco (2005) points out, MC and other varieties of PCs have not developed an ergative model of syntax despite the fact that Austronesian Philippine languages, in which many MC speakers are fully bilingual. customarily use ergative syntactic models which are more complex than the Spanish and MC nominative-accusative syntax.
The contrast between the transfer/relabelling of semantic and syntactic cases follows straightforwardly from the fact that transfer/relabelling is semantically driven. On this account, semantic cases are predicted to be transferred/relabelled, and so they are (see Section 3.2.5). In contrast, syntactic cases, which are deprived of semantic content, are predicted not to be transferred/relabelled, and they are not. Note, however, that, as we saw in Section 3.2.6, the creators of creoles, who were native speakers of syntactic ergative case languages, found a way to manifest the distinction between transitive and intransitive verbs that is pervasive in their native languages by developing transitivity markers in their respective creoles. The fact that the processes of transfer/relabelling are semantically driven requires the starting point item to have semantic content, as we just saw above. It also requires that there be a form in the superstrate language that can be semantically associated with the substrate item. Transfer/relabelling is thus constrained by whether the superstrate language has a form available to transfer or relabel a substrate lexical entry. The first formulation of this constraint is known as the "transfer to somewhere principle" of Andersen (1983). This inspired Siegefs (1999) Availability Constraint, which states that the superstrate language must have a form that is available for a substrate feature to transfer to (see also Munro). Likewise, relexificationl relabelling is constrained by what the superstrate language has to offer to relexif)r/relabel a substrate lexical entry (see Lefebvre 1998 for an extensive discussion of this point). The chapter by Terrill on Solomon Islands Pijin (SIP) illustrates this constraint. Terrill addresses the following question: "What grammatical elements of a substrate language find their way into a creole?" She writes: "Grammatical features of the Oceanic substrate languages have been shown to be crucial in the development of Solomon Islands Pijin and of Melanesian Pidgin as a whole (Keesing 1988), so one might expect constructions which are very stable in the Oceanic tamily of languages to show up as substrate influence in the creole:' Terrill's chapter investigates three Oceanic language constructions which have been
The problem of the typologic:al classification of creoles
stable over thousands of years and persist throughout a majority of the Oceanic languages spoken in the Solomon Islands. She shows that, in the case of the locative, possessive and transitive constructions, "there was no congruent construction or available lexical item to be brought in to express any of these distinctions:' She therefore concludes that "despite the ubiquity, stability and uniformity of the locative, possessive and transitive constructions in the substrate languages, none of them appear in SIP': Her study argues that the constraint imposed by the superstrate language in terms of availability of linguistic material is more important than the ubiquity, stability or uniformity of the structure in the substrate languages as a predictor of linguistic transfer from a substrate into a creole. Munro also appeals to this constraint in accounting for why "evitative" mood is not manifested in Kriol although it is part of the TMA system of its substrate languages. As we saw in Section 3.2.5, Koch (a) appeals to the same constraint in explaining the range of meanings covered by a single creole form while the substrate languages have different forms to encode their various meanings. The convergence of substrate and superstrate languages on a given feature is assumed to favour transfer/relabelling of a substrate feature in a creole (see Bartens, Kihm, Siegel, Sandeman and Escure). In such a case, semantic and phonological features are con.flated to produce a creole's lexical entry. An example of con.tlation is given by Kihm in his account of the sources of the negation marker ka in Kriyol. This word has a form similar to the negative form nunca 'never' in Portuguese. The reason why the form of the negation is ka can be explained by the presence of this syllable as a negative morpheme in substrate languages, such as kaka 'negative imperfective imperative' in Mandink.a, ke 'negation marker' in Balanta, and dika. 'negative imperfective' in Manjaku. Kihm goes so far as to claim that substrate influence in creoles occurs precisely in cases of semantic and phonological conflation. The typological congruence of the substrate languages (Ansaldo) is also claimed to favour transfer of a substrate feature into a creole. Siegel speaks of substrate reinforcement: "Substrate reinforcement occurs when a particular variant has a corresponding feature in a numerically or socially dominant substrate language or languages. By a corresponding feature, I mean one that occurs in the same surface syntactic position and that can be interpreted (or misinterpreted) as having the same or a closely related function." In his study of the nine Pan-Pacific teatures, Siegel finds that when a feature is present in the contact variety, a corresponding feature is also present in the substrate languages, and when it is absent from the contact variety, it is absent from the substrate languages. He concludes that "the presence or absence of substrate reinforcement during levelling can account for the retention of particular features:' A last constraint on transfer is discussed by Kihm. This one appears to be social rather than linguistic. Kihm shows that, in contrast to other creoles with an African substrate, which reproduce the typological features of their Mrican substrate (e.g., Haitian Creole), Kriyol does not reproduce many features of its African substrate: "In fact, substrate influence, although readily visible, turns out to be limited as can be shown by comparing core grammatical phenomena between Kriyol and a selection oflocallanguages (Balanta, Diola, Manjaku, Mankanya)." Kihm proposes that there are two main reasons for this state of affairs: First, the creole-creating grumetes soon formed a tightly united group with its own culture; second, they were perfectly bilingual in Kriyol and one or more local languages and therefore able to keep their grammars separate. This study claims that, if the creators of a creole are very bilingual, speaking the creole and the
27
28
Claire Lefebvre
substrate languages fluently, this will constrain (negatively) the amount of transfer from substrate languages into a creole. 3·5
Summary
This section was dedicated to a discussion of the results of the comparisons of some 30 creoles and their substrates from a global perspective. The various ways in which the typological features of the substrate languages are manifested in creoles were first considered. Then, several subsystems of the grammar across creoles were discussed, showing that creole languages vary among each other with respect to typological features. The variation among creoles was shown to reflect the typological differences manifested by their respective substrate languages. The cognitive processes of transfer/calquing or relexification/relabelling were identified as the means by which substrate features enter creole languages. These processes were shown to be constrained in various ways, both linguistically and socially, such that not all the features of substrate languages can be reproduced in the creoles. & a result, creole languages cannot be claimed to be exact replicas of their substrate languages. 6 Other processes were identified by some authors as playing a role in the development of creoles. For example, levelling and its interaction with transfer are briefly discussed by Lang, Migge and Siegel. Reanalysis and its role in a creole's development are discussed by Koch (b). In light of the contents of this section, I now turn to a more general discussion of creoles and language typology.
4·
Creoles and language typology
In this section, I shall address three questions: Do creoles constitute an identifiable typological class? To what extent do creoles replicate the typological features of their substrate languages? Why are creole languages typologically isolating? 4.1
Do creoles constitute an identifiable typological class?
In Section 3.2, it was shown that pronominal forms, classifiers, TMA systems, negation, case systems, transitivity markers, the properties of verbs, serial verbs, verb-doubling phenomena, and discourse structures are not the same in the various creoles. This argues that creoles cannot be claimed to be "alike." Furthermore, it was shown that the variation among creoles reflects the variation observed among their respective substrate languages, such that creoles largely reproduce the typological features of their substrate languages. This argues that creoles cannot be claimed to constitute an identifiable typological class. Assuming this general conclusion, I will now turn to further discussion of the typology of creole languages. 6. Creoles cannot be said to be exact replicas of their substrate languages not only because some substrate features cannot be transferred/relabelled, but also because, as is the case in other languages, creoles may innovate and diverge from their contributing languages (see Ansaldo).
The problem of the typologic:al classification of creoles
4.2
To what extent do creoles replicate the typological features of their substrate languages?
The data discussed in this book show that creoles massively replicate the typological features of their substrate languages. This conclusion may, however, reflect the fact that the great majority of the chapters consider data related to the lexicon and to syntactic constructions (e.g., serial verb constructions, verb-doubling phenomena, etc.). The fact that the properties of creole lexicons should replicate those of their respective substrate languages follows from the analysis that creole lexical entries are, to a great extent, created by means of transfer/ calquing or relexification/relabelling (see Section 3.3 ). The tact that the syntactic constructions of creoles should replicate those of their respective substrate languages follows from the fact that, to a great extent. these are adopted wholesale in the creoles (by a process, or processes, not discussed here)? Would the same conclusion hold for the phonological component of the grammar or for word order phenomena? Below, I briefly discuss these two areas of the grammar and identify topics for future research. The phonological inventories of creoles are derivable in a straightforward way from those of their respective substrate languages. This is what the chapter by Brousseau convincingly shows on the basis of Haitian Creole, St. Lucian and their contributing languages. However, it cannot be claimed that these creoles are typologically similar to their substrate languages in all aspects of their phonology. For example, Brousseau shows that in the formation of the Haitian and St. Lucian creoles, the complex consonants (/kp/, I gb/, etc.) of the substrate languages were abandoned. For this feature at least the creoles typologically diverge from their substrate languages. Likewise, the prosodic systems of substrate languages are not necessarily reproduced in the creoles. For example, most West Mrican languages have tones. Saramaccan has tones, but its tonal system does not reproduce that of its substrate languages, according to the analyses in Good (2004) (see also Ham 1999). In contrast. Haitian Creole does not have tones but it has a complex accentual system (Brousseau 2003). Another complexity of the prosodic systems of creoles is brought up by Lim. In her study of tones in Singlish, Lim investigates the possibility that the presence of a high tone in Singlish might not be attributable only to its tonal substrate languages, but also to the intonation pattern of Malay, its non-tonal substrate. In the same vein, the syllable structures of creoles constitute a problem for typologists. For example, Saramaccan and Haitian Creole both have Gbe languages as their main substrate languages. Gbe languages exhibit V and CV but no *CVC syllable structures (Capo 1991). While the syllable structures of Saramaccan replicate those of the Gbe languages in manifesting V and CV structures but no *CVC structures (Smith 1987), Haitian Creole exhibits CVC structures as well as V and CV ones (e.g., Brousseau & Nikiema 2006). So, with respect to syllable structure, Saramaccan is typologically like its Gbe substrate languages but Haitian Creole is not It thus seems that. as regards the phonological component of the grammar, creoles do not reproduce the typological teatures of their substrate languages as straightforwardly as they do in the lexicon and the syntax.
7. One account of this fact lies in the relexifu:ation/relabelling of functional categories (see Lefebvre 1998). Another account, based on construction grammar, advocates the transfer of whole construction frames. The latter view is explored by Aboh (n.d.) and by Gerrit Dirnrnendaal (p.c.).
29
30
Claire Lefebvre
Word order is another area of creole grammars that presents a challenge for the typological classification of creoles. Although none of the chapters in this book are dedicated entirely to word order, there are some observations on word order in various chapters. For example, in China Coast Pidgin, some word orders follow Cantonese, thus the word order of its substrate language (Matthews, Ansaldo and Smith). Likewise, Sri Lanka(n) Malay has adopted the OV ordering of its adstrate languages Sinhala and Tamil (Ansaldo). Koch (a, b) and Munro, however, claim that creoles' word order generally follows that of their superstrate languages. Kihm shows that this claim is borne out in some cases but not in others, where the word order seems to follow that of the substrate languages.8 So, as is the case with the phonological component of the grammar, word order in creoles does not appear to straightforwardly reflect the properties of the substrate languages. I leave this matter for future research. It therefore appears that creole languages do not equally reflect the typological features of their substrate languages in all components of the grammar. Furthermore, a striking feature of creoles is that. regardless of the typological option of their substrate languages, creoles are typologically isolating, a topic to which I now turn. 4·3
Why are creole languages typologically isolating?
With a few exceptions (Ansaldo on case suffixes, Koch (b) on -im and -fela and Siegel on -im), creoles tend to be typologically isolating languages regardless of whether their substrates are isolating or agglutinating languages. The three varieties of creoles- CAAE, NSWP and Kriol- that have evolved from a hundred agglutinating Aboriginal languages in Australia, discussed in the two chapters by Koch and the chapter by Munro, illustrate this clearly. For example, the bulk of the TMA suffixes of the Australian languages have been reproduced as preverbal periphrastic markers in Kriol. Likewise, the properties of the case suffixes of the Australian languages have been reproduced in prepositions in both CAAE and Kriol. In the same vein, Bartens shows that Twi affixes have not been reproduced as such in the Caribbean creoles that she studies. The fact that substrate affixes are generally realised as free morphemes in creoles follows from the way the processes that play a role in their formation apply in creole genesis (see Section 3.3). All authors agree that the superstrate forms that are selected for transfer/calquing or for relexification/relabelling must be free forms. Hence, person markers are transferred/relabelled on the basis of personal pronouns, case markers on the basis of prepositions, and so on. This explains why creoles are isolating languages (see also Lumsden & Lefebvre 1994).
5·
Conclusion
As we saw throughout this chapter, creoles manifest a great deal of variation among themselves. Thus, they cannot be claimed to be "alike" in any sense of the word, nor to constitute a typological class as such. As regards the semantic and syntactic properties of their lexical entries and their
8. For a detailed discussion of word order in creole languages, see Plag (2008).
The problem of the typologic:al classification of creoles
syntactic constructions, creoles generally manifest the typological features of their substrate ianguages. This rules out the claim that creole languages should be typologically classified with their superstrate languages. As for the phonological component of the grammar (segmental inventories, tonaVprosodic systems and syllable structures), as well as word order, the extent to which the creoles reproduce (or not) the typological features of their substrate languages remains to be further documented. My general conclusions open up a whole new set of questions. For example, from a typologist's perspective, are substrate features in a given creole important enough to lead one to conclude that creoles should be typologically classified with their substrate languages? What should be the parameters involved in measuring the weight of features favouring one or the other view? These are but a few questions raised by the results of the research discussed in this chapter. The concluding chapter by Comrie provides the typologist's point of view on these issues.
References Aboh, E. n.d. Serial verb constructions: A Trans-Atlantic Sprachbund? Ms. Adam, L. 1883. Les idiomes negro-arytm et maleo-arytm. Paris: Maisonneuve. Andersen, R W. 1983. A language acquisition interpretation of pidginisation and creolisation. In Pidginisation and Creolisation as Language Acquisition, R W. Andersen (ed.), 1-59. Rowley MA: Newbury House. Anonymous. 1983. Blemmts de recherche sur la langue Fo,J. Cotono\L Ansaldo, U., Matthews, S. & Lim, L. 2007. Deconstructing Creole [Typological studies in Language 73). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Bally, A.-S. 2004. t:interpretation aspectuo-temporelle des enonces en Saramaccan. MA thesis, Universite du Quebec aMontreal Bernabe, J. 1983. Fo,Jdal-Natal [Grammaire basilectale approchee des creoles guadeloupeen et martiniquais 3]. Paris: t:Harmattan. Bickerton, D. 1984. The language bioprogram hypothesis. The Behavioral and Brain Sciences 7: 173-221. Blake, B. 1987. Australian Aborigi1ml Grammar. London: Croom Helm. Brousseau, A.-M. 1995. Les pronoms en creole hai:tien, en fran~ et en fongbe. In Research report prepared for FCAR on the projectlbrganisation des lexiques et des mtrees lexicales, Volume IV, C. Lefebvre (ed.). Montreal: Universite du Quebec aMontreal Brousseau, A.-M. 2003. The accentual system of Haitian Creole: The role of transfer and markedness values. In The Phonology and Morphology of Creole Languages, I. Plag (ed.), 3-23. Tiibingen: Niemeyer. Brousseau, A.-M. & Nikiema, E. 2006. From Gbe to Haitian: The multi-stage evolution of syllable structure. In L2 Acquisition and Creole Gtmesis: Dialogues [Language Acquisition & Language Disorders 42), C. Lefebvre, L. White & C. Jourdan (eds), 292-331. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Byrne, F. 1987. Grammatical Relations in a Radical Creole. Verb Complementation in Saramaccan [Creole Language Library 3]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Camden, W. G. 1979. Parallels in structure of lexicon and syntax between New Hebrides Bislama and the South Santo language as spoken at Tangoa. In Papers in Pidgin and Creole Linguistics No. 2, P. Miihlhausler and others (eds), 51-117. Canberra: Australian National University. Capo, H. B. C. 1991. A Comparative Pho,wlogy of Gbe [Publications in Mrican Languages and Linguistics 14]. Dordrecht: Foris. Chaudenson, R 2003. La creolisation: Theories, applications, implications. Paris: t:Harmattan. Crowley, T. 2004. Bislanm Reference Grammar. Honolulu HI: University ofHawai'i Press. Dixon, R M. W. 1980. The Languages of Australia. Cambridge: CUP.
31
32
Claire Lefebvre
Eades, D. 1991. Aboriginal English: An introduction. Vox: Journal of the Australian Advisory Council on Languages
and Multicultural Education (AACLAME) 5: 55-61. Eades, D. 1996. Aboriginal English. In Atlas ofLanguages of Intercultural Communication in the Pacific, Asia, and the Americas, S. A. Wurm, P. Miihlhii.usler & D. T. Tryon (eds), 133-141. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Fattier, D. 1998. Contribution afetude de la genese d'un creole. Atelier national de reproduction des theses. Good, J. 2004. Tone and accent in Saramaccan: Charting a deep split in the phonology of a language. Lingua 114: 575-619.
Goodman, M. F. 1964. A Camparative Study of Creole French Dialects. The Hague; Mouton. Hall, R A. 1950. The genetic relationships of Haitian Creole. Ricerche Linguistiche 1: 194-203. Ham, W. H. 1999. Tone Sandhi in Saramaccan: A case of substrate transfer? Joumal ofPidgi,J wJd Creole LwJgUages 14; 45-91.
Hancock, I. F. 1980. Gullah and Barbadian: Origins and relationships. American Speech 55: 17-35. Holm, J. A. 1988. Pidgins and Creoles, VoL 1: Theory and Structure. Cambridge: CUP. Kearns, L. 2008. Terrain sur Ia la'JKUC Papiwnentu (par Internet-Curafao ). Keesing, R M. 1988. Melanesian Pidgin wJd the Oceanic Substrate. Palo Alto CA: Stanford University Press. Koch, H. 2007. An overview of Australian traditional languages. In The Habitat ofAustralids Aboriginal Languages: Past, Present, wJd Future [Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs 179), G. Leitner & I. G. Malcolm (eds), 23-56. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Kouwenberg, S. & Lefebvre, C. 2007. A new analysis of the Papiamentu clause structure. Probus 19: 37-75. Lefebvre, C. 1994. On spelling out R 1ravaux de recherche sur le creole hai"tien 23: 1-33. Lefebvre, C. 1996. The tense, mood and aspect system of Haitian Creole and the problem of transmission of grammar in creole genesis. Journal ofPidgin and Creole Languages 11:231-313. Lefebvre, C. 1997. Relexifi.cation in creole genesis: The case of demonstrative terms in Haitian Creole. Journal of
Pidgin a,Jd Creole Languages 12: 181-203. Lefebvre, C. 1998. Creole Genesis and the Acquisition of Grammar. Cambridge: CUP. Lefebvre, C. 2008. Relabelling: A major process in language contact. Joumal ofLanguage Contact 2.
. Lefebvre, C. & Loranger, V. 2006. On the properties of Saramaccan fu: Synchronic and diachronic perspectives. Journal ofPidgin wJd Creole Languages 21:275-337. Lim, L. & Gisborne, N. (eds). 2009. The Typology of A.sianEnglishes. &Jglish World-Wide 30. (Special issue). Lumsden, J. & Lefebvre, C. 1994. The genesis of Haitian Creole. In The Central Role ofRelexification in Creole Genesis: The Case of Haitian Creole. Research Report, C. Lefebvre & J. Lumsden (eds), 3-15. UQAM. Maurer, P. 1988. Les modifications temporelles et modales du verbe dans le papiwnento de Curafao (Antilles NeerlwJdaises). Hamburg: Buske. McWhorter, J. H. 1998. Identifying the creole prototype: Vindicating a typological class. Language 74: 788-818. McWhorter, J. H. 200 1. The world's simplest grammars are creole grammars. Linguistic T}pology 5: 125-166. Michaelis, S. (eel.). 2008. Roots of Creole Structures: Weighing the Contribution of Substrates and Superstrates [Creole Language Library 33]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Michaelis, S. & Haspelmath, M. 2003. Ditransitive constructions: Creole languages in a cross-linguistic perspective. Creolica 2003-04-23 <WWW.creolica.net>. Mosel, U. 1980. Tolai wJd Tok Pisin: The Influence of the Substratum on the Developme,Jt of New Guinea Pidgin. Canberra: Australian National University. Mufwene, S. S. 1990. Transfer and the substrate hypothesis in creolistics. Studies in Second La'Jgtlage Acquisition 12: 1-23.
Mufwene, S. S. 2006. The Ecology of Language Evolution. Cambridge: CUP. Miihlhli.usler, P. 1980. Structural expansion and the process of creolisati.on. In Theoretical Orientations in Creole Studies, A. Valdman & A. Highfield (eds), 19-56. New York NY: Academic Press. Miihlhli.usler, P. 1986. Pidgin and Creole Linguistics [Language in Sodety II]. Oxford: Basil BlackwelL
The problem of the typologic:al classification of creoles
Munro, J. M. 2004. Substrate Language Influence in Kriol: The Application of Transfer Constraints to Language Contact in Northern Australia. PhD dissertation, University of New England, Armidale NSW. Muysken, P. C. 1981a. Half-way between Quechua and Spanish: The case for relexification. In Historicity and Variaticm in Creole Studies, A Highfield & A Valdrnan (eds), 52-79. Ann Arbor MI: Karoma. Muysken, P. C. 1981b. Creole Tense/Mood/Aspect systems: The unmar.lred case? In Gtmerative Studies o,J Creole Languages, P. C. Muysken (ed.), 181-199. Dordrecht Foris. Muys.lren, P. & Smith, N. (eds). 1986. Substrata versus Universals in Creole Gtmesis [Creole Language Library 1]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Naro, A J. 1978. A study of the origins ofpidginisation. Language 54:314-347. Neumann-Holzschuh, I. & Schneider, E. W. (eds). 2001. Degrees of Restructuring in Creole Languages [Creole Language Library 32]. Amsterdam: John Benj amins. Nolasco, R. M. 2005. The Chabacano challenge to Philippine ergativity. In Linguistics mul LmJguage Education in the Philippines and Beyo,ul: A Festschrift in Honor of Ma. Lourdes S. Bautista, D. Dayag & S. Qua.lrenbush (eds), 401-433. Manila: De La Salle University Press. Plag. I. 2008. Creoles as interlanguages: Syntactic structures. Journal of Pidgin am Creole LmJguages 23: 307-329. Rountree, C. S. 1992. Saramaccan Grammar Sketch. Paramaribo: Summer Institute ofLinguistics. Sandefur, J. R. & Sandefur, J. L 1979. Beginnings ofa Ngukurr-Bamyili Creole Dictionary. [Work Papers ofSIL-AAB B4]. Darwin: Summer Institute of linguistics. Sharpe, M. C. 1972 Alawa Phonology mJd Grmnmar. Canberra: Australian Institute of Agoriginal Studies. Siegel, J. 1997. Mixing, levelling and pidgin I creole development In The Structure am Status ofPidgins and Creoles [Creole Language Library 19], A K. Spears & D. Winford (eds), 111-149. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Siegel, J. 1999. Transfer constraints and substrate influence in Melanesian Pidgin. journal of Pidgin am Creole Languages 14(1): 1-44. Siegel, J. 2001. Koine formation and creole genesis. In Creolization mul Contact [Creole Language Library 23], N. Smith & T. Veenstra (eds), 175-197. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Smith, N. 1987. The Genesis of the Creole Languages of Surinam. PhD dissertation, University of Amsterdam. Sylvain, S. 1936. Le creole haftitm: Morphologic et syntaxe. Wetteren: Irnprirnerie De Meester/Port-au-Prince: By the author. Valdrnan, A et al. 1981. Haitian Creole-English-French Dictionary, 2 Vols. Bloomington IN: Indiana University, Creole Institute. van den Berg, H. 1987. A note on predicate cleft in Saramaccan. In Studies in Sarmnaccan LmJguage Structure [Caribbean Culture Studies 2], M. Alleyne (ed.), 103-112 Amsterdam: Universiteit van Amsterdam. Veenstra, T. 1996. Serial Verbs in Saramaccan: Predication and Creole Genesis. Dordrecht: Holland Institute of Generative Linguistics. Weinreich, U. 1953. LmJguages in Contact. The Hague: Mouton. Winford, D. & Migge, B. 2007. Substrate influence on the emergence of the TMA systems of the Surinamese creoles. journal of Pidgin am Creole Languages 22: 73-100.
33
Creoles spoken in Africa and in the Caribbean
Ed6 influence on Santome Evidence from verb serialisation Tjerk Hagemeijer and Ota Ogie Centro de Lingufstica da Universidade de Lisboa I Notwegian University of Science and Technology
Ferraz (1979) convincingly shows the impact of two typologically distinct African strata in the making of Santome: ed6 and Klkongo. In this paper, it will be shown that the extensive verb serialisation found in Santome shows a significant amount of typological overlap with Ed6 multi-event and compound verb constructions. Since the impact of Ed6 on Santome goes dearly beyond verb serial!sation and Is also found in the other Gulf of Guinea creoles, the findings strongly suggest an early ed6 founder impact in detriment ofKikongo and Bantu in general Keywords: ed6, Santome, verb serialisation
1.
Introduction
Santome (Sao-Tomense) is a Portuguese-related creole language spoken on the island of Sao Tome, in the Gulf of Guinea, and the short name for Lungwa Santome (language of Sao Tome). Locally, the language is also known as F6l6 or its Portuguese counterpart Farro, as well as Dialecto (dialect). The social group associated with the language is the so-called Forros, which is the historical designation for freed slaves. According to the 2001 census, 72.4% of the total population older than 5 of the country Sao Tome and Principe (137,599 inhabitants in the same census) speaks Santome, but no distinction is made between native and non-native use. The census suggests that the rate ofSantome speakers is dropping considerably among young people. Santome is the diachronic continuation in space and time of the proto-Gulf of Guinea Creole (PGGC) whose formative period starts at the end of the fifteenth century, in 1493, when the northeast of the island ofS. Tome was permanently settled. In addition to Santome, three other creoles are offshoots ofthis PGGC, namely Lung'ie (Principense, spoken on the island ofPrincipe), Fa d'AmM (Annobonense. spoken on the island ofAnnob6n) and Lunga Ngola or, in short. Ngola (Angolar). 1
Ferraz (1979:9): "This first Creole, the original Sao Tomense, later changed into four Creoles through geographical separation, and possibly also because of differences which might have existed to some extent in the substratum."
1.
38
Tjerk Hagerneijer and Ota Ogie
In the former two cases, the PGGC or a variety thereofwas exported to the islands of Principe and Annob6n, whereas Ngola is nowadays generally considered a maroon creole that was formed by slaves who constantly escaped from the plantations from the very early stages on (Lorenzino 1998). While Ngola was long thought of as a Bantu language that was becoming creolised (Valkhoff 1966, among others), at least as far back as the nineteenth century, writers have noted that there are considerable similarities between Santome, Lungie and Fa d'AmM (Matos 1842, among others). Notwithstanding the earliest brief descriptions of Santome by Schuchardt (1882), Coelho (1880-1886) and Negreiros (1895 ), Ferraz' (1979) The Creole of Sao Tomt is the first monograph on Santome and still an important reference work for scholars working on the GGCs. Other work mostly focuses on the morphosyntax of Santome (Alexandre & Hagemeijer 2002, 2007; Hagemeijer 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2007), on several GGCs at the same time (Lorenzino 1998; Schang 2000) or on the lexicon (Fontes 2007; Rouge 2004). Ferraz' (1979) study also stands out because of its discussion on the historical and linguistic relevance of two African strata for Santome: :bd6 and Kikongo. The present paper focuses primarily on so-called serial verb constructions (SVCs), which constitute a core feature of Santome's grammar where particularly strong impact from the Niger Delta typology, and .td6 in particular, is felt 2
1.1
Historical background
Between 1487 and 1507, the period that coincides with the settlement of the island ofS. Tome, a Portuguese trading post functioned intermittently in Ughoton (Gwato ), a village on a side arm of the Benin River (Rio Formoso) (Mota 1976; Ryder 1977) from where intensive contact was established by land with the Ed6 speaking Kingdom of Benin. The first permanent settlers of S. Tome were granted trade privileges in the Niger Delta. Ryder (1977: 35) writes that "[King] John II had given the captain of the island a licence to import 1.080 slaves from the 'slave rivers' [which includes Benin River] over a period of five years. By July 1499 about 920 of this number had been landed." Many of the slaves imported to S. Tome were traded for gold at the fortress of Sao Jorge da Mina (Ghana). In the will of Alvaro de Caminha, the first donatory captain of the island, dating back to 1499, several references are made to "Bini" CBd6) slaves. In what is probably the most reliable historical descriptive source on slave areas from the early sixteenth century, Esmeralda Situ. Orbis (ca. 1505), written by eyewitness Duarte Pacheco Pereira (ca. 1506), it is mentioned that most slaves were from the Kingdom of Benin and few from the area between Rio Real (eastern Nigeria) and the Congo. Therefore, there is a small but important time lapse between the settlement stage (societe d'habitation) and the shift towards a plantation economy (societe de plantation), around 1520, which coincides roughly with the shift of the slave trade from the Niger Delta towards the Congo and, slightly later, Angola (Almeida Mendes 2008a, b). The island of Principe was permanently settled around 1500, from S. Tome. At least 1514 to 1518 slaves were directly imported from the Kingdom of Benin during the period known as
2. Note that in the past, Edoid belonged to the Kwa branch of Niger-Congo. Although Edoid is now considered an independent branch, it shares many features with the Kwa languages.
Ed6 influence on Santorne
Carneiro's contract (Ladhams 2003). As for Annob6n, permanent settlement occurred in the mid-sixteenth century (Caldeira 2006).
1.2
:Bd6 and Santome in a typological perspective
This subsection provides a brief overview of a few typological features of Ed6 and Santome. :Ed6 is a north-central Edoid language. It exhibits seven oral vowels and five nasal vowels, tones (high and low), strictly consonant-initial verbs and strictly vowel-initial nouns, and absence of consonant clusters (Agheyisi 1990; Elugbe 1989 ). Ed6 exhibits preverbal TMA-marking and uses suffixes and tone for temporal distinctions and is further quite productive in derivational processes and verbal and nominal compounding (Agheyisi 1990). :Bd6 is a SVO language exhibiting widespread verb serialisation and allows for Double Object Constructions. The DP is strongly head-initial. Only determiners precede the head noun, whereas modifiers (possessives, adjectives, nominals, quantifiers and demonstratives, clauses) are post-nominal (Agheyisi 1990). Santome exhibits seven oral and five nasal vowels and is a pitch-accent language (Ferraz 1979). Maurer (2008), however, argues that Santome is a tone language, a claim he also makes for Ngola and Lung'ie (Maurer 1995, 2009). All verbs are strictly consonant-initial. While Santome exhibits consonant clusters (Ferraz 1979 ), these are absent in the three sister creoles, which means that they were arguably missing in the proto-creole of the Gulf of Guinea. Santome is a strongly isolating SVO language exhibiting preverbal TMA-marking, widespread verb serialisation and Double Object Constructions. With respect to the DP, determiners and quantifiers precede the nouns whereas other modifiers (demonstratives, possessives, adjectives, nominals, clauses) are postnominal (Alexandre & Hagemeijer 2004, 2007). Note that in sister creoles Lung'ie and Fa d'AmM, quantifiers are postnominal and therefore possibly constituted a feature of the protocreole of the Gulf of Guinea.
1.3
A few specific :Bd6 features in the Gulf of Guinea creoles
Lexicon The first study of the African lexicon in Santome was carried out by Ferraz (1979:90-97), who provides a Bantu etymology, mostly from Kikongo, for 60 items, and a Niger Delta etymology, almost without exception from E,d6, for 36 items. Rouge (2004) lists 381 items which he considered to be of non-Portuguese origin (African, other, unknown, in his classification). Ladhams (forthcoming) presents an appendix of slightly more than 100 African lexical items, based on Ferraz (1979) and Rouge (2004), and concludes that 37% of the etymologies can be assigned to :Bd6 and 63% to Bantu. In closely related Lung'ie, Ladham's calculated that these percentages are 76% and 24% respectively. In the introduction to his Lung'ie glossary, Maurer (2009:211) mentions that the African lexicon in this creole is almost exclusively Edoid-related. These percentages
39
40
Tjerk Hagerneijer and Ota Ogie
are consistent with a few phonological features that are exclusively found in Lungie and refer to the Niger Delta, such as labial velars3 and trills (Gunther 1973; Ferraz 1975; Maurer 2009). Since several Edoid items in Santome are also found in the other GGCs, whereas shared Kikongo items are clearly less common, this is a strong indication that Ed6 constitutes an older lexical layer.
Interrogation The GGCs exhibit a specific interrogative structure with a final interrogation marker of place that questions DPs only: ( 1)
Lomba e, moto b6 b6? Lomba VOC motorbike POS INT 'Oh Lomba, where ls your motorbike?'
(2)
P.le b6? 3SG
SANTOME
(Hagemeljer's field notes) SANTOMJ!
INT
'Where ls he?'
(Hagemeijer 2007: 25)
This structure and the interrogative marker itself are calqued on :Bd6 1'b06 [u06], where this marker also questions the locus ofDPs and, similarly to ST, requires the use of strong pronouns: (3)
Owa rut vb06? house 2sG INT 'Where ls your house?'
(4)
Ren vb06? 3SG INT
'Where ls he?'
En6 (Agheyisi 1986: 160)
En6 (Melzlan 1937:218)
Furthermore, with respect to the paradigm of fronted interrogatives, STand Ed6 follow basically the same Wh-formation strategy, which consists of a question word and a noun. However, Ed6 exhibits one simplex Wh-word, namely gha 'whO, in alternative to domwim (from: de + Om.wan = Q +person) (Agheyisi 1990). ST also exhibits a simplex and a complex forms for 'whO, namely ken and k€ nge (lit. Q +person), as well as for 'where' (andji-ke xitu-k€ kamya) and 'how'
(kuma-ke modu). Reflexivisation Like many other creole languages (Muysken & Smith 1994), ST exhibits so-called body-part reflexives. The four GGCs are exceptional among creole languages in the sense that not only the reflexive strategy can be assigned to .td6 but also the word for 'bodY, ubwe in ST and igbe in Lung'ie, both from Ed6 egbe.
3- Labial velars are typologically rare phonemes that constitute an areal feature of Kwa and Niger Delta languages. Considering the common etymologies, the Proto-Gulf of Guinea Creole on the island of S. Tome must have exhibited labial ve1ars as well at some stage. This phonological feature survived in Lung'ie, but not in the other c.reoles arguably because of later massive contact with Bantu slaves. In Santome, in particular,/gb/ became labial /kw/ or /bw/- e.g., Lung'ie [igbe] 'body', ST [ukwe], from Ed6 ikpe 'seed, gram
Ed6 influence on Santorne
(5)
a
E
mat'ubw~ d~
buta.
SANTOMB
3SG kill-body POS throw b.
(Hagemeijer's field notes)
'S/he committed suicide? 0 gbUgbe ere rua.
En6
3sG kill-body 3sG away
(Ogie's field notes)
'S/he committed suicide? (6)
a
b.
E toma
ubw~ d~
3SG take
body POS give PRJ!P-Stone
da
n'budu.
'S/he bumped against a stone.' 0 mu-egbe gbe okutd.
SANTOMB
(Hageme~jer's
field notes) En6
3sG carry-body against stone
'S/he bumped against a stone?
(Ogie's field notes)
So far, we have argued that Ed6 was both historically and linguistically important for the formation of the GGCs. In the remainder of this paper, it will be shown that evidence from verb serialisation in Santome reinforces this claim.
2.
Verb serialisation
So-called serial verb constructions (SVCs) constitute a distinctive areal feature essentially restricted to the Kwa area (Watters 2000) and a number of Nigerian language clusters, such as Yoruboid (Awoyale 1988; Bamgbose 1982), Edoid (Agheyisi 1990; Melzian 1942; Ogie 2004; Stewart 1998) and Ijoid (Williamson 1965), but are atypical of Bantu languages. Assuming McWhorter's (1992) typological claim that SVCs occur in creole languages with serialising substrates, it follows that widespread verb serialisation found in the GGCs (Gunther 1973; Hagemeijer 2000, 2001; Maurer 1995, 1999, 2009; Post 1992) ought to be related to the oldest slave trade area, namely the Niger Delta. The classification of SVCs and even the label itself is not uncontroversial For comparative purposes, we will adopt mostly traditional labels such as 'give'-serials, 'take'-serials, locative serials, which are mostly based on the meaning of the fixed or most grammaticalised verb in the construction. It should be noted, however, that in the Ed6 tradition the label multi-verb has now often been adopted as a means to distinguish between different types of constructions according to certain morphosyntactic properties (Baker & Stewart 2002; Ogie 2004).4 Moreover, Ed6 exhibits so-called compound verbs, which do not pertain to the class of multi-verb constructions. Agheyisi (1990: 42) defines them as the set of derived verbs forming a tight semantic unit which are made up of either two basic verbs, or a verb plus an adverbial particle. In sum, the label "serial verb construction" ranges over both multi-verb and compound verb constructions. In fact, any typology of verb sequences relies heavily on the degree of grammaticalisation of one of the verbs
4· The term multi-verb constructions is defined as consisting of verbs in series that can function as independent verbs in simple sentences, with at least one shared argument and no marking of syntactic dependency (Ameka 2005:2).
41
42
Tjerk Hagerneijer and Ota Ogie
in the series, as mentioned by Lord (1993) for SVCs in general, Melzian (1942) and later authors for £d6, and by Hagemeijer (2000, 2001) for Santome. We assume the following basic criteria for the constructions under discussion: two (or more) verbs expressing a single event; a single overt subject; one specification for tense and negation; one negation marker on Vl; no subordinate or coordinate conjunctions; no discursive pauses; objects can be extracted from both VPl and VP2. In addition. it is illustrated in (7) that both :Bd6 and Santome allow for verb clefting with a verb copy, which is a property common to many other serialising languages, with the difference that the clefted verb in .td6 is overtly nominalised. (7)
a b.
K6le so
inen kOM lentla ke.
run Foe
3PL
SANTOMB
run enter house
1-rhulf
Qrf ira11 rhUle lad awd. NOM-run Foe 3PL run enter house Both: 'It is running they ran into the house.'
En6 (Hagemeijer/Ogie's field notes)
The possibility ofverb clefting from serial verb constructions depends on the type of construction and the status of the verb in verb series, since V2s typically tend to be gramrnaticalised to some extent. This also follows from the fact that some V2s can take an aspect marker. Table 3 (Section 3) summarises how the different serial verb constructions in .td6 and Santome behave with respect to clefting and aspect marking. 'Give' -construction
2.1
In Santome, da. functions both as a main verb ('to give') and as a prepositional element with the meaning 'for, to, from: introducing benefactive, goal, experiencer and recipient, as in (8) to (11) respectively: (8)
Sela pa n
toma zawa pa n
ba pya da b6.
must for 1so take urine for 1so go look for 2sG 'I must take urine to go check you out: (9)
Po se kye da son.
(Hagemeijer 2000: 25) SANTOMB
tree sP fall hit ground 'The tree in question fell down.' (10)
SANTOMB
Fogon sa kentxi da non. kitchen be hot for 1PL 'The kitchen is hot for
us:
(Hagemeijer's field notes) SANTOMB
(Hagemeijer 2000: 101)
Sd6 influence on Santorne
(11) N gdg6 da sa11 6. 1sG please for you CTP 'I'm pleased for you.'
SANTOME
(Hagemeijer's field notes)
A number of syntactic tests, such as subject drop, null VPs or predicate cleft, show that prepositional da. exhibits the same properties as the limited number of prepositions proper in Santome (Hagemeijer 2000).5 In this sense, these constructions are not true SVCs. There is, however, one property that distinguishes prepositional da. above from prepositions proper, namely preposition stranding. In Santome, prepositions proper are obligatorily stranded with an invariable element corresponding to the third person singular, also labelled spelled-out trace in the literature (Veenstra & den Besten 1994). This is illustrated in (12), where the interrogative construction leaves the preposition proper stranded with spelled-out trace~ (ku ~).but in (13), da has to be stranded without this trace. (12)
Ke
kwa
ku
e
va nha
ku e!*ku?
what thing coMP 3sG cut wood with 3sG/with 'What did he cut the wood with!' (13) Ke nge ku e tlaba dal*dH what person coMP 3sG work for/for-3sG 'Who does he work for?'
SANTOMB
(Hagemeijer's field notes) SANTOME
(Hagemeijer's field notes)
In this respect, da behaves like the second verb in SVCs, which can readily be stranded, showing that this is not a case of covert coordination. (14)
a
San 1 so e ligi mina tlega [-lr lady POC 3SG lift-up child give 'It was the lady she handed the child to:
b.
"San 1 so
2 ligi
SANTOMB
(Hagemeijer's field notes)
mina tlegt,.
lady POC 3SG lift-up child give-3SG
(Hagemeijer's field notes)
With respect to .td6, Melzi.an (1942: 33) argues that net is a verb that always occurs in the second position of verb combinations. However, Ed6linguists nowadays agree that ne!na is a preposition (Agheyisi 1986:99, 1990: 63; Baker & Stewart 2002:26, 36; Ogie 2002:85; Stewart 1998: 169) which always occurs in second positions in compound verb constructions. In addition, :Bd6
5· Note that da can be preceded by aspect marker ka, but this implies a change in meaning, as follows from the contrast between (i) and (ii): (i) E
ka
aaba da mu. work give me 'He (habitually) works for me:
SANTOME
3SG ASP
(ii) E ka aaba ka da mu. ~he works, he gives me (his earnings): *'He (habitually) works for me:
SANTOME
Crucially, then, repeated ka triggers a proportional reading, which does not qualify as a unitary syntactic event
43
44
Tjerk Hagerneijer and Ota Ogie
uses both da(a) and gbe for Goal arguments. The following examples illustrate the uses of these items in Ed6. Ne/Na 'for, to, from' (15)
1
rh!e
~e nu~n. 6
(16)
(Melzian 1937: 127)
nwlmi 11d
En6
(Recipient)
work for 'To work for' (17)
:en6
(Benefactive)
1SG take.PST 3SG PREP-2SG.OBL 'I gave it to you.'
(Melzian 1942: 103)
(Source)
l€re na
6n6 (Melzian 1942: 103)
'to hide from'
Daa 'stretch out toward~ 'toward' (18)
Mu ar6 dad m~n. take eye toward 1so 'Turn (your) face towards me:
(Goal) (Agheyist 1986: 16)
(19) gi~ dad mw~n laugh towards 1so 'Laugh towards me:
(Goal)
En6 (Melzian 1937:22)
Gbe 'againsf (20) Erhdn de gbe fk~n. tree fallPsT against wall 1\. tree fell against the wall:
(Goal) (= (34) inAgheyisi 1990:66)
Similarly to ST da, Ed6 ne can also be stranded in final position, where it has to be obligatorily realised as na, as illustrated in the following focus construction. (21)
[0z6]i ~re Q rhie {gh6 nd Ozo Foe 3so take.PST money to 'It was Ozo s/he gave money to:
a. (Agheyisi 1986:99)
But, as in Santome, true prepositions - i.e. elements that lack verbal features - cannot be stranded in .Bd6, as follows from the case of vbe in (22a) and (22b ). (22)
0 rre
a
vbe Owi(. 3so came in morning 'He came in the morning:
b.
Ow~
g,e
9
(= (30) inAgheyisi 1990:65)
yal na rre.
morning FOC 3SG SEQ come.PST 'It was in the morning that he
came:
En6 (= (32) inAgheyisi 1990:65)
Upon extraction of the object of a preposition proper, owie 'morning: the preposition vbe in .Bd6 is deleted and replaced by an adverbial clitic particle. In order to tormalise this distinction, we
6.
Nutn is composed of the following morphemes ne (prep) + rU4 (second person direct object pronoun).
Ed6 influence on Santorne
will adopt the label "dynamic preposition" for cases like .Ed6 ne!na and "prepositions proper" for cases like 1'be. It is highly suggestive that dynamic prepositions are derived from verbs. Note further that Wescott (1962: 151) claims that of all .Ed6 verbs, nan 'to give' is "phonetically the most affix-like" with the behaviour of a lexicalised compound verb construction, as in: (23)
mu-na
En6
take/carry-to 'to give (something big or bulky) to'
In fact, this also applies to da in ST, where at least the following two items are fully lexicalised: (24)
a b.
fa-da 'to tell' (lit. speak-give) tan-da 'to hand over' (lit take-give)1
SANTOMB SANTOMB
Note finally that Ed6 na also means 'to narrate!, a meaning also associated to ST da. - e.g., da ua soya 'narrate a story'. In sum, ST da conflates a number of functions that are expressed by different items, typically dynamic prepositions, in :Bd6. The exclusive use of ST da, derived from Portuguese dar 'to give, is not surprising, since not only is it the prototypical verb of transfer, but it also has the secondary meaning 'to hit' (cf. (9), Ed6 gM).
Locative constructions
2.2
To express the endpoint of movement, the GGCs use a highly productive construction with the partly grammaticalised verb p~ 'to put' (from Old Ptg. poer 'to put') in the second position (Hagemeijer 2000, 2001; Maurer 1999). (25)
N ga zuga
kupi pe son.
SANTOMB
I ASP throw saliva put ground 'I spit on the ground' (26)
Sun ka vumba
pi! boka-poto
(Hagemeijer's field notes)
se.
SANTOMB
he ASP introduce put mouth-door sP 'He puts (it) in the keyhole.'
(Hagemeijer's field notes)
In Hagemeijer (2000, 2001), it is shown that~ as V2 in an SVC exhibits properties of verbs and prepositions with respect to a number of syntactic tests. One of the tests shows that pe patterns with verbs with respect to stranding (cf. da). (27)
e
[Djelu] 1 so tufu jibela pe [-] 1• money Foe 3sG stick pocket put 'It was money that he stacked in his pocket'
SANTOMB
(Hagemeijer's field notes)
Note further that locatives that do not imply movement typically make use of locative preposition ni 'in, at, on, frotn: which is briefly addressed in Section 3.
7.
Note that tan 'to take' is the reduced form of toma 'to take:
45
46
Tjerk Hagerneijer and Ota Ogie
ST locative~ above corresponds to .td6 ye!yf. Melzian (1937, 1942) argues that yfis a verb, because it is tonally marked for imperfective and perfective, indicating the direction in which an action is performed. However, as in the case oftd6 na, nowadays the prepositional status of ye/y{ is generally accepted (Agheyisi 1990:64; Baker & Stewart 2002:36; Stewart 1998: 169). Agheyisi (1990:64) further states that ye is a preposition that expresses location, which takes on the form yf when it occurs in sentence-final position. Differently from Santome pe, Ed6 ye!yf does not operate as a main verb. (28) 1 rhie ~re ye evba. 1sG take.PsT 3so on there 'I put it there:
En6 (Melzlan 1937: 228)
Extraction of the object leaves ye stranded with the extraction being marked by vowel and tonal changes, yielding y£ in the final position, as exemplified by the following sentences. (29) a
b.
lgan (Ire Oz6 rhie ye l}ok6ro. feather Poe Ozo take on small.chair 'It's a feather that Ozo put on the small chair: ~iok6ro (Ire Oz6 rhie lgan yf. smallchair Poe Ozo take feather on 'It's on a small chair that Ozo put the feather:
En6 (= (41b) in Stewart 1998: 169)
En6 (= (41c) in Stewart 1998: 169)
However, as shown above, prepositions proper do not strand in td6 which shows that yetyf still has properties that are reminiscent of a former verbal status.8 In sum, both languages exhibit locative construction with substantial overlap of semantic and syntactic properties, but to which applies a different degree of grammaticalisation. 2.3
Resultative constructions
As illustrated in examples (30) to (32), Ed6 and ST both exhibit resultative constructions, where VP2 indicates the resultative state of the event expressed by VP 1. (30)
a
Budu
b.
Okutd gbe ukpu guqgh9. stone hit cup break 'The stone broke the cup:
(31) a b.
Zon
da
kopu kebla.
kye m6le. Oz6 de wu. ZI:Jn/Ozo fall die ''ZI:Jnl Ow fell to his death:
SANTOMJ!
En6 (Hagemeijer's field notes;= (39a) in Stewart 1998: 131) SANTOMR
En6 (Hagemeijer's field notes;= (11a) in Stewart 1998: 18)
8. A monosyllabic transitive verb (or preposition) subcategorising for an extracted direct object, adopts the tonal (morphological) signature of an intransitive predicate (Beermann, Hellan & Ogie 2002: 1).
Sd6 influence on Santorne
(32)
a
La11ta
mundja.
SANTOME
to raise stand/stop 'Get up: I 'Pull yourselftogether: b.
Kpaa
(Hagemeijer's field notes)
En6
mudia.
to raise stand/stop 'Get up: I 'Put in upright position.'
(Melzlan 1937: 116; Ogie's field notes)
Note that in (32a), mu.ndja not only occurs in an identical td6 construction, it is also a lexical item borrowed from Ed6. Interestingly, mz'uiia is a compound form in Ed6 (mu+dia), which was integrally borrowed into Santome. Directed motion
2.4
As in most serialising languages, combinations of directed motion and manner of motion are highly productive in Santome and Ed6, where the following types can be found: Direction away/towards (33) a P. nda be nda bi. b. Q khia11 v6 khian rre. 3sG walk go walk come ST: 'He walked to and fro: EDO: 'He is walking to and fro: (34)
a b.
a b.
En6 (Hagemeijer's field notes) (Melzi.an 1937: 228)
Inen Mle lentla ke.
SANTOMB
owa.
En6
fran rhUlt. /eM 3PL ran enter house
'They ran into the house: (35)
SANTOME
Inen x~ ka fran kpag a
ba
( = ( 36)
in Agheyisi 1990: 66; Hagemeijer's field notes)
poson.9
SANTOMJ!
En6
rrie EkO.
leave TMA go town/Lagos 'They left and went to town/Lagos: 3PL
(36)
a b.
Zon Oz6
(Agheyisi 1986: 90; Hagemeijer's field notes)
sata vala ubwa. saan rra 6gba.
'ZI:Jn!Ozo jump cross fence 'ZI:Jn!Oz6 jumped over the fence:
SANTOMB
En6 (HagemeijeriOgie's field notes)
9· Unlike other motion verbs, the verb kpa::> 'to leave' does not take a direct locative object but an object preceded by preposition vbe. A similar restriction can be found in ST: (i) N
1
X~
ni
ke
kpaa vbt! owa
1SG leave PREP house 'I left the house:
(SANTOME,
Hagerneijer's field notes) (Sn6, Ogie's field notes)
47
48
Tjerk Hagerneijer and Ota Ogie
Circwnvention (V +modifier) (37) a E fe ubwa loja b. 0 gbd 6gba legda
ke ~Owa re. 3sG bulld fence go-around house his/her 'S/he built a fence around his/her house:
SANTOME
En6 (Agheyisi 1986: 90; Hagemeijer' field notes)
Accompaniment (V+modifier) (38) a lema 1~1~ awa. b. gua lele ~ze.
row follow river 'to row alongside the river:
SANTOME
En6 (Hagemeijer's field notes; Melzlan 1942:98)
Not only do accompaniment constructions in STand td6 exhibit identical syntax, this SVC is yet another case where STuses a lexical item, lt!le, drawn from Ed6 in the second position, which was also the case of mundja, in (32a) above. Overtaking (V+modifier) (39)
a.
b.
Orne se nda vala mu ni lwa. man sP walk surpass me on street 'The man (in question) overtook me on the street: Dkpid nif khidn gbemi.a mwtn vbe ukpO. man DBM walk.PsT pass 1sG on street 'The man overtook me on the street:
Origin (40) E vwa
xe matu. he fly leave bushes 'He rushed out of the bushes:
(41)
.fo
tluvisu ba ke. come-out work go home 'I go home from work:
N
ga
SANTOME
(Hagemeijer's field notes)
En6 (Ogie's field notes)
SANTOME
(Hagemeijer's field notes) SANTOMB
1sG ASP
(42)
N bi .fo tluvisu. I come from work 'I came from work:
(Hagemeijer's field notes) SANTOME
(Hagemeijer's field notes)
F6 is interesting because it is arguably derived from a nominal item, namely Portuguese fora 'outside' (Maurer 2005). However, the possibility of aspect marking onfo (ka.fo) shows that this item exhibits verbal properties. Although td6 also exhibits origin constructions, the origin (ke) precedes the motion verb. Similarly to nMne and ye/yf, Melzian (1937) considers ke a verb, but recent work on Ed6 (Agheyisi 1986, among others) assumes that we are dealing with a preposition. Word order shows that itis likely that kewas originally a verb, since PPs in Ed6 typically follow the V(P). (43)
ke iwinna y6 owa. 1sa from work go house 'I go home from work'
I
En6 (Ogie's field notes)
Sd6 influence on Santorne
(44)
&16
1 1ce dee Edo lsG from come.PROG 'From Benin I am coming:
En6
(Melzian 1937: 1109)
Ed6 ke is further used as a verb meaning 'to be next to/neat, which is expressed by (nominal) preposition bodo in ST. Although serialisation involving directed motion is one of the most common types crosslinguistically, several of its subtypes, such as accompaniment or origin, occur less frequently and show that there is a significant amount of overlap between the full range of constructions. 2.5
Comitatives
ST may use a SVC with the verb zu.nta. 'to join to express togetherness: (45)
( 46)
Bamu zunta kopla minjan. let's join buy remedy 'Lefs buy the remedy together: Nen zunta kume. 3PL join eat 'They ate together.'
SANTOMI!
(Hagemeijer's field notes) SANTOMJ!
(Hagemeijer's field notes)
More often, however, adverb zuntu 'together' expresses togetherness- e.g., zuga bola zuntu 'play (foot) ball together'. In Ed6 this construction (V +infinitival complement) appears to be far more prolific, to the extent that it can be expressed by three different verbs that can be found in free variation: gbti, kokO and kugbe 'to jom. (47)
k~gbe-re
rr£ izf.
En6
they join.together.PsT-rv eat rice 'They ate the rice together:
(= (10) in Ogie 2004: 5)
Iran
Despite this difference between ST and Ed6, the base line is once more that both languages exhibit a typologically less common type of serial verb construction. 2.6
Degree constructions
ST has two verbs that can be used in comparative constructions: pasa. and vala. The latter is also used for overtaking constructions (Section 2.4). (48)
.Mwala sa glavi pasa/vala woman be pretty surpass 'The woman is prettier than the man:
SANTOME
(Hagemeijer's field notes)
Degree constructions are also attested in Ed6, where the verb is different from the verb used in the overtaking construction.
49
so
Tjerk Hagerneijer and Ota Ogie
(49)
Oz6 mase
Azari.
En6
Ow be-beautiful surpass Azari 'Ow is more beautiful than Azari.'
(= (21) in Ogie 2004:7)
An interesting property of comparative constructions is that they allow Wh-movement, as illustrated in the following example: (50)
Ke
kali
inen mina mosu Zon sa maxi tamen pas'e?
what which 3PL little boy Zon be more big 'Zon is taller than which boys?' (lit: ..Which boys is Zon taller than him?')
SANTOME surpass-3sG (= (15) in Alexandre & Hagemeijer 2002: 24)
:Bd6 also allows this type ofWh-movement but, unlike in Santome, there is no invariable spelledout trace (Veenstra & den Besten 1994) in the locus of extraction. (51) De fbi~ka lkpiti ne Oz6 tan-r~n sM? INT.PRON little boy.PL COMP Ow tall.PST-rV surpass 'Ow is taller than which boys?'
En6 (Ogie's field notes)
In ST, pasa 'surpass' is also used in excessive constructions, a use not found in Ed6: (52)
Maya sa glavi pasa.
SANTOME
Maya be pretty surpass 'Maya is very pretty.'
(Hagemeijer's field notes)
These constructions in Ed6 and ST do not exhibit the properties of true SVCs because pasa., vala, on the one hand, and on the other, fail to respond to tests that determine their verbal status, such as the possibility of aspect marking or verb clefting. It also follows that Ed6 and ST do not fully overlap with respect to these constructions. In fact, the broad typological overlap observed in general is not a warranty for overlap of fine-grained details of each construction.
see
2.7
Completive constructions
The items kaba in ST and fo6 in Ed6 both modify predicates and have the meaning 'to finish' as main verbs. The emphasis of the construction lies in the completion of the event (53)
a b.
Zon Oz6
fla
kaba.
guan-r~n
fo6
SANTOME (11~)
ZonJOw speak finish (perfective) 'Zon/Ozo spoke once and for all/had finished talking?
En6 (Hagemeijer/Ogie's field notes)
Thus, both Santome and :Bd6 use the verb meaning 'to finish' in the second slot but, as in the case of pasa/vala in the previous section, in neither language does the respective item exhibit verbal properties.
Sd6 influence on Santorne
2.8
'Particle' -constructions
:bd6 exhibits compound verbs in which typically a 'launch' -verb is followed by the adverbs/particles foa!kiui 'away, off' (Agheyisi 1986; Melzian 1942; Stewart 1997). According to Stewart (1997), the choice depends on the plurality of the object (count versus mass). In ST, this function is rendered exclusively by buta 'away, off' - from Portuguese botar 'to throw' - which also behaves like a particle in the sense that it is intransitive and lacks verbal properties overall. (54)
a
Zon bloka awa buta.
b.
Oz6 tue ame kua. Ozo pour water away 'Ozo poured water away.'
(55) a b.
En6 (Hagemeijer's field notes; = (26a) in Stewart 1997: 164)
Zon zuga budu buta. Oz6 fi ugbe foa. Ozo throw stone away 'Ozo threw the stone away.'
(56) a b.
SANTOMI!
SANTOMJ!
:En6 (Hagemeijer's field notes; = (29a) in Stewart 1997: 165)
kota buta. fian foa.
SANTOME
'to cutoff'
(Hagemeijer's field notes; Melztan 1937: 60)
:En6
It follows from the descriptions that :bd6 foa and kua and ST buta are unable to select for objects. If the location of the 'launch'-verb is indicated, the transitive locative construction (Section 2.2) is typically used: (57) Omali klaga lodoma zuga p~ ple. sea carry bottle throw put beach 'The sea threw the bottle on the beach!near the river: (58) Oje slla 61£ udO fi o vbi ukp6de. Oje push the stone throw cL we road 'Oje pushed the stone onto the road:
SANTOME (Hageme~Jer's
field notes)
(Schaefer & Egbokhare 2002: 67)
There are also cases where movement is expressed differently in td6 and ST. In fact, it follows that ST buta is used more restrictively than bd6 fM/kua. (59) ElfkhilkhU tin fod. pigeon fly.PsT away 'The pigeon flew away.' (60) Bisu vwa be. bird fly go 'The bird flew awaY:
:En6 (Agheyisi 1986: 143) SANTOME (Hageme~Jer's
field notes)
In sum, both languages exhibit similar constructions, but .Bd6 exhibits a semantically more finegrained system to distinguish between mass and count nouns. On the other hand, ST uses, for
10.
Emai is a North-Central Edoid language.
Sl
52
Tjerk Hagerneijer and Ota Ogie
instance, a directed motion verb to indicate movement away from the deictic centre, whereas Ed6 uses a particle for this meaning. 2.9
'Take' -serials
STand Ed6 exhibit all types of what is sometimes labelled in the literature as 'take-serials. Depending on the type of taking/carrying, a significant number of other verbs fulfils the 'take'-function in ST: ligi 'lift. up. pega 'to take, to grab: klaga 'to carrY, etc. These are all syntactically fullfledged verbs in and outside SVCs and essentially vary with respect to their semantics. In Ed6, these constructions are extremely productive, with the difference that some of the 'take'-verbs, such as mu and ya, exhibit clear signs of grammaticalisation and are better accounted for as light verbs (Grimshaw & Mester 1988), forming lexical chunks with other verbs. (61)
a
b.
(62)
a
b.
(63)
a
b.
Z.m tom~ bi. Zon take-3so come 'Zon brought herlhim/if. Oz6 rhie ~re rre. Ozo take.PsT 3so come 'Ozo brought her/him/if. ZiJn toma basola bali. Zon take broom sweep 'Zon swept with a broom.' Atlti ya 6wt kpol6. .Atiti use.PsT broom sweep 'Zon/.Atiti swept with a broom.' ZiJn toma faka kota Ianza. Zon take knife cut orange 'Zon cut the orange with a knife: Oz6 rhltf ehq fian alfm6f. Ozo take.PsT knife cut orange 'Ozo cut the orange with a knife:
SANTOMl!
(Hagemeijer's field notes)
:en6 (Ogie's field notes) SANTOME
(Hagemeijer's field notes)
En6 (= (25) inAgheyisi 1990:94) SANTOME
(Hagemeijer's field notes)
En6 (= (14) in Ogle 2004: 5)
Although both languages exhibit the same range of 'take' -constructions, none of the 'take'-verbs in ST shows the signs of grammaticalisation found in Ed6.
2.10
Consequential constructions
Both Ed6 and Santome exhibit consequential constructions. Irrespective of the analysis for these constructions, these structures are characterized by the absence of a pronominal object following V2 co-referent with the object ofVl. Neither Ed6 nor Santome exhibit object drop.
Ed6 influence on Santorne
(64)
(65)
a
Thma mpo11 va.U
b.
Mu
ebredi fian. take bread cut 'Slice the bread' I 'Take and slice the bread'
a
Zon ka
b.
Oz6 le ~ze re. Ozo ASP cook rice eat 'Ozo cooks rice and eats it'
kuji
1656 kume.
SANTOMB
En6
(Hagemeijer/Ogie's field notes) SANTOMB
En6
(Hagemeijer/Ogie's field notes)
In :bd6, consequential constructions are considered true SVCs (Baker & Stewart 1999, 2002; Ogie 2008; Stewart 1998 ).
Summary
3·
It follows from the previous sections that there is a significant amount of typological overlap between SVCs in STand bd6. Although SVCs constitute an areal feature that goes far beyond :bd6, historical and other linguistic evidence pinpoint :bd6 as the crucial stratum where these structures were transferred from. In fact, in a few constructions the verb in V2, the most grammaticalised slot, was directly borrowed from f;d6 (/€M, mzmdja). Since the prepositional function in strongly serialising languages is typically rendered by verbs and not by a special class of prepositions, inclusion of the following table summarily shows how E.d6 and ST behave in this respect and comparatively to each other. It tallows that both languages typically use nominals and verbs for the prepositional function, exhibiting a low number of prepositions proper, [-N, - V] . Although it was argued that some verbs in the second slot of SVCs do not exhibit verbal properties or only vestiges of verbal behaviour, we have included these items in the class of elements with the specification [-N, +V]. In addition to the prepositional function represented in Table 1, ST and :bd6 also exhibit a number of common complex elements with the structure Prep+Noun that function as complex prepositions. Finally, Table 3 contrastively sums up the properties of the different serial constructions in :bd6 and Santome considered throughout this paper for the features aspect marking on V2, verb clefting and stranding. The most striking contrast between serialising constructions in E.d6 and San tome arises within the class of directional constructions. In :bd6, these constructions are typically Verb+ Modifier constructions, with a grammaticalised item in the V2 slot, as tallows from the impossibility of aspect marking and verb cleft; in Santome, however, it can be concluded that, according to the
11. The difference between Ed6 and ST is that mu is a more grammaticalised item than toma (cf. Table 3). Yet, Santome also exhibits a more grammaticalised use of toma, as illustrated in the following example:
(i)
Toma ope be.
(SANTOME)
take foot go 'Goon foot.'
(Hagemeijer's field notes)
53
54
Tjerk Hagerneijer and Ota Ogie
Table 1. The prepositional function in tld6 and Santome [-N,-V] (prepositions/particles)
[+N,-V] (nominals)
~6
Santome
~d6
di'of'
aro 'in front of, 'in front of, the front, eye' the front, eye' oddro 'front, forward direction, ahead
1ifle 'in, from, ni 'in, from, at' on, at' yadn'on' an~
'until, to'
[-N, +V] (V2/d:ynamic preposition in serialising structures)
Santome
we
iyeke 'behind,
.t\d6
Santome
ne/nd 'to, for'
da 'for, from, to, on'
ghee 'towards, in the (to give, to hit) direction'
tlaxi 'behind, the back part, back'
ye!y!'on, in at'
p~ 'in'
back'
uwa 'inside'
gMntu 'inside,
yo/rrie'tci (to go)
be/ba 'to' (to go)
(to put)
the inside'
ftna 'from, since'
s~ 'without'
leu 'with, and'
kild/fild 'away, buta 'away, off'
off'
pla 'for'
iikhUnmwim 'on top. above' ilhUnmwim 'head, upside, upward, on top' odUkhunmwim 'top(side), up, skies'
liba 'on top of, upper part' (e.g., ST liba oke, ~d6
OtotlJ 'under, bottom of' otQ 'bottom of, floor, ground'
basu 'beneath,
rre 'from' (to come) bi 'from' (to come)
t'thtlnmwun ilk£ Cup-hill')
hin 'up, go up, from' subli 'up' (to go up)
under(neath), lower part'
ades~ 'centre, middle, between, core, kernel'
dm~ 'centre, middle, between'
tuore 'to hang low, descend'
d~~ 'down' (to go down)
egpe 'side, body'
bodo 'next to, side'
l~gaa
'around' (to surround, to go around) sikM 'next to, by side'
loja 'around'
lele 'along, with, after'
We 'alongside'
kt 'from, since'
fd 'from, since'
q~n
'side of, edge of'
(to encircle, to go around)
(to follow, to accompany) (to come from)
gberrad, rrd 'to pass, vala 'across' to cross, to go through'
(to pass)
de 'to fall'
kyt 'in(side), on' (to fall)
Ed6 influence on Santorne
Table 1. (continued) [-N, -V] (prepositions/par- [+N, -V] (nominals) tides) Santome
:ado
[-N, +VI (V2/d.ynamic preposition in serialising structures)
Santome
~6
Santome
kpaa 'away from'
x~ 'away from,
(to leave)
of' (to leave)
out
lad 'inside' (to enter) lentla 'inside' (to enter)
f6 'finish'
kaba 'finisH
s~~ 'than'
pasa!vala 'than'
(to surpass)
(to surpass)
mitdid 'to stop. stand'
mundja 'up(right)' (stop, stand)
d:Jd 1oin together' kild:Je 'join together'
zunta 'together,
to join'
k0k6 'gather together'
Table 2. Examples of the use of nl/vbe+N ~6
Santome
Gloss
Meaning
vbe-awu vbe-tmwdn vbe-evbd 1ifle-aro, 1ifle-odaro vbe-!yektl 1ve-obQ vbe-illdnmmwUn vbt!-QJcM:n
n-gMntu rfai rfala niwt ,Ji tlaxi nimon niliba nibodo
'inside' 'here' 'there' 'in front' 'behind'
vbe-ades~
r(iJ~
P +inside P+here P+there P+eye P + back/behind P+hand P+ above P+ side P+ centre
'from' 'on top'
'by the side of' 'in the centre'
same tests, V2 in directional constructions exhibit verbal properties, despite signs of grammaticalisation. It also follows that resultative serial constructions do not exhibit the same behaviour in Santome and Ed6: In the latter language, none of the verbs in resultative constructions can be clefted (Baker & Stewart 1999: 24) nor is possible to license an aspect marker before V2; in Santome, these restrictions do not apply.
4·
Conclusions
The linguistic impact of Ed6 (Bini) on Santome and the Gulf of Guinea creoles in general was first proposed by Ferraz (1979), especially for the lexicon, but also with respect to a few grammatical
55
56
Tjerk Hagerneijer and Ota Ogie
Table 3. Properties of verbs in verb serialisation Dynamic prepN2 V2 give-construction
~6
nd (nt)
Aspect marking
,.
diuf
Stranding
Verb cleft VI
./ ./
V2
,.
./
gbe V2locative construction V2 completive Degree
ST
da
~6
ye ()of)
ST
pe
~6
ST
fo6 kaba
~6
see
ST ST Directional
~6 ST
,.
vala
pasa y6, me, rre
Mli
./
~6
gberraa
ST
vala lee 'next to' (V2) lee 'from' (VI)
,.
./
,. ,.
./
,.
ST ~6 ST
fo
~6 ST
h!n subli
~6
tuere
ST
dese
~6
de
,.
ST
kye
./
~6
lad lentla
./
ST ~6
foa leU a
ST
buta
~6
gbd
ST
./
??!*
,.
??
./ ./ n.a. n.a. ./ ./ ./
./ ./ ./ ./ ./ ./ ./
./
./ ./ ./
,.
./
,.
./ ./
kpaa
kyi
./ ./ ./ ./ ./ ? ./ ./
./
ST
~6
Vl comitat:ive
./
./
~6
V2partide
./
ba-be, bi Iegaa loja lele
~6 ST
./
./
,.
./
,.
./
,. ,.
./
./ ./ ./ ./ ./ ./ ./
./ ./ ./
,.
kOkO kUgbe
./
./
zunta
./
./
./
,.
./
,.
./ ./ ./ ./ n.a. ./ n.a. ./ ./ ./ ./ n.a. ./ ./ ./ n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a.
Ed6 influence on Santorne
Table 3. (continued) Dynamic prepfV2 Aspect marking
Verb cleft VI
~6
VI-take
Consequential Resultative
ST Ed6 ST Ed6 ST
Stranding
V2
..
rhie ya
./
..
./
mu
./ ./ ./ ./
./ ./ ./ ./
.
./
./
./
./
toma, klaga, pega
.
..
./
n.a. n.a . n.a. n.a. ./
..
n.a. n.a .
./ = grammatical; * = ungrammatical; ? = marginal; ?? = unlikely; n.a. =not applicable.
properties. In this paper, we have shown that Santome verb serialisation (in a broad sense), the categories used for the prepositional function (Tables 1 and 2) and several other features briefly addressed in Section 1.3 underscore the typological impact of Ed6 and possibly other, generally less well described languages from the Edoid cluster. These findings are consistent with a founder effect that brought in contact Ed6 and Portuguese-speaking people in the early settlement. In fact, it was shown that pretty much the full range of types of SVCs in Ed6 can also be found in Santome. Nevertheless, the languages often differ with respect to the more fine-grained properties of SVCs, which is expected from many centuries of independent development and, foremost, due to the creolisation process itself. It can be noted that Ed6 exhibits a richer variety within several types of constructions, for instance 'take'-serials, comitatives and particle constructions. But not only does Ed6 use a greater number of verbs to the same end, it is also more prolific with respect to compound verb constructions (not studied in this paper), which have lexicalised and therefore become semantically opaque. Thus, our contribution intends to show that partial substrate transfer of, or calquing on, the substrate typology played an important role in the making of a new language.
List of abbreviations ASP
CL COMP CTP DEM DET FOC INT
NOM OBL
aspectmarker clitic complementiser clause-typing particle demonstrative determiner focus particle interrogative particle nominalizer oblique
POS PRI!P PRN PROG PST
rv SEQ
SP TMA
voc
possessive preposition pronoun progressive marker past root vowel sequential marker specific marker tense-mood-aspect vocative
S7
58
Tjerk Hagerneijer and Ota Ogie
References Agheyisi, R.N. 1986. An Edo-English dictionary. Benin City: Bthiope Publishing Corporation. Agheyisi, R.N. 1990. A grammar ofEdo. Ms. Unesco. Alexandre, N. & Hagemeij er, T. 2002 Pronomes reswnptivos e abandono de preposic;:ao nos crioulos at:IAnticos de base lexical portuguesa. In Aetas do XVII Encontro da .Associtlflio Portuguesa de Lingufstica, A. Gon<;:alves & C. Nunes Correia (eds),17-30. Lisboa: APL. Alexandre, N. & Hagerneijer, T. 2004. The nominal domain in Santome. In Los criollos de base iberica: ACBLPE 2003, M. Ferrul..ndez, M. Fernandez-Ferreiro & N. Vazquez Veiga (eds), 85-100. Frankfurt/Madrid: Vervuert/ Iberoamericana. Alexandre, N. & Hagemeijer, T. 2007. Bare nouns and the nominal domain in Santome. In Noun Phrases in Creole Languages: A Multi1aceted Approach [Creole Language Library 31], M. Baptista & J. Gueron (eds), 37-59. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Almeida Mendes, A. de. 2008a. Les reseaux de la traite iberique dans l'Atlantique nord. Aux origines de la traite atlantique ( 1440-1640 ). Les Annales. Histoire, Scimces sociales 4: 739-7 68. Almeida Mendes, A. de. 2008b. The foundations of the system: A reassessment of the slave trade to the Spanish Americas in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In Extending the Frontiers: Essays on the New Transatlantic Slave 'frade Data Base, D. Eltis & D. Richardson (eds), 63-95. New Haven CT: Yale University Press. Ameka, E 2005. Multiverb constructions in areal typological perspective. TROSS 03 Proceedings. Trondheim: NTNU. Awoyale, Y. 1988. Complex predicates and verb serialization. MIT Lexicon Project, Paper 29. Cambridge MA: MIT Center for Cognitive Science. Baker, M. & Stewart, 0. T. 1999. Verb movement, objects, and serialization. Ms, Rutgers University. Baker, M. & Stewart, 0. T. 2002 A serial verb construction without constructions. Ms, Rutgers University. Bamgbose, A. 1982. Issues in the analysis of serial verb constructions. Journal of West African Languages 12(2): 3-21. Beermann, D., Hellan, L. & Ogie, 0. 2002 Extraction in Edo. Ms, NTNU. Caldeira, A. 2006. Uma ilha quase desconhedda. Notas para a hist6ria de Ano Born. Studia Africana - Revista bJteruniversitt:iria tfEstudis Africans 17: 99-109. Coelho, A. 1880-1886. Os dialectos romA.nicos ou neo-latinos na Africa, Asia e America. In Crioulos, J. Morais Barbosa (ed.) 1967. Lisboa: Academia International de Cultura Portuguesa. Elugbe, B. 1989. Comparative Edoid: Pho,wlogy and Lexicon [Delta Series 6]. Port Harcourt: University of Port Harcourt Press. Ferraz, L I. 1975. African influences on Principense creole. Otlprint of Misceldnea luso-africana, 153-164. Ferraz, L I. 1979. The creole of Siio Tome. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press. Fontes, C. 2007. Estudo do lexico do sao-tomense com didonario. MA thesis, Universidade de Coimbra. Grimshaw, J. & Mester, A. 1988. Light verbs and ®-marking. Linguistic Inquiry 19: 205-232. Giinther, W. 1973. Das Portugiesische Kreolisch der ilha do Principe. Mar burg an der Lahn: Marburger Studien zur Afrika und Asienkunde. Hagemeijer, T. 1999. As Ilhas de Babel: a crioulizac;:ao no Golfo da Guine. Revista Cam6es 6: 74-88. Hagemeijer, T. 2000. Serial verbs in sao-tomense. MA thesis, Universidade de Lisboa. Hagemeijer, T. 2001. Semi-lexicality and underspedfication in serial verb constructions. In Semi-lexical Heads, N. Corver & H. van Riernsdijk (eds ), 415-451. New York NY: Mouton de Gruyter. Hagemeijer, T. 2003. A negac;:ao nos crioulos do Golfo da Guine: aspectos sincr6nicos e diacr6nicos. Revista Internacional de Lingiiistica Iberoamericana 2: 151-178. Hagemeijer, T. 2007. Clause Structure in Santome. PhD dissertation, Universidade de Lisboa. Ladhams, J. 2003. The Formation of the Portuguese Plantation Creoles. PhD dissertation, University of Westminster.
Sd6 influence on Santorne
Ladharns, J. Forthcoming. Article agglutination and the African contribution to the Portuguese-based Creoles. In Black through White, A. Bartens & P. Baker (eds). London: Battlebridge. Lord, C. 1993. Historical Change in Serial Verb Constructions ['I}rpologi.cal Studies in Language 26]. Amsterdam: John Be.ojamins. Lorenzino, G. 1998. The Angolar Creole Portuguese of Sao Tome: Its Grammar and Sociolinguistic History. PhD dissertation, City University of New York. Matos, R C. 1842 Corographia his~rica das ilhas deS. Thome, Principe, Anno Bom e Fernando P6. Porto: Typographia da Revista. Maurer, P. 1995. EAngolar: Un creole r.ifro-portugaise parle aSilo Tome. Hamburg: Helmut Buske. Maurer, P. 1999. El verbo locativo poner en santomense, principense y angolar. In Lmguas criollas de base lexical espatiola y portuguesa, K Zimmermann (ed.), 89-100. Frankfurt/Madrid: Vervuert/Iberoamericana. Maurer, P. 2005. La preposition for di du papiamento et le verbe f6 des creoles du Golfe de Guinee. La linguistique 41 (1): 57-66.
Maurer, P. 2008. A first step towards the analysis of tone in Santomense. In Roots of Creole Structures, S. Michaelis (ed.), 253-261. Amsterdam: John Be.ojamins. Maurer, P. 2009. Principense. Grammar, Text and Vocabulary of The Afro-Portuguese Creole of the Island ofPr£ncipe, Gulf of Guinea. London: Battle bridge. McWhorter, J. 1992. Substrata! influence in Saramaccan serial verb constrUL"ti.ons. Jourt'lal ofPidgin and Creole Languages7(1): 1-53.
Melzian, H. J. 1937. A CotiCise Dictiot'lary af the Bini Language af Southern Nigeria. London: Kegan Paul, Trench Trubner & Co. Melzian, H. J. 1942. Vergleichende Charakteristik des ~lrbums im Bini. Leipzig: Otto Harrassowitz. da Mota, A. T. 1976. Alguns aspectos da colonizafilo e do comercio mar(timo dos Portugueses na Africa Ocidental ,ws seculos XV e XVI. Lisboa: Junta de Investiga¢es Cientfficas do Ultramar. Muysken, P. & Smith, N. 1994. Reflexives. In Pidgins and Creoles: An Introduction, J. Arends, P. Muysken & N. Smith (eds), 271-288. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Negreiros, J. A. de. 1895. Historia eth,wgraphica da ilha deS. Tome. Lisbon: Antiga Casa Bertrand- Jose Bastos. Ogie, 0. 2002. NP focus and non-canonical arguments in Edo. 1n Papers in Linguistics from the University of Manchester: Proceedings of the 9th Postgraduate Conference in Linguistics, 25 March 2000, K. Hiietam & C. R Schubert (eds), 78-89. Manchester: Department of Linguistics, University of Manchester. Ogi.e, 0. 2004. About multi-verb constructions in Edo: Multi-verb construction, past tense suffixation and syntactic representation in Edo. TROSS 03 Proceedings. Trondheim: NTNU. Ogie, 0. 2008. Multi-verb constructions in Edo: A typology. In Proceedings of the Second PhD-conference in Linguistics and Philology in Bergen, M. D. Cardona et al. (eds), 359-388. Bergen: University of Bergen. Post, M. 1992. The serial verb construction in Fa d'AmblL In Aetas do Col6quio sobre Crioulos de Base Lexical Portuguesa, E. d~drade & A. Kihm (eds), 153-169. Lisboa: Colibri Rouge, J.-L. 2004. Dictionnaire etymologique des creoles portugais d:4.frique. Paris: Karthala. Ryder, A. 1977. BenbJ and the Europewu 1485-1897. London: Longman. Schaefer, R P. & Egbokhare, F. 2002 On Emai's causative motion parameter. Jourt'lal af African Languages and Linguistics 23(1): 63-76. Schang, E. 2000. Ilmergence des creoles portugais du Golfe de Guinee. PhD dissertation, Universite de Nancy 2. Schuchardt, H. 1882. Kreolische Studien I. Ober das Negerportugiesische von S. Thome ~Westafrika). In Sitzungsberichte der philosophisc.h-historisc.hen Classe der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften Wien 101: 889917. Stewart, 0. T. 1997. Object agreement and the serial verb construction: Some minimalist considerations. In Object Positions in Benue-Kwa, R-M. Dechaine & V. Manfredi (eds), 153-168. Leiden: HIL. Stewart, 0. T. 1998. The Serial Verb Constructions Parameter. PhD dissertation, McGill University. Valkhofl; M. 1966. Studies in Portuguese and Creole. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press.
59
6o
Tjerk Hagerneijer and Ota Ogie
Veenstra, T. & den Besten, H. 1994. Fronting. In Pidgins and Creoles: An Introduction [Creole Language Library 15), J. Arends, P. Muysken &N. Smith (eds), 303-315. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Watters, J. R. 2000. Syntax. In African Languages: An Introduction, B. Heine & D. Nurse (eds), 194-230. Cambridge: CUP. Wescott, R. W. 1962 A Bini Grammar. East Lansing Ml: African Language and Area Center, Michigan State University. Williamson, Kay. 1965. A Grammar of the Kolokuma Dialect of ljo. Cambridge: CUP.
A Wolof trace in the verbal system of the Portuguese Creole of Santiago Island (Cape Verde)* Ji.irgen Lang University of Erlangen-Ntirnberg
A few cases of simple relexification of elements from Wolof in Santiago Creole suggest that the Wolofs were the dominant linguistic group amongst the "creolisers" in Santiago. Two arguments taken from the history of the slave trade will be proposed to confirm this hypothesis. In a final section, we present a case of the survival, in a simplified form, of a verbal category ofWolof in Santiago Creole: The imperfective variety of the Wolof'situative' survives in a semantically simplified form in the progressive of Santiago Creole. Both categories are marked by a series of two verbal particles, the second of which is the marker of imperfectivity. However, the Santiago Creole progressive has retained only the progressive meaning of the imperfective variety of the Wolof'situative: abandoning its 'situative' meaning. Such cases suggest that, in the creolisation process, the language structures of the group dominant amongst the creolisers more often survive in a modified form (generally, simplified) than as simple calques. Arguably, these modifications/simplifications are intended to ease the joining of other groups. Keywords: Santiago Creole, Wolof, Manding, Mandinka, relexification, calque, 'situativl!, progressive, imperfectivity, simplification
By way of introduction, some background information will be given on the early history of Santiago (Section 1). It is followed by a brief survey of the literature that has focussed on the contribution of African languages to the formation of Santiago Creole (Section 2 ). A few cases of relexification ofWolof elements in Santiago Creole are mentioned here. Based on these examples, we propose the hypothesis, since confirmed (see Section 1.4 ), that the Wolofs must have constituted the dominant linguistic group amongst the slaves at the time of the creolisation of Portuguese in Santiago. In the final section ( 3), we present a case of the survival, in a simplified form, of a verbal category of Wolof (the imperfective variety of the Wolof 'situative') in a verbal category of Santiago Creole (the Santiago Creole progressive).
I would like to express my thanks to Claire Lefebvre, Lisa Lim and Alain Kihm for their valuable comments on the initial draft ofthis paper, to Sheila Regan for translating the text from French into English and to Zofia Laubltz for her final revision.
62.
Jilrgen Lang
1
Santiago in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
1.1
Overview
The Cape Verde archipelago, situated approximately 500 km to the west of Dakar, is today an independent state. Although Portuguese (Pg) remains the official language of this state, the local inhabitants - almost half a million people - all speak, as their first language, a creole based on Portuguese, which varies from island to island. Santiago, the main island in the Leeward group (Sotavento ), where both the old capital ( Cidade Velha, previously known as Ribeira Grande) and the new capital (Praia) are located, is home to half of the inhabitants, followed by Sao Vicente which, including its town of Mindelo, is the predominant population centre among the Windward islands (Barlavento ). Only half of all Cape Verdeans reside on the islands themselves. The other half live in various countries bordering on the Atlantic. Those who have emigrated do not all have a camp lete command of the creole. The history of the Cape Verdean archipelago from the time of its discovery up until today can be subdivided into four periods: (1) from the discovery until the crisis at the end of the sixteenth century; (2) a period of abandonment by the mother country (seventeenth and eighteenth centuries); (3) a period in which Portugal again strengthened its ties with the archipelago (from around 1800 until independence, which occurred in 1975); and (4) the period of Cape Verde's independence. We will limit our historical overview to the first of the four periods, which witnessed the development of Santiago Creole (SC). The Cape Verde islands were discovered purely by chance, between 1456 and 1460, during the voyages of exploration along the West African coast coordinated by the Portuguese prince, Henry the Navigator (Albuquerque 1991). The discovery of these uninhabited islands provided the Portuguese with a port of call to protect them from possible attacks launched by African rulers whilst they followed maritime routes along the African coast and, a little later, towards the East Indies and Brazil. The settlement of the islands, which was greatly desired by the crown, proved difficult due to a lack of mineral deposits or conditions favourable to agriculture. In order to attract settlers (moradores), a privilege granted in 1466 gave future Santiago colonists the right to trade under extremely favourable conditions with countries along the west coast of Africa (Albuquerque & Madeira Santos 1988: 19-22). The wealth of the colonists thus grew to such an extent that, six years later, the king imposed a very restrictive interpretation of the freedoms granted in 1466 (Albuquerque & Madeira Santos 1988:22-28), as follows: The part of the coast along which the moradores from Santiago were given the right to trade was limited to what had already been discovered in 1466. The ships belonging to the moradores were obliged to leave from Santiago and return there directly after having landed on the coast. On the coast, the moradores were only allowed to exchange goods that had been produced on the island. In spite of these restrictions, which were frequently violated, the population of Santiago and the wealth of its moradores continued to increase spectacularly, thanks to this trade.
A Wolof trace in the verbal system of the Pol1:ugllese Creole
The moradores were generally merchants, ship owners, and landowners at the same time. On the coast, they exchanged cloth and horses for a range of goods, but mostly for slaves. Only a minority of these slaves remained on the island, as the majority were resold to Portuguese, Spanish and Italian merchants who dispatched them to the European markets and, from 1507, to American markets (in Santo Domingo, Cartagena, Veracruz and Brazil). The manufacture of cloth destined for export to Africa gave a large boost to the cotton industry (Albuquerque & Madeira Santos 1991 [henceforth HGCV I]: 183-186) and, by the same token, to the settlement of Santiago and the neighbouring island of Fogo, which was particularly suited to the cultivation of this crop (HGCV I 1991: 143-146).1 The other islands remained unpopulated for a long period, except for a few shepherds to tend the herds of goats that had been brought there (HGCV I 1991: 146-148). The re-exporting of goods and slaves acquired on the coast became the main source of wealth for the moradores, and thus a situation of complementarity emerged between the commercial port towns (Ribeira Grande, Praia) and the inland areas dedicated to the raising ofhorses and the production of merchandise (cotton, cloth) destined for Africa. The increase in the population of Santiago (see Section 1.3) and in the wealth of the moradares could only last as long as the Portuguese were able to protect their monopoly along the West African coast, which the treaties of Alc~ovas (1479) and ofTordesillas (1494) had granted them. From 1565 on, they became less and less successful at this. 2 An economic crisis thus ensued which became ever more pronounced. The loss of control over the seas left Ribeira Grande at the mercy of English, French and Dutch corsairs.3 Assisted by the lan(:ados, Portuguese and Cape Verdean traders who had established themselves on the continent in defiance of the Portuguese government ban, the African rulers increasingly dealt directly with the Dutch, the English and the French, who were able to supply them with any type of European goods they desired. The Portuguese crown was finally forced to lift this ban, which led to the rapid marginalisation of Santiago in respect of commercial routes: Even the Portuguese merchants were no longer obliged to land at Santiago be.tore setting off again for Europe or crossing the Atlantic. The loss of the island's role in the Atlantic trade had serious repercussions for Santiago society. Due to a lack of financial reserves, the effects of periodic droughts could no longer be offset by importing supplies. The landowners, less and less inclined to live on the island, freed a large proportion of their slaves in order to relieve themselves of the responsibility of feeding them. Some of these emancipated slaves left tor other islands (Brava, Santo Antao, Sao Nicolau) in search of land that could support them. A system of slavery was replaced with a system of tenancy, with small tenants working the lands of absentee landowners. On the islands, the social boundaries between the freed and the enslaved and between white, mixed race and black inhabitants became blurred. Around 1507, Valentirn Fernandes wrote on the subject of Santiago island, «Ern esta ilya nat;:e muyto algodorn" [On this island much cotton is grown] and on the subject of Fogo "Nat;:e aqui muyto algodom" [Here much cotton is grown] (Ed. 1997:157, 158-159). 1.
2.
See Boulegue (1989:37,footnote 1) and HGCV I (1991: 140).
3· Between 1583 and 1598, the island sustained at least five attacks by corsairs and Ribeira Grande was twice pillaged (see Madeira Santos 1995 [henceforth HGCV 11]: 153-162).
63
64
Jilrgen Lang
Because of the isolation of the archipelago that took place at the end of this period, the ethnic composition of the population of Santiago has changed little since that time. During the second period, the number of Africans arriving and departing declined and only the number of departing Europeans rose. In the third and fourth periods, the influence of Portuguese on the creole spoken in Santiago increased considerably.
1.2
The population of Santiago
The sources available on the settlement of Santiago allow us to identify several main strands: The colonists arrived with very few servants, and those who were married, without their spouses.4 In these circumstances, close cohabitation between the white master and several people of African origin (temale partner(s) and servants of both sexes) must have been established immediately. From the second generation on, there were already more "mulattos" than whites, even amongst non-slaves, thanks to the freeing of children born of the union of a white master and an African slave. In Ribeira Grande, the population was composed of the following groups: the settlers (moradores); the Portuguese, Spanish and Italian visiting merchants and sailors (estantes) who provided the moradores with any goods they needed from Europe or America and took with them the slaves and goods that the mora.dores brought from Africa; some administrators and clerics; freed slaves; and, finally, the slaves who served their masters at home, in business, on the ships or as interpreters. In the inland areas there were some administrators of land and properties (generally, freed slaves); slaves who tended the goats, worked in the fields or wove cloth at home; one priest per parish. As regards the slave population, three groups can be identified: those who lived in close contact with their masters, those who worked inland on the island on properties lfazendas) far away from their masters and- probably living among the latter group - those who were soon to leave. Among the first group. the acquisition of Pg would have begun immediately, leading to an acrolectal creole and possibly resulting, in some cases, in perfect mastery of the language used by the masters.5 In the second group, the African languages would have been maintained for longer and the crystallisation of a new language would have taken more time. The result would have 4· According to the corregedor P~ro de Guimaraes, in 1513, there were four households (vizinhos) with white, unmarried women (mulheres branquas solteiras) in Ribeira Grande and 10 with black women (negras). Ant6nio Correia e Silva assumes that these were prostitutes (HGCV 11991:235). In 1588, Philip II called home the men of Santiago who had left their wives in Portugal- without the least success (HGCV11991:235). In 1620, the king ordered that exiled women be sent to Santiago to eradicate as far as possible the persons of mixed -race ("... a fun que se extinga, quanto possivel, a ra~ de mulatos·; HGCV 111995: 255-256). 5· Dulce Pereira (2006: 169) doubts whether at all creolisation of Portuguese took place in Ribeira Grande. We should notforget, however, that Portuguese creoles even developed in the Portuguese factories on the Indian coast. We will see a little later that the Africans soon formed the majority in Ribeira Grande: The colonists there did not prepare their meals themselves; did not plant or harvest their vegetables themselves; did not fetch water from the
A Wolof trace in the verbal system of the Pol1:ugllese Creole
been a more basilectal creole, an approximation of the language of the overseers, which, in turn, was an approximation of the language of the masters. Pereira (2006: 174-175) is undoubtedly correct in her assumption that the relative levelling of the differences between masters and slaves, and town and country, at the time of the crisis at the end of the sixteenth century must also have involved a similar levelling in linguistic terms. This levelling most likely favoured rural, basilectal varieties of the creole at the expense of urban, acrolectal varieties. The slaves who were en route would only have been able to acquire a more or less elaborated variety of pidgin Portuguese if their stay with the lanfados on the coast or on the fazendas in Santiago or Fogo was extended. These pidginised varieties of Portuguese may have left traces in Caribbean creoles.
1.3
Some statistics
The documents available do not allow us to follow in detail the growth in the population of Santiago during the first period. However, we are able to present some useful information. In 1513, the corregedor Pero de Guimaraes provided the king with some figures concerning Ribeira Grande. According to his account, Ribeira Grande possessed 58 "vizinhos homens honrados brancos" [honourable white neighbours], 16 "vizinhos negros" [black neighbours], 56 "estantes estrangeiros, naturais dos vossos Reinos" [overseas visitors, originating from your kingdoms] (these were legally not real vizinhos as they had no permanent residence), 4 "mulheres brancas solteiras" [white unmarried women], around 10 "negras" [black women], 12 "clerigos" [clerics] (including the priest) and 3 "moines" [monks] (HGCV I 1991: 137). The term vizinho [neighbour] denotes a 'free person, head of a household'. Together with other overseas visitors mentioned in the text, the heads of households could thus have numbered around 170 in 1513, according to the Cape Verdean historian Ant6nio Carreia e Silva (HGCV I 1991:233). As can be seen, there were already a considerable number of emancipated Africans. The total number of inhabitants of Ribeira Grande could then have been close to 500, if we estimate that there was an average of five slaves in the households of those colonists with a permanent residence (home1ts honrados brancos) but far fewer in the other households. Towards the middle of the sixteenth century an anonymous piloto estimated that there were "mais de quinhentos fogos" [more than 500 fires] at Ribeira Grande (HGCV I 1991:147, 233). If we assume that one fire represented one household, then the population must have increased almost five-fold in the space of under 40 years. In 1582, the report by sargento-mor Francisco de Andrade to the king provides, for the first time, a reliable estimate of the population of the whole of Santiago Island and the neighbouring island of Fogo. According to this remarkable piece of evidence, approximately 13,400 people were then living in Santiago and 2,300 on the neighbouring island, not including children, fugitive slaves or other marginalised persons. There were 508 vizinhos residing in Ribeira Grande, who had around 5,700 slaves working for them in their households and in the fields on the outskirts well themselves, etc. And there must necessarily have been many people who carne and went between the town and the inland area of the island.
65
66
Jilrgen Lang
of the town. In Praia, there were approximately 200 vizinhos, with some 1,000 slaves. Taken as a whole, these two urban centres, therefore, accommodated more than half the entire population of the island (HGCV I 1991:230-236). As regards the inland areas of the island, Andrade documents circa "600 home[n]s branq[u]os e pardos [600 whites and free mulattos] e 400 pretos forros casados [400 emancipated Africans], os quaes terao em suas fazendas de serui<;:o de suas casas 5v [5,000) escravos, ..."[who may employ in their properties and houses some 5,000 slaves]. This scattered population of6,000 was distributed across eight parishes. Inland and in Praia, there were therefore around five slaves for every one free person; in Ribeira Grande, around ten. The fact that, again according to Andrade, in the capital all the slaves had been baptised, whereas in Praia one in five, and inland even two out of five were prepared for baptism, seems to confirm that the socialisation of the slaves who had recently arrived from the continent took place in the inland areas of Santiago and in Fogo. The estimates made by Francisco de Andrade provide us with an overall figure and most likely a true picture of the social composition of the population of Santiago at the beginning of the major crisis. Yet they tell us nothing about the ethnic composition of its African element 1.4
The role of the Wolofs in the populating of Santiago
The silence of Francisco de Andrade on the subject of the ethnic origin of the slaves is not exceptional. There are no documents that provide direct information on the origin of the slaves who were deported to Santiago during the first hundred years of its history.6 We believe, however, that we have demonstrated elsewhere, albeit indirectly, that speakers of Wolof formed the majority amongst the first groups of slaves who disembarked at Santiago (Lang 2006). Two arguments will be given to support this idea. 1.4.1
The Wolofo and the slave market at Valencia
The city of Valencia in Spain preserves all the documentation concerning the local market of slaves under the reign of the Catholic Kings (1479-1516). According to Vicenta Cortes Alonso (1964), who studied these documents in detail, 2,452 of the approximately 4,275 slaves who were sold there in the period in question declared themselves to be Jalofos (this is the name under which the Wolofs appear in writings from this period). Of these Wolofs, 2,258, that is 92%, arrived before 1500.1he ethnonyms Mandiga, Mantinga, Ma.ndenga and Mantenga. appear in only 43 of these documents. And among the slaves sold before the year 1500, only three used one of these terms to indicate their origin. The ethnonyms Beni, Benne and Bennich appear in 45 documents, all of these later than 1500. Unfortunately, similar documents are not available for the slave markets at Seville and Lisbon, which were larger than the Valencia market Alfonso Franco Silva nevertheless maintains in his work, La escla.vitud en Sevilla y su tierra. a finales de la. Edad Media. (1979), that there were
6. "... , praticamente nao h3. referancias sobre a identidade etnica da massa escrava entrada nas ilhas [caboverdianas] ate meados de Quinhentos" [There is hardly any information concerning the ethnic identity of the masses of slaves who entered the [Cape Verdean] islands before 1550] (Didio Cabral Baleno in HGCYI1991: 155).
A Wolof trace in the verbal system of the Pol1:ugllese Creole
many more Wolofs amongst the African slaves (los guineanos) than there were speakers of Manding languages (Franco Silva 1979: 69).
The evidence of descriptions of the African coast All Cape Verdean authors writing at around 1600- Francisco de Andrade (1582), Andre Alvares d'Almada (1594) and Andre Donelha (1625) -lamented the passing of the times when the Dutch, French and English had not yet replaced them as the privileged commercial partners of the Wolof kings (see quotations in Lang 2006: 56-58). Jean Boulegue describes more precisely the time of the loss of the Portuguese quasi-monopoly over this trade: "Portugal suffered a decisive fall in influence on the "Petite C6te" [the Wolof coast south of Cape Verde, J. L.] around the time 15651570, as Francisco de Andrade, a well-placed witness, wrote to the king in 1582~ 7 So, against their will the Cape Verdean merchants had relocated the centre of their activities to the south. For Valentim Fernandes (before 1507) and Pacheco Pereira (between 1505 and 1508) who, although not from Cape Verde, nonetheless had access to excellent information, the past that Andrade, d'Almada and Donelha yearned for was still present They only regretted that in the Wolof lands they no longer received 15 or 14 slaves for a horse, as had been usual at the beginning of the trading times, but at most six (cf. quotations in Lang 2006: 58-59). 1.4.2
Conclusions To conclude, we can state two irrefutable facts:
1.4.3
Among the slaves sold at the market at Valencia in the final two decades of the fifteenth century, those who declared themselves to be "Jalofos" were greatly in the majority. 2. In the same period, Portuguese and Cape Verdean merchants continued to maintain close commercial ties with the Wolof kings. According to sources, the whites mostly provided horses in exchange for slaves. 1.
Considering the privileged position for trade along the African coast which Santiago enjoyed at this time, it would appear highly probable that the majority of black slaves at the Valencia market would have passed through Santiago. This leads us to believe that most of the slaves who were kept in Santiago in the fifteenth century were also Wolof, as it is difficult to believe that the Cape Verdean merchants would have systematically re-exported Wolofs so as only to keep slaves of other ethnic groups on the island. Indeed, nothing would be more natural than for the momdores of Santiago to favour trade with the Wolofs for as long as was possible. The Royal Charter of 1466 granted them important privileges for trade between the Senegal River and Sierra Leone. And it was in tact the Wolofs who inhabited the section of this part of the coast that lay directly opposite the archipelago. Let us examine some possible objections to these conclusions.
7. J. L?s translation. In a footnote, Boulegue translates a passage from Francisco de Andrade into French: "Maintenant, depuis quinze ans [Le. since 1567], cette traite ne peut plus se faire dans cette region [on the Petite COte] acause des nombreux navires fran¢s qui se trouvent toute fanmle sur 1a cOte de ces quatre lieux de traite" [For fifteen years, this trade has been impossible in this region because of the many French ships that are found on the coast of these four trading areas all year long] (Boulegue 1989:37, footnote 1).
67
68
Jilrgen Lang
First of all, rather than really declaring themselves "Jalofos': the slaves at Valencia could have been labelled "Jalofos" by the merchants involved. The label "Jalofo" could, therefore, have signified "bought and boarded in Wolof territory': without implying that the slave in question was a member of the Wolof linguistic community. Would it not be surprising if the Wolof kings had sold their own people? This is a valid argument The Wolof were able to sell to the Portuguese and Cape Verdeans numerous slaves who spoke Ndut, Noon, Saafen, Serer and Manding languages, slaves who had been taken prisoner during their last conquests.8 However, their contact with the Portuguese and the economic interest that these contacts brought to the coast immediately prompted the disintegration of the Grand Jolof. The slaves sold by the kings could, therefore, very soon be provided from the internal conflicts that accompanied this disintegration of the empire. Moreover, the inordinate thirst for goods offered by the Europeans soon encouraged the Wolof kings to find the pretexts necessary to condemn certain of their subjects to slavery and to declare war on their nearest Wolof neighbours. If we accept the account ofValentim Fernandes, often a pretext was not even sought: "Quando quer que as carauellas dos christaos vern e algliu senhor [gyloffo] quer cauallos comprar logo ho dito senhor salta em a primeyra aldea que acha tanto manta de amjgos como de emmjgos E apanha homens e molheres quanta lhe abasta pera aquella vez e quanta pode escapar" [When the caravels of the Christians arrive and some [Wolof] gentleman wants to buy horses, this gentleman heads for the first village he finds, regardless of whether it is friendly or hostile, and seizes the number of men and women sufficient to his needs at that time and as many as he is able to take] (Valentim Fernandes, ed. 1997: 66). Even if certain kings were more scrupulous with regard to their own subjects, the idea that ethnic solidarity would have prevented a Wolof king from selling another's subjects, who were also Wolot~ certainly does not correspond to the attitudes common at that time. This does not mean, however, that on interro galion at Valencia, there might not actually have been speakers of Serer, Ndut, Noon, Saafen or Mandinka (a Manding dialect) who were declared Wolof simply because they came from a region that was part of the "Grand Jolof". This is true. Yet one might suppose that belonging to the Grand ]olaf would necessarily imply some minimal knowledge ofWolot~ Alone or along with other languages, Wolofis thought to have functioned as a lingua franca across the lands dominated by the Wolof for a period (Boulegue 1989: 22). It even seems reasonable to assume that it was precisely the creation of the Grand Jolof that produced a certain linguistic levelling among speakers of different West Atlantic dialects, under the leadership of the Djolof proper. The limited knowledge ofWolof that speakers of Serer or of Ndut had would have been more useful for them than knowledge of their mother tongue, once they were transported to Santiago or to Valencia.
8. "Enclavees panni les Wolof ou sur les franges meridionales de leur domaine, il faut signaler de petites ethnies, les Ndut, les Noon and les Safen, qui ont ete probablement partiellement refoulees ou assimilees par leurs voisins et, al'epoque dont nous traitons, ont plus que les autres souffert de la traite esclava.giste" [In enclaves among the Wolof or on the southern fringes of their territory, we should note some small ethnic groups, the Ndut, Noon and Safen, who were probably partially suppressed or assimilated by their neighbours and who, at the time we are speaking of, suffered more than other peoples from the slave trade] (Boulegue 1989: 22).
A Wolof trace in the verbal system of the Pol1:ugllese Creole
Thus, history does not appear to refute the idea that there was an initial preponderance of Wolof speak.ers,9 as is suggested in the grammar ofSC (see below). This idea is also not refuted by the fact that the lexemes of Manding origin seem to be more numerous in SC than those ofWolof origin (see below): the Wolof slaves laid the structural foundations of SC to which those who arrived later had to conform, 10 but the merchants and the slaves who came from more southerly regions were able to continue to introduce African vocabulary following the end of the period of trade with the Wolofs.
2.
Research on the contribution of Mrican languages to the development of Santiago Creole
Research on traces of African languages in Portuguese creoles was undertaken earlier for the creole varieties of the West African coast (Guinea-Bissau and Casamance) than for the varieties of the Cape Verde islands. For research on the former, we refer the reader to the work of Kihm (1980, 1988, 1994) and Rouge (1985, 1988), which centers on the discovery of cases of conjlation (or of convergence, to use the term from Baptista 2006) of Portuguese and '~ican" lexemes and the identification of creole lexemes of African origin. The affinity between creole varieties on the continent and those found on the archipelago, particularly those of Santiago and Fogo, is undeniable. When studies on the traces of African languages were extended to SC (Baptista 2006; Bartens 2006; Couto & Souza 2006; Lang 2004, 2005; Quint 2000, 2006; Rouge 1994, 1999, 2006), it was naturally thought that the African languages involved in the development of this creole must have been the same as those involved in the development of the continental creoles, namely Mandinka, a Mande language spoken in Gambia, and, to a lesser extent, Wolof, a West Atlantic language spoken to the north of the Gambia River, and several other West Atlantic languages spoken to the south of the Gambia, including Temne, native to Sierra Leone but used in a wider area due to its historical role as a lingua franca (see Rouge 1994: 142, 145; claims that are repeated in Quint 2000: 25, 32 ). The results of research concerning the provenance of lexemes of "African" origin in SC, moreover, seemed to confirm the preponderance ofMandinka (see Rouge 1999, 2004; also Quint 2000). Given that the impact ofWolof (W) on the creole of Casamance was slight and its impact on tlle creole of Guinea- Bissau almost nonexistent, this interpretation has long led to an underestimation of the role of this language in the development of SC. As early as 2000, Nicolas Quint nevertheless drew attention to the parallels between tlle verbal pair ten - tene 'to have' of SC and theW pair am - ame, respectively used for essential possession and temporary possession (Quint 2000: 55). We have shown elsewhere that the SC pair mimics (semantically as well as morphologically) that in W to such an extent tllat an acknowledgement of a direct role ofW in the creolisation of Portuguese in Santiago becomes unavoidable (Lang
9· For more details, see Lang (2006).
We have just formulated a new "founder principle~ The founders that are envisaged here are not the founders of the colony, as in Mufwene (1996), but rather the founders of the creole.
10.
69
70
Jilrgen Lang
2005). The same can be seen in the case of the oppositions [±imperfective] and [±anterior] in the two languages: The SC marker of imperfectivity t(a) corresponds to theW di (variants d-and-y); the SC marker of anteriority -ba corresponds to theW -(w)oon (Lang 2004). 11 And it would be difficult to explain the reinterpretation of the Pg deictic adverbs ali [-e'li], la ['la] (both indicating distance) in the SC forms of li ['li] (proximity) and la ['11il] (distance), without taking into account the deictic value of the Wvowels [i], for proximity, and [-e), for distance (Lang 2005).IZ Furthermore, a comparison of the grammatical structures of our creoles with those of Mandinka led Jean-Louis Rouge to the conclusion that there was evidence at this level of some influence from Mandinka on the creoles of the coast, but that Mandinka influence was "quasi inexistante au Cap-Vert" [all but nonexistent in Cape Verde] (Rouge 2006: 73). The leading language amongst the ancestral languages of the creolisers in Santiago must, therefore, have been a Wolof dialect of that time or at the very least a West Atlantic language closely related to Wolof. This realisation prompted us to revisit the question of the settlement of the island - the results of which can be seen in 1.4. These results encourage us now to take a further step. The reader will recall that two central categories of the verbal system of SC bear a striking resemblance to those ofW; what about the third central verbal category of SC?
3·
The trace of the Wolof 'situative' in the progressive of the Santiago Creole
The African, West Atlantic and, most likely, Wolof character of the two central categories of the verbal system of SC would appear, therefore, to have been proven. In our opinion, it is possible to speak of a relexification of the W markers di (variations: d-, -y), for the imperfective, and -(w)oon, for the anterior, by t(a) and -ba, respectively in SC, in the sense given to this term by Claire Letebvre (1998, 2001) and John Lumsden (1999). However, the strict parallels between the two verbal systems end there. Many verbal categories in modern W do not exist in SC, while some categories that can be found in both languages are similar in certain respects but different in others. A less rigorous observer might claim that the similarities are simply those that one always finds when comparing two languages. And yet, is it really conceivable that the Wolof imprint, which is so evident in particular parts of SC grammar, could be completely absent from other parts? A careful comparison of the Wolof'situative' with the progressive in SC allows us to answer this very question. 3.1
Wolof
We will first reproduce a table diagramming the verbal system ofW (see Table 1), taken from the Dictionnaire Woloffran~is by Fal et al. (1990:25) and slightly modified in accordance with
11.
For the Wolof markers, we refer the reader to the table in Section 3.1.
12. See also the SC so 'only, alone~ of which certain very common uses correspond to theW rekk 'onlY, but not to the Pg so 'only, alone' (Lang 2008).
Table 1. The verbal system of modern Wolof according to Pal et a1. (1990: 25) ASSERTIF
Dependant
"t::
~
q
::a
terminatif
subjectif
objectif
processif
situatif
desider.
rna bey (dugub) nga bey mubey nubey ngeen bey iiu bey
beynaa beynga beyna beynanu beyngeen bey na.iiu
maabey yaa bey moo bey noo bey yeena bey iioo bey
dugub laa bey ... nga bey ... la bey lanubey ... ngeen bey ... laiiu bey
damabey danga bey dafa bey danubey dangeen bey daiiubey
maangi bey yaangi bey mungibey nungi bey yeena ngi bey iiungi bey
naa bey nanga bey na bey nanubey nangeen naiiu
beyoonnaa
maabeyoon
... laa beyoon
damabeyoon
maa ngi beyoon
may bey ngaybey muybey nuybey ngeen bey fiuybey
dinaa bey dinga bey dina bey dinanubey dingeen bey dinafiu bey
maaybey yaaybey mooybey nooybey yeenaybey flooy bey
... laaybey ... ngaybey lay bey ... lanuybey ... ngeen di bey ... laiiuybey
damaybey dangaybey dafaybey danuy bey dangeen di bey daiiuybey
maangiybey yangiybey mungiybey nungiybey yeena ngiy bey flungiy bey
doonnaa bey
maadoon bey
... laa do on bey
dam a doon bey maa ngiy doon bey
beyuma
maa beyul
... laa beyul
damabeyul
mabeyul
beyuma
maa beyul
damabeyul
WOOD
WOOD
WOOD
... laa beyul woon
duma bey
maadul bey
dumawoon bey
maadul woonbey
~ :!l Passe rna beyoon
~ ~
'Tj
~ "t::
~
q
' Tj
Passe rna doon bey
"t::
~
z
~ ~
'Tj
rna beyul
madul bey
~
"t::
~
Injonctif
madul woon bey
rna ban bey
madiban bey
laa dul bey laa dulwoon bey
WOOD
damadul bey dam a dul woon bey
imper. beyal
beyleen
naaybey nangaybey dilbey nay bey nanuybey nangeen di bey dileen nafiuy bey bey
> ~
a:
s!;: 5'
burna bey, buL .. , bwnu... , bumu. .. , buleen ... , bunu ... Perfectif: action envisagee dans sa globalite: je1al garab gii « Prends ce medicament ! • Imperfect.if. action envisagee dans son deroulement: dil je1 garab gii « Prends ce medicament (regulierement) ! »
..S" ~
0"
~
1 g,
g.
I "'"'
Q
"'~ ..... ...
72
Jilrgen Lang
other published works. The table shows the conjugation of the W bey (dugub ), in English, 'to grow (millet): accompanied byW subject pronouns. As there are no forms corresponding to the forms of theW 'situative' in English, French approximations are used in the translation ofW examples below. 3.1.1
The 'situative' in Wolof
Table 1 shows that the marker indicating the 'situative'- Sauvageot (1965), Robert (1991) and Diouf (2001) use the term 'presentative'- in W is formed by using a "presenter" ng-, followed by a variable deictic element. The deictic element shown in the table is the vowel [i], which indicates proximity. An alternative to this vowel would be the vowel [-e] to indicate distance; other deictic elements, such as -ii and -oogo, can also appear in this position. We therefore have, for the thirdperson singular of bey (dugu.b) (French: 'cultiver du mif): (1)
.Mu ngi bey dugub. 3sG presenter-near grow millet 'Voici qu'il cultive du mil.' Mu nga bey dugub. 3sG presenter-far grow millet 'Voila qu'il cultive du mil.'
WoLOF
(Fal et aL 1990: 25) WOLOF
In the first- and second-person singular, as well as in the second-person plural, we find the morpheme -a combined with the personal pronoun. In the Kajoor region, we also find the same phenomenon in the first- and third-person plural (Robert 1991: 168). In Dakar, however, we find: sa 1. Maa ngi ... , 2. Yaa ngi... , 3. Mu ngi... , PL 1. Nu ngi ... , 2. Yeena ttgi ... , 3. Nu ngi .... This -a resembles that which is found in the subjective for all persons (see Table 1; -u+a regularly appears as -oo in Wolof). It can also be found in the third person of the 'situative' following a lexical subject, where the personal pronoun mu may be used as an alternative. We, therefore, have either lexical subject+ mu + ngi ... , orlexical subject+ a+ ngi ... (Robert 1991:166, 168): (2)
(3)
Xaj bi mu ngi lekk yapp. dog CLF-near 3PS presenter-near eat meat 'Void que le chien mange de 1a viande: Pierre a 11gi ak Omar. Jar Peter a presenter-near take-sides with Omar 'Voici que Pierre prend parti pour 0 mar.'
WOLOF
(Robert 1991: 166) WoLOF
(Diouf & Yaguello 1991: 87)
It is not easy to formulate the rules that determine the choice between ngi and nga. It would appear that speakers should choose nga (which is in fact much less frequent than ngi), if they wished to indicate that the action is outside of the immediate or current field of vision of their interlocutor, that is to say, located firr away or in the recent past For more on this subject, see Robert (1991: 195-197) and the following example taken from Diouf & Yaguello (1991:63), where the 'far' meaning of ca and wale echoes that of nga:
A Wolof trace in the verbal system of the Pol1:ugllese Creole
(4)
Mu ngay
dem ca
wall wale.
WoLOF
3sG presenter-far-IPFV go at-far side DEM-far ·n vade l'autre c6te l.A-bas: (Literally: 'Voila qu'll vade l'autre cru:e la-bas.')
In stories, ngi seems to bring us spatially nearer to the action, in a manner similar to the effect, in temporal terms, of the historical present in English. 3.1.2
Use of the imperfective marker in the Wolof'situative'
Theoretically, it is only possible to point to something that is still there. Semantically, the 'situative' is therefore intrinsically imperfective. 13 As can be seen from the examples (1 )-(3) above, this intrinsic imperfectivity of the spatial deixis does not need to be marked explicitly in W by the imperfective marker di. This does not, however, prevent us from finding frequent examples in which the imperfective marker, in the form of -y, combines with the element ngi or nga indicating the 'situative~ The resultant forms are ngiy, which occurs frequently (this form appears in Table 1), and ngay, which is more rarely seen (see (4)). In this particular context, the marker allows the expression of a sub-type of the imperfective. Ngom (2003:76) explains: "When the NGI form is in the perfective aspect, the sentence is interpreted as present tense in English. When it is used in the imperfective aspect, the sentence is interpreted as present progressive:' Stephane Robert made the same assertion as early as 1991, without using a comparison with English. According to Robert, the forms of the 'situative' with the imperfective marker indicate that "at the moment of speaking TO' the process has begun, is continuing and is not yet completed" (Robert1991: 190; J. L:s translation). It therefore follows, among other things, that, "... whenever the verb takes a plural object which implies both duration and progression, the tendency is towards the use of the imperfective marker" (Robert 1991: 190). This phenomenon is confirmed by examples found in dictionaries and texts: (5)
Mu ngiy
bey
dugub.
3sG presentative-near-IFFY grow millet 'Le voici en train de cultiver du mil'
WoLOF
(Fal et al. 1990: 25)
Robert further explains that the form without the imperfective marker and with a present meaning, "is by no means incompatible with processes which suppose a certain duration" (Robert 1991: 190). None of this is surprising. It must be remembered that forms that are not marked morphologically are almost always also not marked semantically. That is to say, rather than indicating the opposite of the marked forms, they remain in principle indefinite (or semantically neutral) compared with the predse meaning the marker would give (Robert 1991: 191: "In sum, the simple form of the presentative would not seem to be really completed or incomplete:';]. L:s translation). If there is no reason to emphasise the progressive aspect or if it is clearly evident from the context, it is not necessary to use a specific marker.
13. Only in exceptional circumstances could a 'situative' produce a past tense meaning. The examples given in Robert (1991: 187-189)involve resultative verbs and indicate the results in question.
73
74
Jilrgen Lang
3.2
Santiago Creole
3.2.1
Ihe presentative construction in SC
Let us now turn our focus to SC, which has a clear presentative construction: (6)
Ale
-l
ADV-near
3PS
[-e'lel] ta IPFV
pi/a
midju.
pound
COrn
SANTIAGO CREOLE
'Le voici qui pile du ma:is.'
Ala
-l [-e'l-el] ta
ADV-far 3PS
IPFV
pila
midju.
pound
corn
SANTIAGO CREOLE
'Le voila qui pile du m.als? One would expect to findAli-1 ta ... ,in place of Aie-l ta ... , given that the two deictic adverbs in SC are (a)li [(-e)'li] 'here' and (a)la [(-e)'l-e] 'there~ Nicolas Quint may well be correct in his interpretation of this construction as containing verbal uses of ali and ala (pc). Essentially, the unstressed [-i] of SC verbs is changed to a stressed [e] in front of verb endings and enclitic pronouns. The opposition of'near' and 'far' in the presentative construction in SC does indeed call to mind the W 'situative: but the characteristics that make the SC construction similar to the presentative construction of Pg Ei-lo a pilar milho 'Le voici qui pile du m.a'is' are much more numerous: The order and the function of the elements (firstly a presenter, then a clitidsed object pronoun) are the same as in Pg; In both the SC and the Portuguese constructions, there is a localisation of the subject of the action and not a localisation of the process; Contrary to the case ofWolof, in the SC construction, the verb is automatically introduced by the imperfective marker ta, which corresponds to the preposition a in the Portuguese construction (see once again, Pg Ei-lo a pilar milho ); The 'situative' is found much more frequently in Wolof texts than SC and Portuguese presentative constructions in SC and Portuguese texts. All of these factors lead us to believe that the presentative construction in SC does not stem from the process of creolisation. Instead, it would seem to have developed later according to the Portuguese model and using available creole elements. On this occasion. the speakers would have substituted for the Pg ei, the creole forms ali!ala and - as in a number of verbal periphrases that SC has borrowed from Pg (Lang 2000: 470)- the creole ta for the Portuguese preposition a. Thus, the W 'situative' has not survived in SC in a relexified form. We hope, however, to demonstrate that it has nonetheless profoundly influenced the verbal system ofSC. 3.2.2
Ihe progressive aspect in Santiago Creole
Strangely, the aspectual system of SC is richer than that ofW: Only SC has a progressive aspect within the impertective aspect The aspectual system of SC thus has the forms as shown in Table 2. As can be seen, the marker of the progressive in SC is sa (variation: s'), invariably followed by the marker of the imperfective, ta. This is because the progressive presupposes imperfectivity.
A Wolof trace in the verbal system of the Pol1:ugllese Creole
Table 2. SC pila midju 'to pound corn' N
bu e nu nhos es Imperfective
Progressive
Imperfective
N
ta
bu e nu nhos es
ta ta ta
N
bu e nu nhos es
3·3
ta ta
sa sa sa sa sa sa
ta ta ta ta ta ta
pila rnidju pila rnidju pila rnidju pila rnidju pila rnidju pila rnidju pila rnidju pila rnidju pila rnidju pila rnidju pila rnidju pila rnidju pila rnidju pila rnidju pila rnidju pila rnidju pila rnidju pila rnidju
Birth of the progressive in Santiago Creole under the influence of Wolof
SC forms beginning with sa ta or s'ta therefore have the same meaning as 'situative' forms in W in cases where they are accompanied by the marker of the imperfective - apart from the situative or presentative effect itself. It is as if, in functional terms, the speakers ofW had, in the process of creolising Pg in Santiago, abandoned their 'situative. but not relinquished the possibility that this forms provided to express the progressive aspect. This supposition would remain purely hypothetical if certain material clues were not available to support it. In the Portuguese progressive periphrasis, est a fazer 'he is (in the process of) doing: it is esta a that provides the expression of the progressive aspect Two ways of pronouncing esta a would have already been in competition at the time of creolisation: (Ele) esta a [s'ta-e] (comer) 'He is (in the process of) eating' 14 and (Ele) ta a ['ta-e] (comer). Nowadays, the variant with the elided [s] is very common in informal language. In search of a phonic sequence in the Portuguese utterances that they heard, which was likely to be the equivalent of their imperfective marker di (modern variants d-, -y, although these may not yet have existed at this time), they came across the popular and very common ['ta-e] in the progressive periphrasis in Pg. The reinterpretation of this Pg string as a verbal particle in SC brought with it the loss of its stressed character and the transformation of its open [a] into a closed [-e]. SC does not, in fact, have any open vowels [s], [a], [:JI in unstressed syllables. The resulting [-eI merged with the second [-e]. In this way, the marker of the imperfective aspect in SC was born:
a
14. The pronunciation [' fta-e] did not yet exist at that time. By contrast, the variant with the elided e- already appears after a vowel twice in a Portuguese document dating back to 1280 and reproduced in Maia (1986: 186-187, no. 97).
75
76
JilrgenLang
OldPg
*(Ele)
taa ['tall]
(comer.)
sc
(El)
ta [t"e]
(kume.)
OldW.
*(Mu)
di
(lekk.)
•
~
ModernW.
+
/
(lekk.)
Muly
Figure 1. Development of the imperfective marker in SC
(Cf. modern W Muy bey (dugub) in the third person of the imperfective of the 'dependant' in Table 1.) In this account, the phonic substance of the marker of the imperfective in SC originated from 'above' (from Pg), and its phonic form (a monosyllabic unstressed particle) came from 'below' (fromW). Searching for a phonic sequence in the Portuguese utterances that they heard that could be the equivalent of their complex marker *ngi di (nowadays, ngiy), the speakers ofW must ahnost inevitably have come across the same periphrasis. Yet this time they had good reason to favour the longer variant [stag]. In effect, this choice of the longer variant, subjected to the same phonic analysis as the one reconstructed for the transformation ['tag] > [tl:'!], and thus ['stag] > [stl:'!], allowed them to identify two parts: The first, [s), was not required to be the marker of the 'situative: but the distinctive sign of the progressive and the second, [tl:'!], was identified as the marker of the imperfective. Thus, the complex marker of the progressive aspect in SC was born: staa ['stall]
(comer.)
sl ta [ste]
(kume.)
OldPg
*(Ele)
sc
(El)
OldW.
*(Mu)
ngi I di
(lekk.)
ModernW.
Mu
ngil y
(lekk.)
• •• tt
Figure 2. Development of the progressive marker in SC
From s'ta [s I t1:'!], we would arrive at sa ta [81:'! I t1:'! ], which is closer to the canonical syllable structure ofSC (cf. Pg escuro [(e)s'kuru] 'dark'> SC sukuru [su'kuru]). Once again, the phonic substance of the markers of the progressive in SC originated from 'above' (from Pg), and their phonic form (a succession of two particles, s'ta transforming into sa ta) came from 'below' (from W). However, here we are no longer dealing with a simple case of relexi:fication: The signijie of ngiy (or *ngi di), that is to say, its semantic "form~ situative + imperfective, has not remained intact. It has been simplified into progressive(+ imperfective). Let us stress at this point that, provided that this analysis is correct, in this interpretation of the Portuguese phonic chain modelled on W *ngi di or ngiy we are dealing with a false
A Wolof trace in the verbal system of the Pol1:ugllese Creole
segmentation. As we know, such segmentation errors are often produced at the beginning of the unassisted acquisition of a second language. A creole generally retains a fairly large number of such errors. However, these segmentation errors are rarely completely arbitrary. In the present case, the make-up ofW *ngi di, ngiy suggested a segmentation of [srn], while the competition within Portuguese between the variants ['sta] and ['ta] suggested a break of the [sIte] type, rather than of the [st 1-e] type. After sa. tawas promoted to the rank of complex marker of the progressive, its use was extended to the optative in order to create optative forms with a progressive meaning. The modal content of an optative naturally implies imperfectivity. This inherent imperfectivity does not, therefore, require a specific marker. It is only when there is a need for a progressive meaning that the marker sa ta is added to the optative. One final observation seems to confirm the validity of our conclusions: If the progressive implies imperfectivity, why is it not ever possible, in accordance with the theory just expounded, to dispense with the marker ta after the progressive marker sa? Most likely because, in the relevant contexts of their masters' utterances, the slaves sometimes heard [sta] and sometimes [ta], but never [s] without [ta). Finally we arrive at the following verbal system (see Table 3). Table 3. SC pila 'to pound' Indicative
Optative
N bu e nu nhos es Ant
Imperfective
Ant
Progressive
Imperfective
Ant
pila
N
aJ.
pila pila pila pila
bu e nos nhos es
al al al al al
pila pila pila pila pila pila
pilaba
N
al
piJ.aba
pila
N N bu e nu nhos es
ta ta ta ta ta ta
pila
N
ta
pilaba
pila pila pila pila
pila
N bu e nu nhos es
sa sa sa sa sa sa
ta ta ta ta ta ta
pila
N
pila pila pila pila pila
bu e nos nhos es
al al al al al al
sata sata sata sata sata sata
pila pila pila pila pila pila
N
sa
ta
pilaba
N
al
sata
piJ.aba
77
78
Jilrgen Lang
In order to gain an idea of the full extent of verbal forms that SC speakers have at their disposal, we need only add to all of these forms the corresponding passive forms. As can be seen, the SC system is much simpler than that of modem-day W, but at the same time much closer to it than to the Pg verbal system of any era.
Conclusions At the point of embarking on this research, the extensive presence ofWolof speakers in Santiago at the time of the birth of its creole and the existence of certain calques from Wolof in SC (evident from surviving forms in modem Wolof) was no longer in doubt. The question that remained to be addressed was whether it was possible, considering these circumstances, that we might find less visible traces of ancient Wolof in SC, in other domains. Given that these varieties had no written form, we had to base our comparisons on modem Wolof. We believe that we have shown that the SC progressive can be explained as resulting from a simplification of the imperfective version of the Wolof 'si tuative'. In semantic terms, the progressive meaning of these Wolof forms was preserved, yet their strictly situative meaning was lost. Morphologically, there would have been the usual replacement of Wolof material with Portuguese material, along with the retention of the Wolof morphological structure (in this case: two particles, the second of which identical with the imperfective marker). The semantic simplification would have occurred to ease the joining of other groups whose language may have had a progressive, but not a 'situative' with a progressive meaning in the imperfective. It is not possible, however, tor us to identify these groups at present. Our explanation of the SC progressive remains hypothetical. How could it be anything else at this stage? A new methodology will undoubtedly have to take shape gradually that will clarify which criteria need to be fulfilled by such a reconstruction if it is to be accepted by the academic community. We believe that there is no alternative. To reject any investigation of the impact on creoles of the ancestral languages of the creolisers would probably amount to a complete renunciation of historical explanation (Lang 2008). For the time being, we propose that research on the traces of the ancestral languages of the creolisers in a creole should begin with the identification of creole elements that are more or less pedtd matches with forms found in these languages, but that it should be extended to other domains if and when such calques are discovered.
List of abbreviations AJJV
CLP
Dl!M IPFV
Pg
adverb classifier demonstrative imperfective Portuguese
PS
SC
person Santiago Creole (Cape Verde)
SG
singular
W
Wolof (Senegal)
A Wolof trace in the verbal system of the Pol1:ugllese Creole
References de Albuquerque, L. 1991. 0 descobrimento das illias de Cabo Verde. In HGCV I: 23-39. de Albuquerque, L. & Madeira Santos, M. E. (eds). 1988. Hist6ria Geral de Cabo ~rde, Corpo documental, Vol. I. Lisbon & Praia: lnstituto de Investiga~o Cientlfica Tropical - Dire~o-Geral do Patrirn6nio Cuhural de Cabo Verde. de Albuquerque, L. & Madeira Santos, M. E. (eds). 1991. Hist6ria Geral de Cabo Verde, Vol. I [HGCVI]. Lisbon & Praia: Instituto de Investiga~ao Cientffica Tropical- Direq:ao-Geral do Patrirn6nio Cultural de Cabo Verde. Baptista, M. 2006. When substrates meet superstrate: The case of Cape Verdean Creole. In Cabo Verde. Origem da Sua Sociedade e do Seu Crioulo, J. Lang, J. Holm,J.-L. Rouge & M. J. Soares (eds), 91-116. Ttibingen: Narr. Bartens, A. 2006. A contribui~o do substrato africano para a genese dos crioulos caboverdianos: 0 caso dos ideofones. In Cabo V?.rde. Origens da Sua Sociedade e do Seu Crioulo, J. Lang, J. Holm, J.-L Rouge & M. J. Soares (eds), 117-131. Tiibingen: Narr. Boulegue, J. 1989. Les Luso-Africains de Senegambie: XVI-~ siedes. Lisbon: Ministerio da Educa~o, Instituto de Investiga~o Cientffica Tropical Cortes Alonso, V. 1964. La esclavitud en Valencia durante el reinado de los Reyes Cat6licos (1479-1516). Valencia: Ayuntamiento. do Couto, H. H. & de Souza, U. R. 2006. As consoantes pre-nasalizadas no crioulo caboverdiano: Por uma interpreta~o bifonematica. In Cabo Verde. Origens da Sua Sociedade e do Seu Crioulo, J. Lang, J. Holm, J.-L Rouge & M. J. Soares (eds), 133-146. Tiibingen: Narr. Diouf, J.-L 200 1. Grammaire du wolaf contemporain. Tokyo: University of Foreign Studies. The Institute for the Study ofLanguages and Cuhures (ILCAA). Diouf, J.-L. & Yaguello, M. 1991. fapprends le wolof, 1 vol. etune cassette. Paris: Karthala. Fal, A, Santos, R. & Doneux, J.- L 1990. Dictionnaire wolof-fratlfais, suivi d'un index franfais-wolof. Paris: Karthala. Fernandes, V. 1997. Codice Valentim Fernandes. Ofrecido Pelo Academico Titular Fundador Joaquim Bensaude (1859-1952), Leitura Paleogrdfica, Notas e lndice Pelo Academico de NUmero Jose Pereira da Costa. Lisbon: Academia Portuguesa da Hist6ria. Franco Silva, A. 1979. La esclavitud en Sevilla y su tierra a finales de la Edad Media. Seville: Diputact6n Provincial. Kihm, A. 1980. Aspects d'une syntaxe historlque: Etude sur le creole portugais de Guinee-Bissau. PhD dissertation, Universite Paris III. Kihm, A. 1988. Conflation as a directive process in creolization. In Beitrage zum 4. Essener KDlloquium Sprachkontakt, Sprachwandel, Sprachwechsel, Sprachtod 1987, N. Boretzky, W. Enniger & T. Stohz (eds), 111-137. Bochum: Brockmeyer. Kihm, A. 1994. Kriyol Syntax: The Portuguese-Based Creole Language of Guinea-Bissau. Amsterdam: Jolm Benjamins. Lang, J. 2000. Centre africain et peripherie portugaise dans le creole santiagais du Cap Vert. In Degrees of Restructuring in Creole Languages, I. Neumann-Holzschuh & E. W. Sclmeider (eds), 469-482 Amsterdam: Jolm Benjamins. Lang, J. 2004. Affinites grammaticales entre le creole portugais de l'lle de Santiago (Cap Vert) et le wolof (Senegal): Aspect et temps. In Los Criollos de Base Iberica. ACBLPE 2003, M. Fernandez et al. (eds), 137-147. Frankfurt/ Madrid: Iberoamericana/ Vervuert. Lang, J. 2005. Zwei Fiille, in denen das portugiesische Kreol von Santiago (Kapverde) mit dem Wolof iibereinstimmt. In Portugiesische Kreolsprachen: Entstehung. Entwicklung, Ausbau und Verwendung, A. Endruschat & A. Schonberger (eds), 45-56. Frankfurt: Domus Editoria Europea. Lang, J. 2006. I:influence des Wolof et du wolof sur la formation du creole santiagais. In Cabo Verde. OriguiS da Sua Sociedade e do Seu Crioulo, J. Lang, J. Holm, J.-L Rouge & M. J. Soares (eds), 53-62 Tiibingen: Narr.
79
So
Jilrgen Lang
Lang, J. 2008. Explications universelles et explications historiques. Les emplois de so en creole santiagais. In Romanische Syntax im Wandel, E. Stark et a1 (eds), 487-497. 'llibingen: Narr. Lefebvre, C. 1998. Creole Genesis and the Acquisition of Grammar. The Case ofHaitian Creole. Cambridge: CUP. Lefebvre, C. 2001. Relexification in creole genesis and its effects on the development of the creole. In Creolization and Co,Jtact, N. Smith & T. Veenstra (eds), 9-42. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Lwnsden, J. S. 1999. Language acquisition and creolization. In Language Creation and Language Change. Creolization, Diachronyand Development, M. DeGraff(ed.),129-157. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press. Madeira Santos, M. E. (ed.). 1995. Hist6ria Geral de Cabo Verde, Vol II [HGCYII]. Lisbon & Praia: Instituto de Investiga~o Cientifica Tropical- Direq:ao-Geral do Patrim6nio Cultural de Cabo Verde. Maia, C. de A. 1986. Hist6ria do Galego-Portuglds. Estado Li1Jguistico da Galiza e do Noroeste de Portugal desde o Seculo XIII ao Seculo XVI (Com Refertncia a Situas:ao do Galego Modemo), reprint. Coimbra: Gulbenkian - JNICT. Mufwene, S. 1996. The founder prindple in creole genesis. Diachronica 13: 83-134. Ngom, R 2003. Wolof. Munich: Lincom. Pereira, D. 2006. Contributes da Hist6ria Geral de Cabo Verde para o estu.do da forma~o e da difusao do crioulo caboverdiano. In Cabo ~rde. Origms da Sua Sociedade e do Seu Crioulo, J. Lang, J. Holm, J.-L. Rouge & M. J. Soares (eds), 161-178. Tiibingen: Narr. Quint, N. 2000. Le cap-verdien: origines et devenir d'une langue metisse. Paris: I:Harmattan. Quint, N. 2006. Un bref aper~Tu des radnes africaines de la langue c:apverdienne. In Cabo Verde. Origens da Sua Sociedade e do Seu Crioulo, J. Lang, J. Holm, J.-L Rouge & M. J. Soares (eds), 75-90. Tiibingen: Narr. Robert, S. 1991. Approche enonciative du systhne verbal: Le cas du wolof. Paris: CNRS. Rouge, J.-L. 1985. Formation et evolution du creole de Guinee Bissao et de Casamance. PhD dissertation, Universite Lyon II. Rouge, J.-L 1988. Petit dictiommire etymologique du Kriol de Gumee-Bissau et Casamance. Bissau: Instituto Nadonal de Estu.dos e Pesquisa. Rouge, J.-L. 1994. A propos de 1a formation des creoles du Cap-Vert etde Guinee.PAPIA 3: 137-149. Rouge, J.-L. 1999. Apontamentos sobre o lexico de origem africana dos c.rioulos da Guine e de Cabo Verde (Santiago). In Lmguas Criollas de Base Lexical Espafiola y Portuguesa, K. Zimmermann (ed.), 49-65. Frankfurt/ Madrid: Vervuert/Iberoamericana. Rouge, J.-L. 2004. Dictionnaire etymologique des creoles portugais d'Afrique. Paris: Karthala. Rouge, J.-L. 2006. !:influence manding sur 1a formation des creoles du Cap-Vert et de Guinee-Bissau et Casamance. In Cabo Verde. Origens da Sua Sociedade e do Seu Crioulo, J. Lang, J. Holm, J.-L. Rouge & M. J. Soares (eds), 63-7 4. Tiibingen: Narr. Sauvageot, S. 1965. Description sychronique d'un dialecte wolof: Le parler du Dyolof. PhD dissertation, Universite de Dakar/IFAN.
Substrate influences in Kriyol Guinea-Bissau and Casamance Portuguese-related Creole AlainKihm CNRS, Paris
Kriyol is a Portuguese-related creole language spoken in Guinea-Bissau (former Portuguese Guinea) and Senegalese Casamance. Besides being the primary language of an important community, tt also serves as a lingua franca in a multilingual country where Portuguese, although being the official language, actually has little currency. Kriyol counts among the oldest Creoles in the world, having emerged probably during the sixteenth century from a pidginised variety of Portuguese used by the local intermediaries (grumetes) between the few Portuguese settlers and the local populations. Given this situation, one would expect a high degree of substrate influence. In fact, substrate influence, although readily visible, turns out to be limited as can be shown by comparing core grammatical phenomena between Kriyol and a selection oflocallanguages (Balanta, Diola, Manjaku, Mankanya). It is proposed that the main reasons for such a limitation are ( 1) that the creole-creating grumetes soon formed a tightly united group with its own culture; and (2) that they were perfectly bilingual in Kriyol and one or several local languages, therefore able to keep their grammars separate. Keywords: adstrate, Atlantic languages, Basic Varieties, Creoles, creolisation, grumetes, lanfados, Mande languages, pidgins, Portuguese-related Creoles, substrate, West-African history
1.
Introduction
According to the now conventional division of creole languages into plantation and fort ereales (Reinecke 1937), the Portuguese-related Creole of Guinea-Bissau and Casamance (West Africa), Kriyol by its vernacular name, clearly belongs to the latter category.1 Its present-day speakers live in the same place as did their forebears who initiated the language some four centuries ago. It therefore never lost contact with the languages these initiators spoke before the creole existed and which are still spoken today alongside the creole. Indeed, contact is not only spatial - the "local" languages and Kriyol sharing the same territory -, but it is mental insofar as every "native" Kriyol speaker is fully bilingual in at least one local language, and few local language speakers lack competence in Kriyol. In fact, as suggested by the inverted commas, the 1.
For detailed descriptions of the language, see Wilson (1962); Kihrn (1994).
82
Alain IGhm
notion "native speaker" is moot in an environment where extensive bilingualism almost from the cradle has always been the rule. In such a situation we expect pervasive sub stratal (or ad stratal) influences, such as are evident in all varieties of Melanesian Pidgin English (Keesing 1988) or, even more so, in Korlai, another Portuguese-related fort Creole (Clements 2007). One would even expect Kriyol to result from relexification of one (or more) of the local languages, in the sense that relexification of Gbe languages is claimed to have played a crucial role in the formation of Haitian Creole (Lefebvre 1998). If fifty to a hundred years of spatial and mental contact of the lexifier with the substrate languages are deemed sufficient in that case, how much more should four hundred years achieve? The extent to which such expectations are frustrated is actually surprising. It is not that Kriyol does not exhibit features taken from or betraying the influence of the surrounding languages, but how many of them really pertain to what can be considered core grammar, i.e. major constituents order, NP and VP structure, TMA marking, complementation, etc, is open to debate. As far as such phenomena are concerned, Kriyol indeed turns out to be a rather typical creole, not in McWhorter's (1998) technical sense of (proto )typicality, but in the simple, pre- theoretical sense that, in all these domains, it looks very much like the other Atlantic creoles with different substrates and other or the same lexifiers. Even lexical borrowings from local languages are few. Many features not analysable as "creole" are clearly identifiable as coming from the lexifier. Like most if not all known creole languages, however, Kriyol exhibits the noun-verb split that seems to characterize this pseudo-family. 2 In the nominal domain, NP morphosyntax does not diverge significantly from that of the lexifier and, where Kriyol and European Portuguese (EP) do differ, the substrate is at most indirectly responsible. In the verbal domain, in contrast, the morphosyntax of the verbal complex (VC) is just as clearly not inherited from the lexifier.3 In its main outlines the Kriyol VC looks very much like what is found in many other creoles, crucially including some of non-Indo-European provenance such as Arabic-based Nubi (Wellens 2005; Kihm 2008b ), so one would rather lean towards explanations in terms of internal developments specific to creole genesis. Nonetheless, the fact that in most surrounding languages the VC structure is at least partly (never fully) compatible with this "creole template" must certainly be taken into account The relative scarcity of morphosyntactic influences from the substrate does not mean, however, that Kriyol is not perfectly embedded in its sociolinguistic and cultural environment. Quite the opposite in fact: in terms oflexical semantics, discourse strategies, pragmatics, and language uses in general, Kriyol is just as "African" as the surrounding languages - scare quotes necessary since the epithet is not susceptible of a precise definition, but it is an impressionistic label for a very complex set of cultural attitudes and practices, shared beliefs, etc. Two questions must therefore be raised, if not answered, in the present study. First, we would like to know why not more of Kriyol morphosyntactic structure can be traced back to direct substrate influence in an environment seemingly so favourable to it. Is it a consequence of the
2. See Kihm (2008a) for a precise characterization of this split and its significance for any theory of creole formation.
3· By verbal complex (VC) I mean the VP minus its internal NP arguments and PP adjuncts, ie. the verb itself, auxiliaries, TMA markers, predicate adverbs, object ditics, and predicate negation.
Substrate influences in Kriyol
particular circumstances in which Kriyol was formed, or should it be taken as evidence that the substrate does not play such a crucial role in creole formation after all? Secondly, we must ask why the features that are due to substrate influence occur precisely where they do. Why these influences rather than others, in other words? With these goals in mind, the study will proceed as follows. First, I will describe the history and sociolinguistic situation of Kriyol from its inception to the present. Then, switching from an e-language to ani-language perspective, I will review the two main domains of Kriyol morphosyntax, the nominal and the verbal. For each domain, I will contrast those features that certainly or possibly reflect substrata! influence with those that come from the lexifier or from creolisation itself. This will enable me to at least partially answer the second question above. Finally, I will capitalise on the historical and the morp hosyntactic surveys in order to find an answer to the first question as well, which will lead me to a reassessment of the role and nature of the substrate, at least for creole languages having the same ecology as Kriyol.
2.
A historical and sociolinguistic sketch
2.1
Before the Europeans
In the first half of the fifteenth century, on the eve of the first direct contacts with Europeans, the populations of present-day Guinea- Bissau and Casamance seem to have been established roughly in their present locations (Silva 1959; PAIGC 1974). Then as now the principal divide was between the coast and the interior. The interior was theoretically a province of the Empire of Mali which had extended to the Rio Geba during the fourteenth century. This province, Gabu, was placed under the authority of governors lfa.rins) named by the emperor (ma.nsa). ru the Empire of Mali began to decline at the end of the fourteenth century, however, the governors shook off its authority and proclaimed themselves kings (mansa). The Manding kingdom of Gabu then continued as a highly hierarchised society based on extensive agriculture and cattle raising. It thrived until the end of the nineteenth century, when it was finally conquered by the Fula Muslim State of Futa Jalon in 1867, the Fula almami (imam) Umaru taking pretext of the Mandings' animism to launch an all-out jihad against them. The last mansa, Diank.e Walli, chose to die rather than surrender by blowing up his gunpowder reserve together with his last followers and himself. The coastal peoples may have come from the interior, pushed forward by the conquering Mandings under whose dominion part of them had stood tor a time. To name only the most numerous and most likely to have entertained regular contacts with the Europeans, these peoples are the Diolas (most of them across the present border with Senegal), the Manjakus, the Mankanyas, the Papels, and the Balantas. All of them live between the Casamance River and the Rio Geba. At the time we are concerned with, they constituted traditional societies with no state power, except for some hierarchy perhaps retained from the period when the Mandinkas ruled: they had kings, called regulos 'chieftains' by the Portuguese, with exclusively religious powers. We may also cite the Biafadas, more to the south, then a kingdom organised after the Mali imperial model. The
83
Bijag6s were isolated on their islands then as now and stood aloof from any contact before and after the coming of the Europeans. As far as Guinea-Bissau and Casamance (and Senegambia more generally) are concerned, nothing could therefore be farther from the truth than the popular image of helpless, traditional (read "primitive"!) Africans being raided over by superiorly organised Europeans. Actually, one cannot insist too much on the fact that the technological and socio-cultural gap between Europe and West Africa in the late Middle Ages and beginning of the Renaissance was anything but wide (Albuquerque 1991). The only obvious technical superiority the Europeans had were firearms, and they did not keep it very long. Politically, a still largely feudal Europe and the West African kingdoms were not worlds apart. As we saw, even the stateless peoples had regular exchanges with powerfully hierarchised states: the Empire of Mali, the Kingdom of Gabu, and also the Jolof Kingdom to the north (Boulegue 1987). Language diversity was and still is quite important. All the languages involved belong to the Niger-Congo phylum. Whereas the Mandings speak various dialects of Mandinka, a language cluster belonging to the Mande family, all other peoples speak languages of the Atlantic family. Diola (actually a language cluster), Manjaku, Mankanya, Papel, and Balanta are closely related within the Bak subgroup of the Northern branch (Wilson 1989). Manjaku, Mankanya, and Papel may even be considered dialects (or rather dialect clusters) of one language, with some degree of intercomprehension. Diola and Balanta, the latter also a dialect cluster, are overtly quite different, however. Biafada belongs to a different subgroup, the Eastern Senegal-Guinea languages, and Bijag6 is an isolate. Wolof and Serer, two languages of the Senegambian subgroup spoken north of the Casamance river, should probably be brought into the picture as well. Finally, Fula, also a Senegambian language, is now spoken in Guinea-Bissau, but that is probably fairly recent (see above). Despite such diversity, there is not the slightest doubt that, given their constant interchanges, the peoples of Guinea-Bissau and surrounding lands never had any problem communicating with each other (Rouge 1986). Extended bilingualism was probably the solution, plus possibly the use of Mandinka as a trade language. There is no question, therefore, of the European language coming in to fill a gap. Kriyol did not emerge because the local people needed it in order to talk to each other. Did it emerge because they needed to talk with the European newcomers? This is what we shall now examine.
2.2
The first European settlements
The coast of present-day Guinea-Bissau and Casamance was touched in 1446 by Portuguese ships under the command of Nuno Tristao or Alvaro Fernandes (Mota 1946; Boxer 1969; Pinto Bull 1989: 31). Conquest proceeded at a very slow pace. The first fortified settlement (praf!J), Cacheu, was not founded until1 588. It was the first capital (capitan ia) of the province. Bissau, also a fortified settlement, was founded in 1686, but it became the capital only in 1941. For a very long time, actually until the beginning of the twentieth century, Portuguese presence was scant, it did not reach into the interior, and there was no real attempt at effective colonisation. Until the end of the eighteenth century, slave trade was the main economic activity, although there also was some export of rice, leather, gold, and ivory. The slaves from inland were shipped to
Substrate influences in Kriyol
Portugal or to Brazil. During the whole period from the sixteenth to the late eighteenth centuries, the flux of slaves to Portugal was quite significant According to serious estimates, about 150 000 slaves coming from Guine, that is the whole West Mrican coast from Senegal to Angola, entered Portugal between 1441 and 1505 (Tinhorao 1988:Chapter 6). In 1551 their number in Lisbon alone was estimated at 9950, i.e. 10% of the city's total population of 100 000 (Saraiva 1991: 194; Tinhorao 1988: 112). Most of them probably came from the Guinea area, whereas slaves shipped to Brazil after 1500 came from further south. 'This is important because, among the tasks imposed on the slaves, there was that of serving as interpreters and/or crew aboard Portuguese ships on trading expeditions, which gave them the prospect of earning their freedom provided they helped in securing a certain number of new slaves (see Ca da Mosto's relation of his 1455 voyage as published in Academia Portuguesa da Hist6ria 1948/1988; Tinhorao 1988). These African interpreters (turcima.ni inCa da Mosto's terms), having stayed not more than a decade in Portugal, must have spoken, not "proper" ER but the Basic Variety of it that came to be known as Lfngua de Preto "language of the Black" (Kihm & Rouge 2009 ). Although Ca da Mosto's relation is unclear on this count, it is therefore very possible that successful interpreters were released on the spot, thus providing an entrance for pidgin EP on the West Mrican coast.4 All trade from Guinea was officially in the hands of companies authorized by the Royal Court and endowed with a theoretical monopoly. The Portuguese government, however, never had the means to enforce its own regulations, given the dearth of administrative personnel and regular troops that lasted until the end of the nineteenth century. Offical trade then had to compete with smugglers, the so-called lan~dos, meaning literally "men who cast themselves away (into the bush)" (Silva 1970). They were adventurers who landed clandestinely on the coast - an easy job at the time - and settled in villages where they began to trade in slaves and other goods with crews of any European nationality without paying taxes to the Portuguese Crown. Many of them were converted Jews (cristaos novos) who thus put safe distance between themselves and a growingly suspiscious Inquisition. They seem to have been easily accepted by the local people, who were not prone to feel any moral scruples in trading with slaves since slavery was part of the economy of all West Mrican societies at the time. The lan~dos went native in a few years, married local wives and begot children. It can hardly be doubted, therefore, that they constituted the other channel, besides manumitted interpreters (see above), through which pidgin EP penetrated Senegambia and Guinea, where it soon became a lingua franca. The mixed offspring of the lanfados are called filhos da terra "children of the land". They soon formed a mixed caste that actually constituted the bulk of the Portuguese presence in Guinea, as very few "true" Portuguese ever came from the homeland to this forlorn province, at least until the beginning of the twentieth century. (This shows they had inherited a good share of lusitanity from their lan~do fathers.)
4· I speak of Basic Variety for the form of EP acquired by slaves in Portugal, and of pidgin for what resulted from carrying this Basic Variety EP over to Africa. It should be clear that both terms cover very much the same reality. Notice moreover that Basic Variety research (Perdue 1993; Klein & Perdue 1997) leaves no room for Naro's (1978) unli.lrely asswnption that the Portuguese discoverers deliberately contrived the pidgin to serve as a 'reconnaissance language' (also see Clements 1992).
85
86
Alain Kihm
In and around the prUfas a new society slowly took form. At its classical stage, say in the middle of the eighteenth century, it consisted of three social groups (see Rouge 1986). First there were the so-called Portuguese, many of whom, as just mentioned, were actually "assimilated" (assimi/ados) individuals with mixed or African phenotypes, more or less direct descendants of the filhos da terra. They were practicing Christians, lived in the European fashion (except for keeping local wives), and spoke EP. All the trade with the surrounding populations, whose independence was still intact, was in their hands despite the companies' official monopoly. Then there were the troops, apparently a rabble made up of the refuse of the Cape Verdean garrison. Finally there was the most interesting group from our point of view, namely the so-called grumetes meaning "ship's boys': They were Africans with fiunily ties in the local populations, who lived in the outskirts of the prUfas and worked for the Portuguese, either as sailors on the boats that plied the rivers (hence their name) or as go-betweens in trade relations. They were nominally Christian, submitted to a special legislation, and notoriously disorderly and riotous. Quite possibly, many of them were also "re-Mricanized" descendants from the lan~dos (Silva 1970). Given their in-between position, neither European (or "assimilated") nor fully African, since they did not live in the ancestral villages but kept to their own quarters next to the cities, the grumetes form the only community within which a creolised variety may have developed. Among them it served a double purpose. On the one hand it allowed them to communicate with the members of the Portuguese group who, precisely because of the grumetes' role as intermediaries, had no reason to learn the local languages. This emerging creole was rooted in the pidgin EP the la.n~ados must have used with the villagers among whom they had settled (although probably not with their own children, as suggested above). The other function of the creole among the grumetes has to do with group identity (Rouge 1986). Clearly, indeed, they would not have used it to communicate with the local peoples, Manjakus, Balantas, etc., since they always retained native or near native command of the latter's respective languages. On the other hand, one would not understand why they kept to it and never switched to "true" EP, to which they had ready access, if the creolised variety had not functioned as an in-group code with a double benefit: identifYing them with the economically powerful Portuguese community in the opinion of the local peoples; keeping the same Portuguese community at a profitable arm's length which allowed them to get their own returns from the businesses they transacted in its behalf. Besides, Kriyol is not so different from EP, at least in the outward form of the lexemes, that basic exchanges are out of the question between speakers of each language. Some understanding remains possible, but not too much. Because of that, the Portuguese never had any incentive to learn Kriyol since they believed they understood it sufficiently for what it was worth in their eyes. The grumetes, on their side, had no good reason to speak EP since they did not need it to make themselves understood as much as and no more than was useful Kriyol therefore developed at the same pace that the grumetes built up a distinct community, of whose identity it became the most conspicuous sign. Creolisation in the present instance is therefore certainly not a consequence of restricted access to the lexifier on the part of the creole initiators. For one thing, insofar as the immediate lexifi.er was not EP, but a pidgin variety thereof, the creole initiators had full access to it at this stage. Next, when both a Portuguese and a grumete community had come into existence and were living in close, if segregated, contact with each other, full access to non-pidgin EP could not have
Substrate influences in Kriyol
been barred. Creolisation was actually a matter of restricting access in order to construct and preserve a separate community. Within that community, Kriyol was obviously necessary also as a common language between people of diverse origins, who could have communicated without it given generalised bilingualism, but did it even better through a medium where the practical and the symbolic functions were fully reconciled. Given this situation, it seems dear that no particular substrate language could exercise a predominant influence on the emerging creole. What influences took place were either due to properties the substrate languages had in common or to the fact that they all expressed a common civilisation involving largely shared speech habits and cultural uses of language over and beyond language diversity.
2.3
Colonisation and after
Kriyol seems to have stabilised rather early. The first documents we have date back from the first half of the nineteenth century, and they show a language not significantly different from what is heard nowadays (Bocande 1849; Barros 1882; Schuchardt 1888). Between that period and the present, however, the sociolinguistic environment changed drastically. When the Portuguese settlements turned into a Portuguese colony at the beginning of the twentieth century, after a series of "pacification wars" had subdued the previously independent peoples of the territory, the gmmete community had probably already disappeared as such. The main divide then was and still is between city dwellers and farmers. The former, many of them but not all ex-grumetes, had Kriyol as a native or primary language, whereas the latter used it as a vehicular language. Another effect of colonisation was to cut the Kriyol-speaking domain asunder when, following the (in)famous 1886 Berlin conference, the French and Portuguese governments signed a treaty that devolved Casamance to the former. Henceforth, a European-style border, never tight but nevertheless effective, cut across what had always been one country so far. Casamance became part of the French Senegalese colony, with a resulting influx of Muslim Wolof-speakers from the north. The linguistic consequences were that Casamance Kriyol was isolated from Guinea-Bissau Kriyol and Portuguese, preserved archaisms that have disappeared from the more southern dialects, and became the distinctive native language of the Christian community (Chataignier 1963). In Portuguese Guinea, then Guinea-Bissau, in contrast, the number of first or primary speakers grew significantly during the twentieth century because of the expansion of the cities, especially Bissau, and the role of Kri yol as a lingua franca increased accordingly. The war of independence ( 1963-1975) contributed enormously to the diffusion of Kriyol, as the language was widely used in the PAIGC Liberation Army (as well as by the Portuguese military's propaganda to the Guinean population). 5 At the same time, EP influence made itself felt more strongly, especially and somewhat paradoxically after independence, due to the development of school education and the mass media. (EP remained the official language ofindependent Guinea-Bissau, Kriyol being granted the status of"nationallanguage" along with the other languages of the country- with few
5· PAIGC: Partido Africano da Independtncia da Guine e Cabo Verde.
87
88
Alain IGhm
practical consequences.) Speech levels thus appeared, which can be described as mesolectal and which probably did not exist previously, as Kriyol never was - and still is not - in a continuum situation with respect to its lexifier.
3·
Kriyol compared to its lexifi.ers and its substrate
Having thus reviewed the origin and evolution ofKriyol as a sociolinguistic object (e-language), we shall now explore some of its inner grammatical mechanisms (i-language) from a contrastive perspective, setting them up against their counterparts in the contributors to their coming about, namely EP and its Basic Variety known as Lingua de Preto- hence the plural of'lexifiers' in the heading of this section - and the substrate languages. As for Lingua. de Preto (Ld P) we shall have to rely on the only relics of it we have at our disposal, namely the not insignificant traces it left in Portuguese literature, especially sixteenth and early seventeenth century theatre (Teyssier 1959; Tinhorao 1988; Kihm & Rouge 2009). As explained at length in the third reference, "literary" Ld.P can be taken as a faithful representation of what Mrican slaves in Portugal actually spoke, and consequently (see above) of sixteenth century Senegambian and Guinean pidgin EP. Finally, I will limit myself to five local languages, namely Balanta, Diola, Mandinka, Manjaku, and Wolof The main reason is opportunistic: those are languages for which good descriptions are available. On the other hand, those are also languages with many speakers, now and presumably six centuries ago already, so they are the most likely sources of influences. Also noteworthy is the fact that the four Atlantic languages (Balanta, Diola, Manjaku, and Wolof) are agglutinative languages characterised by great morphological complexity, inflectional as well as derivational, which sets them conspicuously apart from the languages usually invoked as substrates for the Atlantic Creoles, namely the largely isolating Kwa languages. Mandinka, albeit not so complex, is also quite well provided in derivational processes. As indicated above, we shall review the two main domains of the morphosyntactic set-up: the noun phrase and the verbal complex.
3.1
The noun phrase
The most striking property ofKriyol noun phrases is the frequency ofbare nouns potentially multiply ambiguous between a definite or indefinite, singular or plural interpretation (Kihm 2007). This is due to (1) the absence of a definite determiner; (2) the specific meaning of the indefinite determiner un "a certain"; (3) the dependency of number marking in count nouns on specificity of reference and position in the individualisation hierarchy. 6 In principle, then, a sentence such as (1) should be susceptible of seven translations:
6. By this I mean the degree to which viewing instances of a countable entity as individuals is psychologically mandatory. It is maximal with human beings, minimal with small things such as rice grains.
Substrate influences in Kriyol
(1) Minjer kumpra kabra. KRIYOL woman buy goat (a) The woman bought the goat I (b) The woman bought a goat I (c) The woman bought the goats I (d) The woman bought goats/ (e) A woman bought the goat I (f) A woman bought a goat I (g) A woman bought the goats I (h) A woman bought goats.
Notice however that (c) and (g) are highly unlikely because goats stand high in the individualisation hierarchy, so kabra would almost obligatorily be marked for plurality (kabras) if several specific individuals were being referred to. For similar reasons, no reading where mi njer instead of pluralised minjeris denotes several women, specific or not ("the women" or "women"), is acceptable. Add to this that, minjer being subject, indefinite interpretations as in (e)-(h) are strongly disfavoured. All together, actual ambiguity boils down to the equal possibility (out of context) of readings (a), (b), and (d), meaning that the object kabra "goat" may be understood as definite or indefinite ((a) vs. (b)), singular or plural ((a)-(b) vs. (d)). Both dimensions interact insofar as kabra's plurality implies indefiniteness ("goats", not "the goats"). And even so, plural indefinite kab ra could very well be overtly marked for Number. In fact, given the individualisation hierarchy, only entities on the lowest rungs, e.g. objects such as pratu "dish", are commonly abstracted from the Number contrast to be given a transnumeral, neither singular nor plural reading (Acquaviva 2008). Things are of course quite different in EP where there is a definite determiner o(s)la(s), plural marking of count nouns is automatic as soon as more than one token is involved, and there are no bare nouns (except in quite restricted syntactic environments), but only bare plurals. Three different sentences therefore correspond to (a), (b), and (d): A mulher comprou a cabra; A mulher comprou uma cabra; A mulhercomprou cabms. One will have noticed in passing that plural marking in Kriyol proceeds through the same morphological device as in EP, namely suffixation of -s after a vowel, -es/-is after a consonant The form thus did not change in comparison to the lexifier, although the semantics did quite significantly, along the lines pointed to above. Yet, this change has little to do with substrate influence. For one thing, linking overt plural marking with referent speci:fidty and the fact that count nouns denoting human beings or familiar animals are generally pluralised when more than one because collections of them are not felicitously viewed as undifferentiated aggregates, these phenomena are quite widespread in nearly all creole languages and many non-creole ones (Acquaviva 2008 ). Actually, it might well be languages like EP and its "arithmetic" pluralisation that are exceptional Interestingly, the putative substrate languages of Kriyol pertain to that typology. Before turning to them, though, let us have a look at LdP. Things there are extremely simple: nouns are not marked for Number ever; and there are no determiners at all. Definiteness and plurality were thus entirely left to the discourse context to ascertain, as is customary in Basic Varieties and pidgins. The continued absence of a definite determiner in Kriyol is therefore probably a legacy from the pidgin period. On the other hand, the complex morphosemantic pattern of Number marking and definiteness interpretation can only be seen as an inner development in the creolising language, which nothing in the pidgin allowed one to predict. Did the substrate contribute in some measure to this development? The four Atlantic languages Balanta, Diola, Manjaku, and Wolof are noun class languages, meaning that roots are realised as nouns via association with affixes, the cumulative exponents of
89
90
Alain Kihm
two morphosemantic features: Class and Number. Count nouns therefore switch affixes depending on whether they refer to one or more than one token, irrespective of any other considerations. In such languages there can be no transnumeral bare nouns. So much seems to be true in the Mande language Mandinka, where count nouns (not divided into classes) referring to more than one token of the denoted entity seem to be obligatorily marked for plurality through a dedicated suffix (Rowlands 1969: 38). As far as definite determiners are concerned, Balanta and Manjaku pattern like Kriyol in having none. Diola and Wolof. in contrast, overtly distinguish definite from indefinite noun phrases. In Mandinka, there is what may be called a specific determiner -oo interpreted as definite or indefinite. Non-suffixed nouns (so-called "stem forms") are "rarely used" (Rowlands 1969: 38). Diola and Wolof are thus the only languages in Kriyofs surrounding with something resembling the EP definite article. Keeping to a strict definition of bare nouns as bare roots, morphologically unmarked for any feature beyond lexical meaning, we conclude that only Wolof and Mandinka offer the possibility. In both languages, bare nouns so defined appear to be limited to generic contexts, unlike what we see in Kriyol. In no language do we observe the effect of anything like an individualisation hierarchy. The definiteness ambiguity of Kriyol bare nouns is therefore similar to that of Balanta and Manjaku, except that, as we just saw, there are no strictly bare nouns in these languages. The Number ambiguity, on the other hand, finds no equivalent in the surrounding languages, even in Wolof where, given the genericity condition on bare nouns and the apparent absence of an individualisation hierarchy, all plural indefinites are overtly marked. The most we can say, then, is that the similarity with Balanta and Manjaku as tar as the absence of a definite article is concerned may have contributed in the maintenance of a state of affairs that dates back to the pidgin stage and is ultimately explained by it. Not only was the pidgin deprived of such an article, but the EP lexicon offered no item capable of replacing it, like the French postposed deictic Ia "there" reanalysed as a determiner did in all French-related Creoles. One item for which substrate influence seems to be more likely is the specific indefinite determiner. First, all relevant Atlantic languages, as we saw, show the contrast of bare truly indefinite or generic nouns ("any x") and noun phrases involving an item that conveys specific indefiniteness ("a certainx"). In Kriyol the item is un, from EP um(a), which fuses both kinds ofindefiniteness, so the semantic change proceeded definitely in the direction of the substrate. As other Creoles with quite different substrates and the same fusion in the lexifier (e.g. English and French) present the same configuration, however, the evidence might still be taken as unconvincing. More particular, hence stronger evidence comes from the fact that the meaning "a certain goat" may not only be expressed by un kabra, but also by utru kabra also meaning "another goat". Such an overlap of the meanings "other" and "a certain" is a property of Balanta and Manjaku as well: cf. Balanta -olo, Manjaku -lon "a/another': The parochiality of the phenomenon makes it therefore quite plausible that utru relexifies Balanta -olo and Manjaku -Ion. Can the complete absence of the Gender category and agreement processes in Kriyol be ascribed to substrate influence? One reason to doubt it is that all creole languages share this property with very few exceptions, so that loss of Gender contrasts (if present in the lexifier) appears as one of the most constant consequences of creole formation, however it is conceived.
Substrate influences in Kriyol
Furthermore, the only substrate language that also lacks Gender and agreement processes is Mandinka; all others, as we saw, are noun class languages with far-ranging Class-Number agreement processes inside and outside the noun phrase. Since noun class and Gender are kin categories, one would imagine that speakers of such languages should have no difficulty with EP gender marking and agreement- unless of course such phenomena were not part ofKriyol's immediate lexifier, which seems indeed to be the case judging by what we know of LdP. The absence of Gender distinctions in LdP, in turn, points to the apparently true fact that EP Gender-related endings were never recognized as such by the African slaves who acquired EP as a BV. Being competent, as most LdP speakers probably were, in noun class systems such as those of Atlantic languages may therefore have been no help in acquiring the binary gender contrast of EP. This would not be surprising since the basis for classifying entities is quite different in such noun class systems than it is in gender systems like that of EP. Gender loss in LdP and afterwards in Kriyol might then be substrate-influenced, if not exactly substrate-driven, after all. Other features ofthe noun phrase are identical with what is found in the lexifier. I am referring to the positions of adjectives, demonstratives, numerals and quantifiers with respect to the head noun, as exemplified below: (2) '&a amigus r!ku kwnpra kil des kabra branku. KRIYOL my friends rich buy that ten goat white My rich friends bought those ten white goats I Os meus amigos ricos compraram estas dez cabras
brancas. To sum up, four features separate the Kriyol from the EP noun phrase: (1) no across-the-board plural marking; (2) absence of a definite determiner; (3) obligatory specificity of the indefinite determiner; (4) lack of gender contrasts. Of these, the first one constitutes, I believe, a pure product of creolisation with no roots in the lexifier or the substrate languages. The second one is partly an accident and partly the consequence of substrate reinforcement. The third one, including the a-other overlap, can also be brought back to substrate influence, although the fact that many Creoles do not fuse specific and non-specific indefiniteness cannot be ignored. Finally (4) most certainly results from a conjunction of all causes together, namely accident, (passive) substrate influence, and creolisation itself. For the remainder, Kriyol noun phrase morphosyntax appears quite similar to that of its lexifier. 3.2
The verbal complex
The marking of aspect As already mentioned, the VC consists in the main verb and its functional cortege comprising auxiliaries, Tense-Mood-Aspect (TMA) markers, predicate adverbs, object clitics, and predicate negation. As tar as structure is concerned, Kriyol appears as a run-of-the-mill creole insofar as preverbal particles realise Aspect values and negation is conveyed by a negative head preceding the aspect particles. As in Kihm (1994), I take the Aspect values to result from the combinations of two features: [±Pertective] and [±Punctual] (henceforth abbreviated to [±PF] and [±PT] - also see Muysken 1981). Here too Kriyol is unexceptional in having the simple perfective ([ +PF, +PT] unmarked on dynamic verbs, then interpreted as referring to past, accomplished events, whereas
3.2.1
91
92
Alain IGhm
bare stative verbs are understood as denoting presently obtaining states of affairs. This is shown below (Kihrn 1994:85): (3)
Jugude c!ga
elf.
KRIYOL
vulture arrive smoothly The vulture landed smoothly. (4) N sibi so kuma na pirkitu karu. I know only that my parrot be.expensive. All I know is that my parrot costs a lot.
KRIYOL
Under no circumstances can Kriyol bare dynamic verbs reter to nonpast events as is the case in, e.g., Haitian when the predicate involves a generic internal argument (DeGraff 2007). This is shown by (5), where ta, glossed Imperfective (IPF), is the exponent of the feature complex [-PF, -PT]: (5)
ta hindi kabra. s/he IPP sell goat S/he sells goats.
KRIYOL
In addition, Kriyol expesses the feature complex [-PF, +PT] with the particle na as in (6): (6)
na bindi kabra(s). s/he PROG sell goat-(PL) Slhe's selling I will sell (the) goats.
KRIYOL
The gloss PROG for "progressive" is for convenience. The point is that an event modified by na is seen as both non-accomplished ([-PF]) and punctual in the sense that it is either taking place entirely at speech time (E, R, S in Reichenbachian notation) or at some future time if the actual speech time context demonstrates it is not (yet) taking place? With stative predicates na assumes an inchoative meaning as in (7) (Kihm 1994:87): (7)
Gera na forti kada byas mas. war PROG be.strong each time more The war is becoming fiercer all the time.
KRIYOL
The ta vs. na contrast sets Kriyol apart from its closest relative, Sotavento Cape Verdean, where na has no counterpart, and ta's uses straddle those ofKriyol ta and na (see Baptista 2002:76ff.). Whereas ta obviously comes from the EP imperfective copula estar, na must be analysed as a further grammaticalization of the locative preposition na "in, on, at: itself from the EP cumulation na =*/em a! "in theFEM". The progressive form thus clearly originates in a locative, be-in/at-Ving-type construction which calls for several remarks. First, it is noticeably ubiquitous. Secondly, more to the point, it exists in EP: estarfazendo or estar a fazer 'to be (a-)doing: using the imperfective-locative copula estar. This form constitutes the direct source of a sta na V construction still encountered in the
7. See Reichenbach (1947). For a general application of Reichenbach's system to creole TMA, see Muysken (1981).
Substrate influences in Kriyol
CasamancevarietyofKriyoland in old Kriyol texts (Barros 1882), and of which the modem na V form probably represents a reduction. Thirdly, and just as much to the point, similar constructions occur in the substrate languages, as shown in the following examples: (8)
(9)
(10)
(11)
N ga a til-a. 1sG.s be in write-INP I am writing.
BALANTA (Intumbo 2007: 65)
Na-lako a-jaw. 3sG.s-stay 3sG.s-go Slhe/it was going.
DIOLA (Sapir 1969: 104)
Bu-ci ri u-kiy. 3PL.S-be in INP-dancing They are dancing. be maani-katoo le M la. 1sG.s be rice-cutting EMPHin I am cutting rice.
MANJAKU (Buis 1990:63)
MANDINKA (Rowlands 1959: 97)
In Balanta as in Kriyo~ the progressive construction may refer to a future event: (12)
A ga a to-a a odn de bluthn. 2sG.s be in go-INP in house 2sG tomorrow You'll go home tomorrow I Bu na bay na bu kasa amaiian. (KRIYoL)
BALANTA (Intumbo 2007: 67)
This does not seem to be the case in the other languages, nor in EP. Conceivably, therefore, the fact that many creole initiators were Balanta native speakers may have been crucial in steering the semantics of the Kriyol na V construction, whereas the other languages contributed to the entrenchment of the construction in the emerging creole. Note, however, that the construction is fully grammaticalised only in the latter, in the sense that it no longer looks like a locative predicate, and na has become a pure aspect particle, disjoint from the homophonous preposition. This