morphology of creole languages · 2019. 9. 24. · morphology of creole languages tracing the...

Morphology of creole languagesTracing the origins of inflection

Fabiola Henri

University of [email protected]

LSA Summer InstituteJuly 7th, 2017

Partly in collaboration Olivier Bonami, Ana R. Luís

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 1 / 70

[email protected]

Review

Outline

Review

On Creole morphology

Comparing lexifier to creoleOrganization of the French paradigmQuantitative take on paradigm opacity

Verb form alternation in FLCMauritianVerb form alternation in FLCIndo-portuguese


Review

Basic assumptions

Ï Creoles emerged in a particular contextÏ Multiple factors participate in its development

Ï Creoles are not nativized pidgins+ Developmental sciences: examine the ingredients that contribute to

the outcome


Review

Language ideology

“Anomaly” doesn’t exist in language, rather, lurk-ing behind it are anomalous presumptions andconvictions that obtain in linguistic theory.

ACKERMAN & NIKOLAEVA 2010, 304 [QUOTE FROMA. E. KIBRIK]



Outline

Review






The inflectional complexity of Creoles

Ï Long history of claims on the morphology of Creole languages:Ï Creoles have no morphology (Seuren 1986)Ï Creoles have simple morphology (McWhorter 2001)Ï Creoles have simpler inflection than their lexifier (Plag 2006)

Ï Belongs to a larger family of claims on the simplicity of Creolelanguages (Bickerton 1988)

+ Claims on Creoles need to be substantiated by quantitative analysisand deeper examination of the data.



Historical bases

Creoles are characterized as corrupted versions of their lexifierlanguages during the colonial period. (Degraff 2005)



Historical bases

Creole languages result from the adaptation ofa language, especially some Indo-European lan-guage, to the (so to speak) phonetic and gram-matical genius of a race that is linguistically infe-rior.

DEGRAFF 2005, 297 [QUOTE FROM VINSON 1889]



Historical bases

Le maniement du verbe français avec ses flexionsde mode, de temps, de nombre et de personne,offrait des complications que le créole devait néc-essairement écarter. Ici la simplification a étépoussée à ses dernières limites. Le thème verbal

n’a qu’une forme unique : mo vini je viens; to tévini tu es venu; li va vini il viendra; etc., etc.

BAISSAC 1880



Creole Simplicity

The world’s simplest grammars are creole gram-mars

MCWHORTER 2001



Creole Simplicity

Ï Morphology as a measure of language complexity in both creoles andnon-creoles revived in the last decades

Ï Traditional grammar = MorphologyProto Indo-European → . . . → Latin → . . . → French

Ï The comparative method has been used in creolistics for typologicalclassification but also complexity classifications

Ï Creoles form a natural class distinct from other languages (McWhorter2001, Bakker et al. 2017)



Creole Simplicity

Ï Complexity is evaluated on the basis ofÏ Paradigm size, 51 cells in French vs 2 FLCÏ Number of features, 6 in French vs undecidable in FLCÏ Number of processes, in French stem selection + affixation vs stem

selection in FLC

Ï Complexity in terms of description length (Degraff 2005)Ï Not all languages can be described withing the morphemic approach.



Form and content paradigms

Ï Important distinction drawn by (Ackerman 2004) and later work:Ï The content paradigm of a lexeme is the structured collection of sets

of morphosyntactic properties the lexeme inflects forÏ The form paradigm of a lexeme is the structured collection of forms

the lexeme exhibits

Ï The distinction is useful because of the existence of mismatchesbetween content and form.

Ï A prime example of such a mismatch is syncretism: a singleform-paradigm cell for two content-paradigm cells.

PRST.IND FUT.IND PRST.SUBJ

1SG reg-o: reg-a-m reg-a-m2SG reg-i-s reg-e:-s reg-a:-s. . .

Example of syncretism in Latin : REGO ‘rule’


Comparing lexifier to creole

Outline

Review





Comparing lexifier to creole

Our claim for today’s class

1. Statistically prevalent features of the lexifier system shape the creolesystem

2. This is partly independent of the actual forms the creole inherits

Heavy use of quantitative data on the lexifiers and, where available, onthe creoles to show that

+ French lexified creoles and Indo-Portuguese


Comparing lexifier to creole Organization of the French paradigm

Outline

Review






Sources: French vs Mauritian

Ï Linguistic descriptions

Mauritian (Henri 2010)Ï Lexica

Mauritian Database of inflected verbs compiled on the basis of (Carpooran2011)

French Lexique 3 (New 2007): database of French inflected words withfrequency data compiled from post-1950 novels + film subtitles

Ï Corpora

Written French 2 years of the newspaper Le Monde (2003–2004; 38.5M words),tagged and lemmatized using MElt (Denis 2009)

Spoken French C-ORAL-ROM (Cresti 2004), collection of balanced corpora ofspoken French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese (∼ 300000 wordsfor each language), transcribed, tagged and lemmatized

+ Assumption that the frequency distribution of verb forms did not vary heavily inFrench since the time of colonization.



The French conjugation system

Ï 51 cells+ laver ‘wash’:

Finite forms

TAM 1SG 2SG 3SG 1PL 2PL 3PL

PRS.IND lav-e lav-es lav-e lav-ons lav-ez lav-ent

PST.IND.IPFV lav-ai-s lav-ai-s lav-ai-t lav-i-ons lav-i-ez lav-ai-ent

PST.PFV lav-ai lav-as lav-a lav-a-mes lav-a-tes lav-er-ent

FUT.IND lav-er-ai lav-er-as lav-er-a lav-er-ons lav-er-ez lav-er-ons

PRS.SBJV lav-e lav-es lav-e lav-i-ons lav-i-ez lav-ent

PST.SBJV lav-ass-e lav-ass-es lav-at lav-ass-i-ons lav-ass-i-ez lav-ass-ent

COND lav-er-ais lav-er-ais lav-er-ait lav-er-i-ons lav-er-i-ez lav-er-aient

IMP --- lav-e --- lav-ons lav-ez ---

Nonfinite forms

PST.PTCPINF PRS.PTCPM.SG F.SG M.PL F.PL

lav-er lav-ant lav-e lav-ee lav-es lav-ees





Finite forms


PRS.IND lav-e lav-es lav-e lav-ons lav-ez lav-ent

PST.IND.IPFV lav-ai-s lav-ai-s lav-ai-t lav-i-ons lav-i-ez lav-ai-ent

PST.PFV lav-ai lav-as lav-a lav-a-mes lav-a-tes lav-er-ent

FUT.IND lav-er-ai lav-er-as lav-er-a lav-er-ons lav-er-ez lav-er-ons

PRS.SBJV lav-e lav-es lav-e lav-i-ons lav-i-ez lav-ent

PST.SBJV lav-ass-e lav-ass-es lav-at lav-ass-i-ons lav-ass-i-ez lav-ass-ent

COND lav-er-ais lav-er-ais lav-er-ait lav-er-i-ons lav-er-i-ez lav-er-aient

IMP --- lav-e --- lav-ons lav-ez ---

Nonfinite forms


lav-er lav-ant lav-e lav-ee lav-es lav-ees



Orthography vs Speech

The distinctions seen in the French orthography differ from those inspeech.





Finite forms


PRS.IND lav lav lav lav-O lav-e lav

PST.IND.IPFV lav-E lav-E lav-E lav-j-O lav-j-e lav-E

PST.PFV lavE lava lava lava-m lava-t lavE-K

FUT.IND lav@-K-E lav@-K-a lav@-K-a lav@-K-O lav@-K-e lav@-K-O

PRS.SBJV lav lav lav lav-j-O lav-j-e lav

PST.SBJV lava-s lava-s lava lava-s-j-O lava-s-j-e lava-s

COND lav@-K-E lav@-K-E lav@-K-E lav@-K-j-O lav@-K-j-e lav@-K-E

IMP --- lav --- lav-O lav-e ---

Nonfinite forms


lave lav-A lave lave lave lave





Finite forms










Nonfinite forms





The French conjugation system: neutralization


Finite forms










Nonfinite forms





The French conjugation system: Historical context


Finite forms


PRS.IND lav lav lav lav-e lav

PST.IND.IPFV lav-E lav-E lav-E lav-j-e lav-E

PST.PFV lavE lava lava lava-t lavE-K

FUT.IND lav@-K-E lav@-K-a lav@-K-a lav@-K-e lav@-K-O

PRS.SBJV lav lav lav lav-j-e lav

PST.SBJV lava-s lava-s lava lava-s-j-e lava-s

COND lav@-K-E lav@-K-E lav@-K-E lav@-K-j-e lav@-K-E


Nonfinite forms





The French conjugation system: colloquial French


Finite forms




PST.PFVFUT.IND lav@-K-E lav@-K-a lav@-K-a lav@-K-e lav@-K-O


PST.SBJVCOND lav@-K-E lav@-K-E lav@-K-E lav@-K-j-e lav@-K-E


Nonfinite forms





The French conjugation system: periphrases


Finite forms




PST.PFV

FUT.IND v-E lave v-a lave v-a lave alO lave ale lave v-O lave


PST.SBJVCOND


Nonfinite forms






Ï One productive conjugation (LAVER)Ï Stable but closed second conjugation (FINIR)Ï 61 patterns with 1 to 50 verbs

Conjugation 1 2 3a 3b 3c 3d 3e . . .LAVER FINIR RENDRE TENIR CUIRE PEINDRE METTRE . . .

Types (Lexique) 5678 282 50 28 28 27 15

INF lave finiK KAdK t@niK k4iK pEdK mEtK

PST.PTCP lave fini KAdy t@ny k4i pE mi

PRS.1SG lav fini KA tjE k4i pE me



PRS.1PL lavO finisO KAdO t@nO k4izO peñO metO

PRS.2PL lave finise KAde t@ne k4ize peñe mete

PRS.3PL lav finis KAd tjEn k4iz pEñ mEt



Interim conclusion

Striking contrast between a long and a short form+ Even without discarding tenses like the PST.PFV, PST.SBJV, etc.



Syncretism in French

Ï Prevalence of syncretism in the French system

Paradigm class 1 class 2cells LAVER FINIR

PRS/IMP.2PL

-e-ise

IPFV.SG/3PLINF

-iPST.PTCPPRS.SG

;PRS.3PL -isSBJV.SG/3PL

+ In 18th century French, infinitive final -r was consistently dropped forverbs of all conjugations, except those with a final schwa (Rosset 1911,Y.-C. Morin, p.c.).

Ï Lack of statistically usable historical data (Baker 2007)Ï Mismatch:Ï Almost no parallelism of function across the FLC


Comparing lexifier to creole Quantitative take on paradigm opacity

Outline

Review






Class-specific syncretism

Ï French conjugation is characterized by the high prevalence of inflectionclass specific patterns of syncretism

LAVER FINIR RENDRE CUIRE POUVOIR DIRE . . .PRS/IMP.2PL

-e

-ise rAde k4ize puvedit

IPFV.SG/3PL dize

INF-i

rAdK k4iK puvwaK diK

PST.PTCP KAdyk4i

pydi

PRS.SG;

KA pø

PRS.3PL-is -KAd -k4iz

pvdiz

SBJV.SG/3PL p4is



Paradigmatic opacity

Ï A form is paradigmatically opaque when it is compatible with morethan one inflection class.

Ï Opaque forms are commonplace in French

PRS.SG INFpaliK (PÂLIR)

pali

palje (PALLIER)

PRS.SG INFpaKe (PARER)

paK

paKtiK (PARTIR)

PRS.2PL INFtapiK (TAPIR)

tapise

tapise (TAPISSER)

PRS.2PL INFpEdK (PEINDRE)

pEñe

pEñe (PEIGNER)

Ï A paradigm cell is opaque if the exponents in contains do not allow tounambiguously predict the lexeme’s inflection class.



Paradigm opacity

Ï Theme vowels are not helpful in identifying conjugation classes inFrench

Ï Only the infinitive, the past participle, the simple past and the (barelyused) past subjunctive contain a theme vowel giving unambiguousinformation on conjugation class.

+ That is, only 14 out of 51 cells are diagnostic.

Type frequency Token frequency Token frequency(written corpora) (spoken corpora)

French 27% 33.77% 28.53%Proportion of paradigm cells with a diagnostic vowel alternation

(data from Le Monde and C-ORAL-ROM)



Refining the view of paradigm opacity

Ï In fact paradigm opacity comes in different flavors and degrees

Ï A paradigm cell may be partially opaque; cf. the Portuguese present

Ï A better indicator of paradigm opacity is paradigm entropy (Ackerman et al.2009), a quantitative measure that synthesizes the difficulty of predicting paradigmcells from one another.

Language p. entropy

French 0.2117 bitsBonami & Luis (2013)

+ Maintaining the French system is very costly



Opacity and Syncretism

Ï Both paradigm opacity and class-specific syncretism contribute tomaking French conjugation highly unpredictable

+ Predictions: it would be surprising for a French-based creole tomaintain the conjugation system of its lexifier.



Reorganizing French paradigms

Ï On the other hand, the syncretic patterns of French first conjugationverbs are very perceptible

among 1st conj. tokens among all verb tokensC-ORAL-ROM lexique 3 C-ORAL-ROM lexique 3

‘long form’ 49.4% 49.1% 14.6% 19.3%‘short form’ 40% 40.1% 11.8% 15.8%contrasting forms 89.4% 89.2% 26.4% 35.2%



Interim conclusion

Ï If creole formation is at all sensitive to statistical properties of thelexifier’s lexicon, the distinction between a long and a short form isexpected to be present in French-based creoles

Ï However since the two forms are highly syncretic, there is no stablefunction for the form alternants to inherit.

+ Cf. also (Chaudenson 2003, Becker & Veenstra 2003)Ï Veenstra (2004) argues that they are inherited form the 3SG.PRST and

the INF respectively

Ï We will argue that creoles are sensitive to the French alternation butinnovate their own


Verb form alternation in FLC Mauritian

Outline

Review






The Mauritian conjugation system: forms

Ï The Mauritian verbal paradigm : 2 cellsÏ 70% of the 2079 verbs extracted from Carpooran 2011 alternates

between a long and a short form – stable over time+ It distinguishes morphologically between long and short forms (Becker

& Veenstra 2003, Henri 2010)

LF bKije bKije vAde amAde kOsiste Keste fini vini

SF bKij bKije van amAd kOsiste Kes fini vin

TRANS. ‘shine’ ‘mix’ ‘sell’ ‘amend’ ‘consist’ ‘stay’ ‘finish’ ‘come’



Predictibility

Ï Morphological alternation (Contra Corne 1982)

LF bKije fini vini kOsiste egziste amAde demAde

⇓SF bKije bKij fini vin kOsiste egzis amAd deman

‘mix’ ‘shine’ ‘finish’ ‘come’ ‘consist’ ‘exist’ ‘amend’ ‘ask’

LF paste pas bAde ban fKize fKiz feKe feÄ

⇑SF pas ban fKiz feÄ

‘filter’ ‘succeed’ ‘bandage’ ‘prevent’ ‘curl’ ‘freeze’ ‘shoe’ ‘do’

+ Predictibility as a measure of complexity (next class)



The Mauritian conjugation system: forms

+ The forms seen in Mauritian are different from those in French

LF ale bKije vAde amAde asize Keste soÄti vini

SF al bKij van amAd asiz Kes soÄt vin

TRANS. ‘go’ ‘shine’ ‘sell’ ‘amend’ ‘sit’ ‘stay’ ‘go out’ ‘come’



Paradigm shape vs. forms in the paradigm

Ï Question: how did the Mauritian forms stem from French forms?Ï Possible scenarios:

1. Two syncretic forms were inherited holistically+ Prediction: for verbs which do not exhibit the expected syncretism,

random choice of one of the forms.2. Two specific paradigm cells (e.g. INF and PRS.SG) were inherited

(Chaudenson 2003, Becker & Veenstra 2003)+ Prediction: for verbs with an exceptional relationship between these

two paradigm cells, we should witness the same exceptional relationshipin the creole

3. One specific paradigm cell (e.g. INF) was coopted; alternations arenative to the creole

+ Prediction: the long form systematically relates to the form filling aspecific French paradigm cell

+ Exhaustively checked the 1932 verbs whose etymon is undisputably aFrench verb in Carpooran (2011)



Possible sources of long and short forms

Ï Possible sources of the long form:

French cells example #

INF or PST.PTCP or. . . laver > lave 1767INF croire > krwar 129PST.PTCP offert > ofer 11PRS.SG doit > dwa 9other cases asseoir > asize 16

Ï Where the short form coincides with the French PRS.SG:

alternation examples #

LF = SF + e lave 1353LF = SF fini, dwa 121other — 0

+ No evidence of direct inheritance of short forms from FrenchHenri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 44 / 70


Remarkable cases

Ï In all cases where French has an alternation other that LF= SF+e,Mauritian uses only one of the two forms.

French Mauritian trans.INF PRS.SG LF SF

ale va ale al gosOKtiK sOK soÄti soÄt exitv@niK vjE vini vin comed@vwaK dwa dwa dwa owevalwaK vo vo vo be worth

Ï This is despite the existence of 129 Mauritian verbs whose Frenchetymon does have a relevant alternation.

+ Wherever this can be checked,Ï mauritian verbs inherit from a single French formÏ that form is the infinitive 78% of the time, and exceptions are scattered

+ The infinitive can be assumed as the only source for 98% of the verbsHenri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 45 / 70


Sources of long forms: verbs in -i and -e

Alternation Source of long form examples #

Xe∼XINF/PST.PTCP/. . . laver > lave 1353non-INF kone 2form+e assis > asize 2ambiguous mettez/mett- > mete 8

Xe∼Y INF/PST.PTCP/. . . rester > reste 19

Xe∼XeINF/PST.PTCP/. . . jongler > zongle 284other né > ne 3

X i∼X i INF/PST.PTCP/. . . fini > fini 109

X i∼X INF/PST.PTCP/. . . sortir > sorti 2Mauritian verbs ending in -e or -i



Sources of long forms: other verbs

Ï The remaining verbs are all non-alternating

French paradigm cell examples #

INFINITIVEdire > dir

129vivre > vivcroire > krwar

PST.PTCPmort > mor

11foutu > foutioffert > ofer

PRS.SGdoit > dwa

9comprend > konpranvaut > vo

Otherdéteint > detin 3éclos/éclot > eklo?éteigne > tengn

Mauritian verbs not ending in -e or -i



Interim conclusions

Ï The kind of morphology found in the creoles correlates with highlyperceptible properties of the inflectional morphology of the lexifier

Ï Prevalence of syncretism in French

+ Assumption that the statistical distribution of inflected forms inspoken French have been rather stable over time.

Ï Origin of Mauritian forms:Ï The Mauritian paradigm always stems from a single French formÏ That form is most often but not always the a syncretic form

corresponding to the INF or PST.PCP or 2PL.PRST, . . . .

Ï Interesting result: French alternations play a crucial role in shapingMauritian paradigms, but the alternating forms did not survive.



Interim conclusions

Ï Many possible causes for why the French forms did not survive, which,in many cases can’t be told apart for lack of documentation.

Ï Independent influence of holistic perception of paradigms and specificinheritance of forms

Ï Late regularization because of sustained influence from FrenchÏ Substratic contributionÏ . . .

Ï Differences in FLC can also be explained by the nonstandard varietiesspoken, type and token frequency (kouri vs galoupe)



Predictions

Is a similar development born out in other French lexified creoles?+ Alternating forms but not similar functions.


Verb form alternation in FLC Verb form alternation in FLC

Cross creole comparison 11

Reunionese Louisiana Creole Guadeloupean Haitian

Gloss

LF SF

LF SF LF SF LF SF

ale ale ale ale6 ale ay ale al/ay ‘go’

vɛne vɛn vini vin7 vini vin vini vin ‘come’

soɚti soɚrt sɔɾti sɔɾ sɔti sɔt sɔti sɔt ‘exit/go out’

konɛt kone kɔnɛ kɔnɛ { save sav } kɔnɛ kɔn ‘know’ kɔnɛt kɔnɛt

Table 3: Comparison of 4 French-based creoles’ long and short forms.

While we focus here only on three French-based creoles, Mauritian, Guadeloupean and Haitian,

we hypothesize that verb form alternations in French-based creoles are unequivocally more

complex than previously acknowledged. Moreover, this complexity is highlighted in word

formation processes such as conversion, which we examine in the next section.

5 Approaches to derivation and conversion

Our analysis is based within theoretical framework of lexeme-based morphology (Matthews

1972, Aronoff 1994) where the lexeme is defined as an entity abstracted away from the syntactic

contexts in which it may appear. In inflectional languages, a lexeme is usually associated a

collection of stems used to form the inflected forms that can be inserted into sentences. For

instance French verb BOIRE ‘to drink’ has a stem [byv] upon which are built the inflected forms

[byvɔ] (buvons), [byve] (buvez), [byvɛ] (buvais), etc. and a stem [bwa] upon which are formed

the word-forms [bwa] (bois, boit). Those stems are morphomic as defined by Aronoff (1994).

That is they are pure forms, without any meaning, and bearing no morphosyntactic properties.

6 Louisiana Creole shows a short form [al] alternating with the verb [ale] meaning ‘to haul/pull’. 7 Both Mauritian and Louisiana Creole have the form [vjɛ] but are late borrowings and are used next to [vin].

Figure: Comparison of verb form alternation across FLC (Henri et al, to appear)



Lousiana creole

Ï Linguistic descriptionsNeumann (1985)Klingler (2003)

Ï LexicaDatabase of inflected verbs under construction on thebasis of (Valdman 1998)

Ï CorporaTranslation-Example Questionnaire Fieldwork: December 2013,

February 2014Spontaneous Interviews (with Tom Klingler)



Louisiana Creole

Ï More than 50% of Louisiana Creole verbs distinguish between long andshort forms (Neumann 185, Klingler 2003)

LF mete konE pEdi sORti uRa kOpRan gOn viv

SF mEt konE pEd sOÄ uRa kOpRA gOn viv

TRANS. ‘put’ ‘know’ ‘lose’ ‘go ‘hurry’ ‘understand’ ‘go’/ ‘live’out’ ‘went’



Louisiana creole: True morphology

The alternation is a morphological one+ It is not phonologically predictable

LF tSwe abitSwe fini vini menE konE bat abat

⇓SF tSu/tSi/ty abitSwe fini vin vjE mEn konE ba abat

‘kill’ ‘used to’ ‘finish’ ‘come’ ‘bring’ ‘know ’ ‘beat’ ‘depressed’

LF pikte pike baRe baRde fOde fOn tAde tAn

⇑SF pik baÄ fOn tAn

‘nibble’ ‘prick’ ‘lock’ ‘dart off’ ‘establish’ ‘melt’ ‘hear’ ‘hang out’



Haitian

Ï Linguistic descriptions

Lefebvre (1998), Degraff (2001, 2005, 2007)Ï Lexique

Database of verbs compiled from Valdman (2007)Ï Corpus

linguistic atlas of Haiti (Fattier 1998)Fieldwork data (with Herby Glaude)



Haitian

Ï Collection of 2657 distinct verbs listed in Valdman (2007)Ï Phentic transcription of their long and short forms.Ï Only 12 verbs alternate

+ Dictionaries are often non exhaustive . . .

FL ale baj fEt flAke fute gade gEjE kOnE mete fini sOti vini

FC al ba fE flAk fut gad gE kOn met fin sOt vin

TRAD. ‘go’ ‘give’ ‘do’ ‘chuck out’ ‘throw’‘look’ ‘get’ ‘know’ ‘put’ ‘finish’ ‘go out’ ‘come’

Ï Phonological reduction (Alleyne 96), precisely a reduction in syllabicstructure

+ General tendecny in Haitian (Cadely 1994)



Prédictibilité

Ï The short form in Haitian seems to be phonologically predictableÏ 9 cases of final vowel truncation with resyllabification (ale, flAke, fute,

gade, kOnE, mete, fini, sOti, vini - Schema 1)Ï 2 cases final vowel truncation (baj, fEt - Schema 2)Ï 1 case final syllable truncation (gEjE)

+ Glides exhibit particular propertiesÏ The fact that we have phonological predictability does not mean the

phenomenon shoud be left unaccounted forÏ The distribution of LF and in Haitian is rule-governed; not necessarily

phonologically conditioned

La taille du phénomène Haïtien

Prédictibilité

! Si l’alternance résulte d’un amuïssement, alors la FC estphonologiquement prédictible

! 9 cas de de chute de la voyelle finale avec resyllabification (ale, flAke,fute, gade, kOnE, mete, fini, sOti, vini - Schéma 1)

! 2 cas de chute de la consonne finale (baj et fEt - Schéma 2)! 1 cas d’amuïssement de la syllabe finale (gEjE)

☞ Les semi-consonnes ont souvent des propriétés particulières

σ

A

C

R

N

V

a

C

σ

A

C

l

R

N

V

✁e

C

σ

A

C

b

R

N

V

a

C

✄✄j

Henri (Paris7/LLF, Paris) CIEC 2012 8 / 32Figure: Phonological predictibility in HaitianHenri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 57 / 70


Guadeloupean

Ï Linguistic descriptionsNo description on verbs since it is assumed there is noinflectionAlso Martiniqué and other Lesser Antillean Frenchlexified creoles

Ï LexicaDatabase of inflected verbs under construction on thebasis of (Tourneux & Barbotin 1990, Ludwig et al. 2002)

Ï CorporaTranslation-Example Questionnaire Fieldwork: December 2012Spontaneous Interviews



Guadeloupean

Ï Collection of 1825 distinct verbs listed in Tourneux & Barbotin (1990)and Ludwig et al. (2002)

Ï 34 Guadeloupean verbs distinguish between a long and short form

LF mete save kEbe fEt fale bay gade fute

SF mEt sav kEn fe fo ba/bA gE fu

TRANS. ‘put’ ‘know’ ‘hold’ ‘do’ ‘must’ ‘give’ ‘look’ ‘throw’

Ï Not phonologically predictable given the suppletive forms found in theparadigm



Other French lexified creoles

Ï The extent of verb form alternation is similar across Indian Oceancreoles: Seychellois, Rodriguais, Chagossien, Reunionese

Ï Reunionese has been argued to be decreolizing due to the use of a theFUT.IND in some varieties

+ Plain contact?

Ï Lesser Antillean French creoles: The phenomenon has been ignoredÏ Tayo: Erhart (1993) mentions 3 alternating verbs



Verb form alternation: function

Ï The function of verb form alternation differs across FLCÏ More homogeneity in IOCÏ Drastically different in the Americas

+ Next time: Distribution of verb form alternation in FLC



Extending the methodology to other creoles

Ï Indo-PortugueseÏ The inflectional paradigm in IP is reminiscent of the structure of

Portuguese+ The sociohistorical contexts palays a role in the extension seen in IP

Ï Sranan: wan, wani ‘want’, drink, drinki ‘drink’, . . .

Ï Are the English bare and gerunds forms salient and most frequent?


Verb form alternation in FLC Indo-portuguese

The Portuguese conjugation system

Ï Portuguese verbal paradigm: 66 cellsÏ 3 conjugation classes, each with its own perceptible theme vowel

Ï lavar ‘wash’ (class1)


IND.PRS lav-o lava-s lava lava-mos lava-is lava-m

IND.PST.IPFV lava-va lava-vas lava-va lava-vamos lava-veis lava-vam

IND.PST.PFV lav-ei lava-ste lavou lava-mos lava-stes lava-ram

IND.PST.PRF lava-ra lava-ras lava-ra lava-ramos lava-reis lava-ram

IND.FUT lava-rei lava-ras lava-ra lava-remos lava-reis lava-rao

SBJV.PRS lav-e lave-s lave lave-mos lave-is lave-m

SBJV.PST lava-sse lava-sses lava-sse lava-ssemos lava-sseis lava-ssem

SBJV.FUT lava-r lava-res lava-r lava-rmos lava-rdes lava-rem

COND lava-ria lava-rias lava-ria lava-rıamos lava-rıeis lava-riam

IMP --- lava lave lave-mos lava-i lave-m

INF.PERS lava-r lava-res lava-r lava-rmos lava-rdes lava-rem

INF.IMPERS PTCP GERlava-r lava-do/a lava-ndo



The Portuguese conjugation system

Ï lavar ‘wash’ (class1)


IND.PRS lav-o lava-s lava lava-mos lava-is lava-m

IND.FUT lava-ra lava-ras lava-ra lava-remos lava-reis lava-rao

Ï beber ‘drink’ (class2)


IND.PRS beb-o bebe-s bebe bebe-mos bebe-is bebe-m

IND.FUT bebe-ra bebe-ras bebe-ra bebe-remos bebe-reis bebe-rao

Ï subir ‘go up’ (class3)


IND.PRS sub-o sobe-s sobe subi-mos subi-s sobe-m

IND.FUT subi-ra subi-ras subi-ra subi-remos subi-reis subi-raoHenri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 64 / 70


The Daman / Korlai conjugation system

Ï Verbal paradigms in Daman & Korlai creoles: 4 cells

+ Inflection classes marked by theme vowels+ Extension of a 4th class for loans of substratic origin.

kanta kume subi beblu‘sing’ ‘eat’ ‘go up’ ‘mutter’

BASE kanta kume subi bebluPAST kant-o kume-u subi-u bebluPROGRESSIVE kanta-n kume-n subi-n beblu-nCOMPLETIVE kanta-d kumi-d subi-d beblu-d

Daman Creole PortugueseAdapted from Clements (2002)



The origin of D/K paradigms

Ï Each paradigm cell has a clearly identifiable precedent in Portuguese,both in terms of form and in terms of function.

Daman PortugueseBASE FORM

⇐=INFINITIVE

lava lava-rkume come-rsubi subi-r

PAST FORM

⇐=PST.PFV

lav-o lav-oukume-u come-usubi-u subi-u

Daman PortugueseCOMPLETIVE

⇐=PST.PTCP

lava-d lava-do/akumi-d comi-do/asubi-d subi-do/a

PROGRESSIVE

⇐=GERUND

lava-n lava-ndokume-n come-ndosubi-n subi-ndo



The origin of D/K paradigms

Ï Conclusion: Indo-Portuguese has retained much of the Portuguesestructure

K/D

survival of inflection class system yessurvival of function of paradigm cells yesorigin of forms clear

Ï Opaque forms are not commonplace in Portuguese unlike French



Paradigm opacity in Portuguese

Ï In EP, almost all cells in the paradigm contain a theme vowelprecluding paradigm opacity

+ This is true for all but 1 (PRS.IND.1SG) of the 66 paradigm cells

Type frequency Token frequency Token frequency(written corpora) (spoken corpora)

Portuguese 98% 99.96% 92.57%French 27% 33.77% 28.53%

Proportion of paradigm cells with a diagnostic vowel alternation(data from CETEMPúblico, Le Monde and C-ORAL-ROM)



Paradigm entropy

Ï In portuguese the paradigm is partially opaque

lexeme 1SG 2SG 3SG 1PL 2PL 3PL INF

lavar l"avu l"av5S l"av5 l5v"5muS l5v"aiS l"av5u l5v"aR

beber b"ebu b"Eb@S b"Eb@ b@b"emuS b@b"5iS b"Eb5ı b@b"eR

subir s"ubu s"Ob@S s"Ob@ sub"imuS sub"iS s"Ob5ı sub"iR

Ï Paradigm entropy in Portuguese compared to French

Language p. entropy

French 0.2117 bitsE. Portuguese 0.1197 bits

+ Maintaining the Portuguese system is not as costly as in French



Sociohistorical contexts

Ï The sociohistorical context where IP emerge is slightly different fron that of otherPortuguese lexifier creoles


morphology of creole languages · 2019. 9. 24. · morphology of creole languages tracing the...

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