Papers by Silvia Kouwenberg
Papiamentu as one of the most complex languages in the world: A reply to Kouwenberg
Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages, 2012
In a recent issue of JPCL, Silvia Kouwenberg (2010; henceforth 'K') discusses a p... more In a recent issue of JPCL, Silvia Kouwenberg (2010; henceforth 'K') discusses a paper of mine (Parkvall 2008), in which I intended to demonstrate that creoles are structurally less complex than other languages. 1 K is opposed to the idea, and supports her argumentation by drawing attention to a number of perceived errors in my article. However, K's discussion contains quite a few misunderstandings, which deserve being pointed out. K does have some valid points, and she does indicate her awareness of the unavoidability of some shortcomings, which I am grateful for. She is, for instance, partly correct in saying (p 372) that 'the weighting of different subsystems of grammar appears arbitrary' , although I would rather prefer to call it 'absence of weighting'. But, yes, any account of any language that does not take all its features into account (which is clearly impossible, given that no such description has been produced for any language in the history of humankind) can be accused of arbitrariness with there being at least some amount of truth to the accusation. The remark becomes a bit trivial, however, in view of the fact that our information is doomed to always be more or less incomplete, and the question remains , then, whether we should try to do our best with what we have, or whether we should simply give up all our attempts to make any meaningful statements about languages. It should be borne in mind, however, that my study was based on 53 linguistic features in 185 languages, which is a database far larger than is usually the case in creolistics.
De Gruyter eBooks, May 17, 2011
John Benjamins Publishing Company eBooks, 2013
Although many aspects of Creole languages remain relatively unexplored, the morphology of Creole ... more Although many aspects of Creole languages remain relatively unexplored, the morphology of Creole languages has been especially neglected. This is largely because it is still widely believed that Creoles have very little in the way of morphology, even compared to an inflection-poor language such as English. Moreover, the morphology that Creoles do have is often assumed to be quite similar from one Creole language to another and is further thought to be predictable and transparent. However, there is an emerging body of research on Pidgin and Creole morphology showing that the hypothesis of semantic transparency and regularity in Creole morphology does not stand up to scrutiny. The purpose of this paper is to explore the typological characteristics of morphological reduplication in Caribbean Creole (CC) languages, and to assess these characteristics against this background. To this purpose, we will examine reduplication in a sample of CC languages of different lexifiers (Dutch, English, French, Portuguese and Spanish), with respect to their form, semantics and distribution. Our research confirms that morphological reduplication is not uniform across these languages. Moreover, it shows that reduplication is surprisingly complex within a single language.
10. Purposive and resultative constructions
De Gruyter eBooks, May 17, 2011
4. Copular sentences
De Gruyter eBooks, May 17, 2011
17. Basic vocabulary
De Gruyter eBooks, May 17, 2011
3. Structure of the main clause
De Gruyter eBooks, May 17, 2011
7. Adpositional structures
De Gruyter eBooks, May 17, 2011
6. The noun phrase
De Gruyter eBooks, May 17, 2011
12. Relative clauses
De Gruyter eBooks, May 17, 2011
Linguistics in the Caribbean
Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages, Aug 3, 2011
For creolists, Jamaica is a place where an English-lexifier Creole is spoken. Officially though, ... more For creolists, Jamaica is a place where an English-lexifier Creole is spoken. Officially though, Jamaica is English-speaking only. This means that Jamaican Creole, known as Patwa (or “Patois,” in an English-derived spelling) does not have official status, and has no legitimacy in any of the public institutions through which the state interacts with and intervenes in the lives of its citizens, including the judicial system, public health care institutions, and schools. In this column, I collaborate with 11 graduates of the linguistics programme at The University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, to trace their journey to language awareness and language activism.
Battlebridge eBooks, 2003
15. Passive constructions
De Gruyter eBooks, May 17, 2011
16. Bare nouns in Berbice Dutch Creole
Berbice Dutch determinerless nouns occur frequently in factive contexts, as specific reference no... more Berbice Dutch determinerless nouns occur frequently in factive contexts, as specific reference nouns – an unexpected finding, as specific reference is usually associated with definiteness, and Berbice Dutch does not lack a definite article. I argue that specific reference as established in discourse is marked by an overt definite article, but that specific reference which is established outside the discourse is marked by a covert definite article. Roberts's (2003) distinction between strong and weak familiarity is able to distinguish between these types of specific reference. Determinerless nouns occur also as plural and mass indefinites on first mention, and as nonreferential nouns, in predicate-like positions. Such bare nouns can be overtly pluralized and are in complementary distribution with overt indefinites, pointing to the presence of a covert indefinite article. This, I argue, heads NumP, like its overt counterpart.
11. Complement clauses
De Gruyter eBooks, May 17, 2011
5. Minor sentence types
De Gruyter eBooks, May 17, 2011
14. Focus and predicate cleft constructions
7. Adpositional structures
A Grammar of Berbice Dutch Creole
15. Passive constructions
2. Word order
A Grammar of Berbice Dutch Creole
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Papers by Silvia Kouwenberg