The genesis of creoles: when interim grammars become permanent

The Oxford Handbook of Universal Grammar,, 2017

The Ecology of Language Evolution, 2001

Acquisition et interaction en langue étrangère, 2009

Second language (L2) acquisition is widely assumed to have played a role in the emergence of creole genesis. However, the impact of L2 acquisition may not have been restricted to its genesis. In Surinam, newcomers outnumbered locally-born speakers of the Creole throughout the 18 th century. To date we know little about the effects that this disproportion of non-native vs. native speakers may have had in the initial and subsequent stages of development of these Creoles. In this paper we combine historical and contemporary data in order to investigate the impact of L2 acquisition and use on developing creoles. We examine several linguistic features in contemporary native (L1) as well as non-native (L2) creole speech in order to reveal the differences in the underlying L1 and L2 systems. These are then compared with their equivalents in the available historical sources. The findings suggest that L2 acquisition affected the development of some linguistic subsystems while others appear little influenced.

Yearbook of Morphology, 2003

The most intriguing question about creole languages is without doubt that of how they come about. This paper addresses the problem of the emergence of productive morphology in these languages on the basis of the case study of Haitian Creole (henceforth HC). The aim of this paper is threefold: 1) propose methodologies that need to be developed in order to study the morphology of creole languages; 2) present a scenario of the emergence of productive morphology in these languages within the framework of what has come to be known as the relexification account of creole genesis (Lefebvre 1998 and the references therein) 1 ; and 3), address the current issues bearing on the study of the derivational morphology of creole languages on the basis of the data discussed in this paper. The paper is organised in the following way. Section 1 addresses the problem of identifying affixes that are potentionally native (that is productive) to a given creole and proposes tests designed to identify this potentially productive morphology. Section 2 addresses the issue of the productivity of the affixes identified as potentionally native to a * The content of this paper was presented at the Siegen International Workshop on the Phonology and Morphology of Creole Languages, August 2001, under the title " O n developing methodologies for studying the morphology of creole languages". I would like to thank the participants to the workshop for their most useful comments and questions. I am greatful to

Linguistic Typology, 2001