Linguists have long posited
``abnormal'' (i.e., ``nongenetic'') transmission in Creole genesis, supposedly
with ``significant discrepancies'', in opposition to ``normal''
(i.e., ``genetic'') transmission in ``regular'' language change,
whereby a language is ``passed down from one speaker generation to the
next with changes spread more or less evenly across all parts of the
language'' (see, e.g., Thomason and Kaufman 1988).
This is what I call ``Creole Exceptionalism''.
In this paper, I select various patterns in morphology and word order
in order to question Creole Exceptionalism. Take ``discrepancies'' in
one core domain of Creole genesis, namely VP-related
morphosyntax. Are such discrepancies at all ``exceptional''?
I start with a sample of VP-related
properties in Haitian Creole (HC)--a bona fide Creole on
sociohistorical grounds. I compare the morphosyntax of verbs
and object pronouns in HC and in some of its major source languages.
I also speculate on the development of said morphosyntax from the
perspective of second- and first-language acquisition and the role of
grammaticalization and reanalysis therein. This, in turn, leads me to
examine various theoretical proposals on the morphology-syntax
interface vis-à-vis verb and object placement in language
change/creation, and to consider germane patterns in Germanic and
French diachrony. I also compare the HC patterns with their
counterparts from a couple of other Romance-lexifier Creoles, namely
Cape Verdean Creole
(lexifier: Portuguese) and Palenquero Creole (lexifier: Spanish).
My conclusions are fourfold: (i) Even within a small sample
of Romance-lexifier Creoles, there is no structural ``Creole''
uniformity in the VP and its extended projections.
(ii) Certain ``discrepancies'' in French and English
diachrony seem as ``significant'' as their analogues in Creole
diachrony. (iii) This paper's observations argue against the
classic (e.g., Bickertonian) Pidgin-to-Creole scenarios whereby
pidginization qua structural ``break in transmission'' produces a
macaronic and affixless pidgin that subsequently seeds a Creole qua
ab ovo creation. (iv) Similarly, there is little
evidence from HC to support Lefebvre's relexification hypothesis
whereby HC grammar would essentially reflect substratum grammar with
the French contribution strictly limited to phonetic strings
``deprived of [syntactic and semantic] features'' and to word-order
patterns in lexical
projections only (Lefebvre 1998).
The overall conclusion is that Creole languages do not constitute a
well-delineated and exceptional class (i.e., there are no special
diachronic processes of ``creolization'' and there is no distinct and
uniform ``Creole'' typology): ``creolization'' and ``language change''
reflect processes of language development that are uniform across the
species.
Keywords:
Acquisition;
Cape Verdean Creole;
Creolization;
French;
Germanic;
Grammaticalization;
Haitian Creole;
Language change;
Morphology-syntax interface;
Object placement;
Palenquero;
Reanalysis;
Relexification;
Tense-Mood-Aspect;
Verb placement;
Word order.