Creole Genesis

Creole Genesis

Can creoles adopt morphosyntax from their substrates?

(Don't worry, we'll define those words)

Native languages in a given area are just minding their own business...

Suddenly, a conqueror appears.

You might be thinking:

That's cool, but it sounds like linguists already knew it.

True, but the thing keeping them up at night

is the mechanism by which this occurs.

The usual model thinks of the process as a funnel:

The only problem is, that's not completely true.

These languages arose when speakers of Melanesian, Polynesian, and Papuan languages came under English control.

Over time, a pidgin with mostly English

vocabulary spread throughout the area

through trade and colonization.

The many islands kept in close contact, and produced a set of similar creole languages: Tok Pisin,

Bislama, and Solomon Islands pidgin.

English makes the following distinctions:

Creoles usually follow this simple pattern, except that the 3rd person singular reduces to one form for all genders.

But the creoles have a much larger system. Bislama is shown below:

These are more complex features than we find in most creoles, or in English, for that matter. So where did they come from?

Take a look at the system used by Tolai, one of the substrate languages:

Note that this language has a corresponding form for those found in Bislama, including inclusive/exclusive 1st person and singular, dual, trial, and plural number.

Instead of taking on the whole words representing the different substrate personal pronouns, the Melanesian Pidgin creoles contributed the concepts as they existed in the minds of speakers of the various substrates, and adapted English morphemes to fit that system:

Well, that's cool. But what are the implications for linguistics?

I'm so glad you asked.

The theories of how human language in general works inside the mind, not just the formation of creoles, have drawn on research done on creole genesis to come up with ideas such as the universal language faculty, under the assumption that creoles do not or cannot adopt the morphology or syntax of any of their parent languages. As we see in the Bislama personal pronouns, this is not entirely true. Such data raises more questions than it answers, but offers a valuable insight into creole genesis, proving the ability of substrates to contribute to the morphology of creole languages.

Thanks for listening.

Superstrate:

Substrate(s):

phonology

morphology

lexicon

syntax

semantics

(pidgin)

First generations access innate language ability to fill in the gaps:

This creates a creole: a full-fledged language with multiple parents and, according to this model, a very simple grammar which has more in common with other creoles than it does with the source languages.

phonology

morphology

lexicon

syntax

semantics

Step 1

A typical contact situation:

This language is made of the same basic components as the others, but there's one crucial difference: the people who speak this language have power, and the natives don't.

Power usually= stuff like horses and guns.

Each language is made of the same parts as all human languages, but arranged in their own way:

phonology = the sounds

morphology = the parts of words

which carry meaning

lexicon = the vocabulary

syntax = how the words are

arranged in phrases

semantics = what it all means

The conquered people have resources, and the conquerors want them. All these languages are now forced into contact with each other:

• on plantations
• on slave ships
• at forts
• and so on.

But the relationship is far from equal.

The language with power is called the superstrate, while the languages without power are the substrates.

As speakers of many languages interact in this environment, they come up with a bare minimum way to trade, give and receive orders, and perform other basic tasks (but no sonnets)

These languages take most of their sounds from the substrate languages of the area, and most of their vocabulary from English. That's pretty normal.

But look at the personal pronouns:

Let's look at a specific case of output:

the Melanesian Pidgin Creoles

etc.

Step 2

This resulting survival-level mixture is a pidgin.

It usually bases most of its lexicon (vocabulary) on the conquerors' language,

but adapts the words to fit a simplified version of the phonology (sound system) of the conquered peoples' languages.

Singular Plural

1 I we

2 you you

3 he/she/it they

Tolai pronoun:

Bislama pronoun:

dor

yumitufala

[+1]

[+inclusive]

[+dual]

[+1]

[+inclusive]

[+dual]

[-singular]

mi

yu

tu

fala

Pidgin-speakers have children, who grow up in homes where it's the only language in common.

Singular Dual Trial Plural

1 iau amir amital avet

1 (incl) dor datal dat

2 u amur amutal avat

3 ia dir dital diat

Singular Dual Trial Plural

1 mi mitufala mitrifala mifala

1 (incl) yumitufala yumitrifala yumi

2 yu yutufala tutrifala yufala

3 hem oli

Step 3

In the absence of a full-fledged language,

the first generations in such a situation do something incredible:

They invent one.

The resulting language is a creole. It takes parts of the superstrate, parts of the substrates, and the pidgin, and mixes them.

Andrew Livingston