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Creole typology I
Comparative overview of creole languages
Peter Bakker and Aymeric Daval-Markussen
Aarhus University
is chapter provides an overview of structural properties of creole languages
based on widely dierent languages and spoken in a broad geographic range.
We discuss phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon. Phonologically, creoles
tend to have average properties. Creoles are generally not endowed with a rich
morphological apparatus, for instance contextual inection is largely absent,
but compounding, reduplication and some derivational processes are common.
Syntactically, creoles are quite diverse in their nominal structures. Preverbal
markers are common in the verb phrase. A relatively xed constituent order is
found in the basic transitive sentence, mostly SVO. ese creole properties are
compared with a sample of non-creole languages. e results suggest that lexi-
cally, creoles seem to be less mixed than European languages.
5.1 Introduction
Which properties do creoles share? In this chapter, we discuss recurrent properties
of creoles observed in a wide range of creoles worldwide. ese are generaliza-
tions, almost all of which have exceptions. Only a few studies based on extensive
comparisons of creoles have been undertaken (e.g. Velupillai 2015). Comparative
studies on creoles will be summarized in the next chapter.
5.2 Phonology
e consensus among creolists specialized in phonology is that there is nothing
typologically special or distinctive about creole languages that sets them apart
from non-creoles. For instance, Klein (2011: 155) nds that creole phonological
properties “are quite unremarkable in comparison with non-creole languages
around the world”, compared to the diversity observed in other languages of the
world (Klein 2011: 155). Smith (2008: 103) agrees that the phonological systems
./z..bak
© John Benjamins Publishing Company
80 Peter Bakker and Aymeric Daval-Markussen
of creole languages “do not form any kind of unique type” (Smith 2008: 112).
Likewise, Good (2013: 71) mentions that creole phonologies are “average”, and
therefore unremarkable. Still, creoles may be special in that no extremes are found
in this group of languages.
5.2.1 Creole segmental inventories
omas Klein has conducted a number of studies about the phonological properties
of creoles. He used three dierent samples to study the phoneme inventories of (i) a
number of African creoles (2006b), (ii) only creoles based on Portuguese and Spanish
(2005), and (iii) a wide range of creoles worldwide (2006a). e creole data were com-
pared with those from UPSID, the UCLA Phonological Segment Inventory Database
(Maddieson 1984), which contains data on segmental inventories of 451 languages, or
from the Wo r ld At l as of L an g ua g e S t ru c t ur es (WALS, Haspelmath et al. 2005, 2008).
According to Maddieson’s (1984) criteria, 70% of the world’s languages fall under
the category “average”. Hence, 15% on each side would be considered extreme. Two
thirds of the languages in UPSID (based on Maddieson 1984 and related work) have
ve to seven vowels, and this can be said to be an average score. In WALS (Maddieson
2005a), vowel inventories can be small (4 or fewer), average (5–6), or large (7–14).
Iberian creoles have rather average inventories: ve to eight vowels (Klein 2005).
Maddieson’s criteria covering 70% of the world’s languages (Maddieson
1984: 7), established a range of between 20 and 37 phonemes for most languages.
All creoles spoken in Africa have “typical” phoneme inventories (Klein 2006b),
within this range.
As to manner of articulation of stops, Klein (2005, 2006b) concluded that
about two thirds of the creoles are typical of “average” languages. e rest are
“complex”, while none of the creoles in his sample display a simple inventory.
Klein’s sample of 23 creoles from all over the globe (Klein 2006a) conrms these
ndings. Again, the creoles typically fall within the range of what can normally be
observed in the world’s languages. e one exception is Ndyuka English creole of
Surinam, which has fewer than 20 phonemes, and is classied as “simple”, having
19 phonemes. With regard to vowels, 18 creoles fall within the average range and
5 out of 23 are complex, having 8 or 9 vowels.
One can conclude that the great majority of creoles have “typical” phoneme
inventories (18 out of 23), falling within the range of 70% of the world’s languages.
Despite their scores within average ranges, some cross-linguistically uncom-
mon phonemes are also encountered, e.g. co-articulated stops in Saramaccan, in-
terdental fricatives in Angolar, and pre-nasalized consonants in several Atlantic
creoles with English, Spanish and Portuguese lexiers (see Parkvall 2000, chapter3).
Chapter 5. Creole typology I 81
Creole segmental inventories fall within the range of “average” languages,
within the range of what is attested for non-creoles, or in some few cases more
complex than average. In other words, on the one hand creoles are average, but on
the other hand they are also somewhat exceptional in that there are no extremes in
that none falls within the 15% upper or lower range of non-creoles. An explanation
may be that neither a small nor a large inventory contributes to clarity in commu-
nication in a situation of extreme language contact, as in the genesis of creoles. If a
language has many phonemes, it is more dicult to learn, based on this parameter,
as there are more distinctions. However, if there are few phonemes, it becomes
dicult to distinguish between similar words, and therefore such a language is
harder to learn because of this lack of dierentiation (cf. Trudgill 2004: 316).
5.2.2 Creole phonotactics
e properties of creole phonotactics have not been studied systematically for a
large number of languages. It is sometimes said that creoles tend to have a high
frequency of CV syllables, with fewer consonant clusters or diphthongs (e.g. Holm
2000; Romaine 1988; Valdman 1978). No typologically unusual phonotactic pat-
terns have been reported. Data from the Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Structures
(APiCS, Michaelis et al. 2013) show that most creoles do allow for complex onsets
(41 of 76 languages, i.e. 54%).
Saramaccan, for instance, does not preserve any consonant clusters from
its lexiers English and Portuguese, e.g. toóbi < English trouble, buuká “peel”
from Portuguese esburgar and lígífëlíti < Dutch vliegveld “airport”. On the oth-
er hand, some Ibero-Asian creoles do preserve several clusters from their lexi-
ers, e.g. Chabacano (Sippola 2011; Lesho 2013). Berbice Creole displays dierent
CV patterns for its two lexical components, Ijo and Dutch (Bakker this volume,
Chapter10).
All creole languages have CV patterns, and some quantitative studies show that
CV syllables are the most common ones in creoles (as they are in non-creoles) such
as Virgin Islands Creole Dutch and Saint Lucian French (Klein 2011: 175). Also,
VC syllables are found in all creoles surveyed, and CVC syllables are common.
In a preliminary study of pre-publication APiCS data, Comrie (2011) reported
complex codas for 7.1% of 70 APiCS languages (in the then forthcoming APiCS,
Michaelis et al. 2013; the gure is 8% in the published edition), and for 30.9% of
485 non-APiCS languages, a substantial dierence (see also Maddieson 2005c).
Combinations of vowels are reported from a modest number of creoles (Klein
2011: 175), but to date, no systematic survey on the topic has been conducted.
82 Peter Bakker and Aymeric Daval-Markussen
5.2.3 Creole suprasegmentals
Smith (2008: 112–117) discusses stress, pitch and tone in creoles. Berbice Creole
has xed penultimate stress, other creoles are pitch-based, such as Papiamentu,
while Angolar and Saotomense are examples of tone languages. Most tonal pat-
terns in creoles are lexical, not grammatical. Saramaccan is a relatively complex
tone language (Good 2004, 2009; McWhorter & Good 2012), and split according
to the lexical sources: English roots may have accent, but African words have tones.
Saramaccan is the only creole language for which tone sandhi is reported (Ham
1999). Nevertheless, extensive tone inventories and phenomena such as downstep,
contour tones and patterns of tonal interaction that are very common in African
languages have not been reported for any creole, suggesting that creole tonal systems
are simpler than those of African, Asian and Central American non-creole languages
(McWhorter 2005, 2011: 76–78). Comrie (2011) points out that only 2.7% of APiCS
languages have tones, against 16.7% of 524 WALS languages (Maddieson 2005b).
As for reduplication, several Atlantic creoles appear to have dierent tone and
stress patterns that distinguish meanings. In Jamaican, for instance, yála-yala
means “yellowish” and yala-yála means “very yellow”) (Adamson & Smith 2003;
Kouwenberg & LaCharité 2004, 2011; Gooden 2003).
5.2.4 Summary of Creole phonology
Creole phonologies can be quite dierent from both the lexier and the substrate,
as e.g. Berbice Dutch, Tok Pisin and Annobon phonologies show. Creole phonolog-
ical systems deviate from those of the lexiers, sometimes radically, but they are
never exceptional or typologically rare– and in that sense creoles may be dierent
from non-creoles indeed. Creole phonological systems are not simpler than those
of non-creoles, they tend to be average or sometimes more complex than average,
and only in the area of tones and phonotactics are creoles on average less complex
than non-creoles.
5.3 Creole morphology
e claim that creoles have little or no morphology (e.g. Bloomeld 1933; Seuren
& Wekker 1986; McWhorter 1998, 2001) is widespread both within and outside
creolist circles. Empirical cross-linguistic studies, however, show that creoles do
indeed present morphological systems (Plag 2005). Plag (2008, 2009; see also Plag
2011) discusses morphology in creoles from an interlanguage perspective. He nds
Chapter 5. Creole typology I 83
that the lack of inectional morphology has a parallel in early second language
acquisition, and can be explained as a natural constraint on language acquisition
eective in both situations.
Farquharson (2007) points out, for instance, the presence of a diminutive
prex in Haitian, nominalizer axes in Berbice Dutch, Jamaican and Sranan, as
well as reduplication, compounding and zero-derivation (roots used as nouns as
well as verbs without change in form) in several creoles. In any case, claims that
creoles lack morphology altogether are oen met with indignant reactions (see
e.g. the discussion between DeGra 2001 and Lefebvre 2001, 2003), even though
creoles are not unique (Bakker 2015): many non-creole languages also display
little morphology, e.g. Mandarin. In fact, 15% of the world’s languages have no
inectional morphology according to WALS (Dryer 2013b). In that sense, creoles
are not exceptional.
As the lexical source of many grammatical elements is oen still clear in cre-
oles due to recent grammaticalization, the status of some elements as bound, clit-
icized or free can be dicult to determine. Free and bound forms may coexist,
sometimes in full (lexical) and reduced (grammatical) forms (e.g. Saramaccan táki
“say”, from which táá “tha t”, or tan “sta nd”, f rom w hich ta “non-punctua l aspec t”).
Wor ds in c reo les may be m orp hol ogic al ly simp lex e ven t hou gh they ar e de -
rived from a complex word, or a phrase. Examples abound, like Sranan sidon
“sit down”, Tok Pisin hamas “how much?”. is is also true for nouns that have
assimilated etymological articles as part of the noun stem in French creoles. ese
forms are morphologically simplex constructions, as in Morisyen: latant “aunt”,
mo latant “my aunt”, en latant “an aunt“ (see e.g. Baker 1984; Ladhams 2012).
5.3.1 Inectional morphology
Creoles inherited virtually nothing inection-wise from the lexiers (e.g. gen-
der, person, number, agreement)– which may have strengthened the impression
of morphological scarcity in creoles. Nevertheless, inectional morphology can
be found in several creoles. e bulk of the inectional apparatus of creoles is
the result of grammaticalization processes. For instance, the pronoun him gram-
maticalized into a transitive sux -im in Tok Pisin and other creolized forms of
Melanesian Pidgin. e.g. mi rausim ju “I t hrow you out” (f rom G erman raus “out !”).
Some creoles inherited inf lectional morphemes from the lexifier. Some
Portuguese creoles in India show distinct verb forms marking tense and aspect,
inherited from Portuguese: kato “sang”, katad “sung”, katan “singing” (Clements
1996; Luís 2010). Berbice Dutch has inherited a.o. the -tɛ perfective, -a(rɛ) imper-
fective and -apu plural suxes from Ijo (Kouwenberg 1994).
84 Peter Bakker and Aymeric Daval-Markussen
Two kinds of inection are distinguished, contextual and inherent (Booij
1996). Contextual inection links the inected element to other elements in the
sentence, e.g. person agreement markers in the verb linking to nominal elements,
agreement markers in adjectives linking to nouns or case markers in nouns link-
ing to their function in relation to the verb. In contrast, inherent inection is not
required by a syntactic context, e.g. plural markers on nouns, comparative markers
on adjectives or tense-mood-aspect in the verb. Only inherent inection appears
to be inherited from the lexier in creoles (Luís 2010).
Apart from the scarce inherited morphology, some inection in creoles results
from grammaticalization. For instance, several French-based creoles have cliti-
cized or morphologized person markers and possessive markers, as in Haitian m
ale for mwê ale “I go” (Valdman 1978: 86–89), and granpapa-m “my grandfather”,
with syllabic or axal consonants used for several subject and object pronouns.
Several scholars have also analyzed the creole preverbal TMA markers as being
clitics or even bound morphemes, rather than separate particles (e.g. Veenstra
1994), which would mean that verb forms are inected with morphological person
marking and TMA axation. Berbice Creole has object clitics, from Eastern Ijo
pronouns (Kouwenberg 1992b). Portuguese creoles may both inherit and develop
inectional morphology (Baptista 2011).
Saramaccan has inected prepositions, umi “of mi”, i “of you”, fëën “of him/
her”. It can also be argued that forms like Haitian French creole l pa t la “she was
not there” are morphologically complex verb forms rather than four distinct free
morphemes (Valdman 1978: 92). In non-creole languages, single consonants would
never be considered separate words, but either clitics or bound morphemes.
In creolized Chinuk Wawa of Grand Ronde (an Amerindian-based creole),
the rst person personal pronoun na’iga coexists with a grammaticalized person
marker na- in the verb (likewise, the other pronouns exist as bound and inde-
pendent forms):
(1) Na’iga bu’s-wi’k-na-ła:’dwa
I indeed-neg-1-go
‘I must not go’ (Jacobs 1932: 36)
Also some function words are complex. Zamboangueño (Philippine Creole
Spanish) has complex demonstratives, e.g.: de-este “of this” (Lipski & Santoro
2007: 390–392). e personal pronouns in Solomon Islands Pijin (a creole, despite
its name) combine the person markers mi and iu with fala (< fellow) to denote
plural (mifala, iufala, and iumi for inclusive), and olketa (< all together) for third
person plural. In addition, there are dual (mitufala) and trial forms (mitrifala),
plus inclusive forms (e.g. iumitrifala), yielding in all 15 personal pronoun forms
(Jourdan 2004: 707), thus exceeding the inventory of its lexier English.
Chapter 5. Creole typology I 85
e evidence reviewed above suggests a complete absence of inherited con-
textual inection in creoles, but some inherent inection is inherited from the
lexiers or grammaticalized (see Holm 2008; Luís 2010). Still, compared to global
samples of languages, creoles are found nearly invariably at one end of the spec-
trum, i.e. closer to languages with no inectional morphology than to polysyn-
thetic languages– the latter with perhaps up to 20 derivational and inectional
morphemes (Grant 2002, 2009).
5.3.2
Compounding and derivational morphology, reduplication,
compounding, suppletion
Compounding is the most salient morphological process found in creoles (e.g.
Va ld ma n 19 78: 154), even where it is absent in the lexiers. For instance, French
requires a connecting element like de (“of ”) or à (“to”) between nouns (e.g. French
combat de coqs, “rooster ght”), whereas French creoles do not (e.g. Reunion creole
batay kok, id.).
Most descriptions of creoles contain lists of derivational morphemes, inher-
ited and/or borrowed, e.g. Valdman (1978: 130), Mühlhäusler (1997: 214) and
Steinkrüger (2003). In most creoles, the derivational morphemes have forms de-
rived from the lexier. A study of Saint Lucian Creole (Brousseau 2011) reveals
41 potential derivational morphemes, of which some 16 appear productive. In
Chabacano (Philippines Creole Spanish), at least six of the eight forms of the pre-
xes have been borrowed directly from local Philippine languages, whereas 10 of
the 12 suxes come from the Spanish lexier (Steinkrüger 2003). Spanish axes
only connect to Spanish roots, but Philippine axes can be appended to any lexi-
cal item. e meanings of the axes, here and elsewhere, are only rarely identical
to those in the source languages, but obviously share some of the meaning base.
McWhorter (1998) claims that derivation in creoles is semantically regular,
and overall more predictable, because it is relatively recent. Plag (2011) argues
against this, pointing to some unpredictable meanings of derivations, even in the
earliest Sranan sources (see also Steinkrüger 2003: 266 for Chabacano).
One process that is close to universal in creoles is reduplication (Kouwenberg
2003; Bakker & Parkvall 2005). is is clearly an innovation during the creolization
process, as reduplication is almost completely absent from pidgins (Bakker 2003b)
and from all European lexiers. Baker (2003) conjectures that various patterns of
verb reduplication entail a “tripling [of] the verb stock without the acquisition of
any additional morphemes” (2003: 218). Kouwenberg and LaCharité (2004, 2011)
show that, when looking into details, the morphological processes involving full
or partial reduplication do not speak in favor of a uniform process: reduplication is
used for expressing a range of meanings across creoles, not only intensication and
86 Peter Bakker and Aymeric Daval-Markussen
reiteration, but there are also less iconic meanings such as X-like and the derivation
of adjectives from verbs in some creoles that have their root in West Africa. Aboh
and Smith (2015) argue convincingly that such reduplications are based on Gbe
substrate languages. Grant (2003) argues likewise for substrate/adstrate inuence
for reduplication in Philippine Creole Spanish.
Suppletion is marginal in creoles. Exceptionally, Wellens (2005) reports the
existence of seven ways of forming plural nouns, including three axes in Nubi
Creole Arabic (but see also Chapter9 for a detailed study of plural marking in
another Arabic creole).
5.3.3 Creole morphology: summary
All creoles use compounding, probably all at least some derivation, virtually all
reduplication, and a sizeable minority also inection (Plag 2005). Contextual in-
ection is never inherited. e relative scarcity of morphology cannot easily be at-
tributed to the pidginization process (see Chapter1), since inectional morphology
is not so rare in pidgins (Bakker 2003a; Roberts & Bresnan 2008), but this may also
be because many pidgins have more morphologically-rich lexiers than creoles.
e idea that creoles have little morphology may also be attributed to a tra-
dition of a certain analysis of creoles, as being languages with little morphology.
Several elements can be analysed as clitics or bound morphemes rather than par-
ticles, auxiliaries or pronouns.
5.4 Creole constituent order
In this section, we will discuss dierent general aspects of constituent order in
creoles.
5.4.1 Sentential constituent order
e order of constituents in creoles also deviates from any sample of the world’s
languages, and from pidgins. According to Dryer’s sample of 1377 languages
(2013a), 41% have Subject-Object-Verb (SOV), 35% have Subject-Verb-Object
(SVO), 7% Verb-Subject-Object (VSO), 2% Verb-Objec t-Subjec t (VOS), 1% Object-
Ve rb -S u bj ec t (OV S) , 0 . 3% O bj ec t- Su bj e ct -Ver b (O SV ), w he re a s 189 (1 4%) l an g ua g -
es lack a dominant order. SOV and SVO are clearly the most common, followed
by languages lacking a dominant word order.
Chapter 5. Creole typology I 87
In contrast, almost all creole languages show a rather strict dominant SVO
order. Data from APiCS (Michaelis et al. 2013) reveals that out of the 76 contact va-
rieties considered in the survey, only three languages (Michif, Pidgin Hindustani
and Singlish) do not display a dominant SVO order. is is even true for lan-
guages where the substrate languages and lexier have SOV order. For instance,
Dutch is underlyingly SOV in subordinate clauses, and in clauses with an auxil-
iary (SAuxOV), and in foreigner talk, but SVO in main clauses (Hammarström
2015), and Ijo is a typical SOV language, but Berbice Dutch, with its clear Eastern
Ijo component, is nonetheless SVO (Kouwenberg 1992a). (Classical) Arabic is a
verb-initial language, but Nubi Creole Arabic of Kenya and Uganda, and Juba
Arabic Creole of Sudan have SVO as their basic word order (Heine 1982; Watson
& Ola 1985; Wellens 2005).
When calling creoles typically SVO languages, that does not mean that the
order is always SVO. Nouns and adverbs can oen be fronted for emphasis, and
so can verbs (in the Atlantic creoles the verbs are oen repeated, as in pseudo-
English: “(it is) go I go”).
ere are three groups of exceptions to SVO order. In this rst group, this is
because of a recent shi. Some creoles have shied to a dierent basic word order in
recent times under the inuence of adstrate languages. In the second case, a creole
can develop verbal agreement which allows for a more exible word order. irdly,
a few creoles have always had dominant SOV order, like Taiwan Creole Japanese.
Creoles in the rst group are primarily found in Asia. Some Portuguese creoles
in India show newer SOV order beside SVO order (Clements 1991, 2001, 2007).
Philippine languages are verb-initial, and according to Grant (2002), Philippine
Spanish creoles moved from SVO to VSO, although according to others there is
no unambiguous evidence that they ever were SVO (E. Sippola, p.c.). Sri Lanka
Malay and Sri Lanka Portuguese have become SOV languages under the pressure
of the local Sri Lankan languages Tamil and Sinhala (see Bakker 2000, 2006 for
a brief comparison, based on data in Smith 1979a, 1979b, 1984; Adelaar 1991;
Hussainmiya 1987; see also Nordho 2009, Smith 2013 and other sources).
e second exception is perhaps unique. Chinuk Wawa is the creolized form
of Chinook Jargon (a pidginized form of Lower Chinook) as it developed at the
Grand Ronde reservation in Oregon, and the word order is relatively free in this
language. Word order in the creolized Grand Ronde Chinuk Wawa is free (both
OV and VO occur). Subject clitics precede the verb, and object markers follow the
verb (Jacobs 1932; see also Chinuk Wawa Dictionary Project 2012).
Finally, two pidgincreoles (i.e. languages that have recently creolized and co-
exist with pidgin varieties) and one creole also follow an order that is dierent
from SVO: Nagamese (North East India) conforms to the locally dominant type
and has SOV word order (Sreedhar 1974: 176), and Hiri Motu (Papua New Guinea,
88 Peter Bakker and Aymeric Daval-Markussen
Dutton 1996) displays both SOV and SVO word order. Yilan (Creole Japanese from
Taiwan) is SOV, but younger speakers also use SVO (Chien 2015).
Not surprisingly, creolists have oen mentioned the robust SVO order among
the recurring properties of creoles. For Bickerton (e.g. 1981: 17, 1 98 4) , S VO w a s
a historical coincidence, and not a property dictated by the bioprogram. Seuren
(1998: 292–293) called SVO word order typical of creoles: “If a language has a
Creole origin it is SVO, has TMA [tense-mood-aspect] particles, has virtually no
morphology”. Creoles, or their predecessors in the form of a pidgin, are languages
without case marking. Neither does verbal morphology indicate the semantic roles
of the noun phrase in a sentence. erefore, the most natural way to distinguish
semantic and syntactic roles is by means of a xed word order, and the two noun
phrases, subject and object, are separated by an intervening verb, hence SVO.
Nevertheless, the non-SVO creoles do not have case marking or verbal means
to indicate the semantic roles of NPs. Hammarström & Parkvall (2016) suggest
that the majority of creoles display SVO simply because they inherited the most
common constituent order from their lexiers.
5.4.2 Verb phrase word order
Virtually all creoles display a number of preverbal elements marking tense,
mood and aspect (TMA). ere are few exceptions such as Yilan (Taiwan Creole
Japanese), which indicates time with adverbs (which, in turn, could grammatical-
ize into TMA markers). Creole preverbal markers have been analysed as auxilia-
ries, particles, proclitics, predicate markers and prexes. (Winford 1993, chapter3;
Arends 1989; Baker & Corne 1986; Steinkrüger 2006: 6). With the exception of
Chabacano (Steinkrüger 2009), at least two and oen three of them can be com-
bined in order to express various nuances, and they always appear in the order
tense-mood-aspect-stem (see Bickerton 1981, 1984; Bakker et al. 1994; Singler
1990). Usually, the negative particle precedes the TMA markers and follows the
subject. Givón (1982) argues that the order is determined by increasing semantic
scope: aspect on the verb, mood on the sentence and tense on the discourse.
Some creolists claim that creolization can be compared to processes leading to
the genesis of dialects. Both would be natural developments of lexiers, and there-
fore, creolization would in no way be deviant from regular processes of change (e.g.
Mufwene 2008). Languages without a pidgin past may exhibit one or two preverbal
TMA markers, but only creoles have the possibility to combine them. It should
be said that the order of TMA elements does not follow the order of bound mor-
phemes in non-creoles, where the order is mood-tense-aspect-STEM, or its mirror
image (Bybee 1985; Bakker 2008). Creoles instead use tense-mood-aspect-STEM
Chapter 5. Creole typology I 89
(and no post-verbal markers, except in some Asian Portuguese creoles, Upper
Guinea Portuguese creoles and Berbice Dutch).
Negation either precedes (almost all of) the TMA markers, or it is sentence--
nal, or a combination of both. Muysken & Law (2001: 52) mention TMA-NEG-V
as typical for creoles, but that is an error.
Not only is the order considered xed and typical for creoles, the meanings
are too: the tense marker can be called “anterior”, the mood marker “irrealis” and
the aspect marker “non-punctual”. ere are, however, many exceptions among
creoles, as mentioned above. See Singler (1990) for some additional examples.
5.4.3 Serial verbs
Some, but by no means all, creoles have serial verb constructions. We discuss them
here because they are oen discussed as typical for creole languages. ese can
be directional serial verbs (like he walk come market “he walked to the market”),
instrumental (he take knife cut bread “he cuts the bread with a knife”), beneciary
(she buy book give her “she bought the book for her”), comparative (he big pass
him “he is bigger than him”), or completive (she cut wood nish “she quit cutting
wood”). Serial verbs are typically found only in creoles with substrate languages
that also have serial verbs (Seuren 1990; Parkvall 2000: 70–77; contributions to
Lefebvre 2011). us, verb serialization is not typical for creoles. In fact, most cre-
oles display no serial verbs (see APiCS features 84–86). e three types of serials
are found in between 43 and 52% of the APiCS languages.
5.4.4 Ditransitive constructions
Haspelmath and Michaelis (2003) studied ditransitive constructions in creoles
and compared the results with a sample of languages of the world, especially the
potential substrate languages. Verbal meanings like “send, give, show” can be ex-
pressed as direct object constructions (DOC) (“Lea sold eresa a mango”), as in-
direct-object construction (IOC) (“Lea sold the mango to Teresa”) or as serial verb
constructions (pseudo-English: “Lea sell mango give Teresa”). All three are attest-
ed in creoles, and they argue for the DOC construction to be substrate-inuenced,
as it only appears in Atlantic and Indian Ocean creoles, and not in the Pacic or
Asia, thus reecting the areal predominance of these structures in non-creoles.
90 Peter Bakker and Aymeric Daval-Markussen
5.4.5 Noun phrase word order
Whereas sentential constituent order is relatively homogeneous in creoles, noun
phrase word order is usually close to the order in the lexier (Baptista & Guéron
2007). Mühlhäusler (1986) is a major overview of ordering patterns of nouns and
adjectives, showing that, generally, the Romance creoles inherit the dominant
N-ADJ order of French, Portuguese and Spanish, whereas the Dutch, English and
German creoles display the ADJ-N order typical of the Germanic lexiers.
Mühlhäusler (1986) surveyed 28 pidgins and creoles. 13 of them displayed
a “mixed system” (as in many Romance languages, where a subset of high-fre-
quency adjectives are preposed to the noun, i.e. these languages are both ADJ-N
and N-ADJ, depending on the specic adjective), 12 of them have the word order
ADJ-N and three N-ADJ. e N-ADJ languages in his sample are the pidgincreole
Hiri Motu, displaying the same order as in the lexier Motu (where adjectives are
not a class in themselves) and the Portuguese creoles São Tomé and Papiá Kristang,
reecting the dominant order of Portuguese.
In line with Mühlhäusler (1986), the survey of 18 creoles worldwide in Holm
& Patrick (2007) reveals that all the Romance lexier creoles have both N-ADJ and
ADJ-N order, but also Tok Pisin and Nagamese.
Demonstratives and determiners follow or precede nouns, or both, and nu-
merals precede nouns. APiCS data reveal that prenominal demonstratives are
more common (56 APiCS languages) than the opposite order (34 APiCS languag-
es), with few languages displaying both orders.
Parkvall (2000: 62–63) surveys adpositions and nds that the Atlantic cre-
oles display prepositions rather than postpositions, in line with the Greenbergian
implicational universal that VO languages tend to have prepositions rather than
postpositions (Greenberg 1963). is is conrmed by APiCS data (Huber et al.
2013a), which show that all creoles among the APiCS languages have prepositions,
and only a few also have postpositions.
However, despite this, some SVO creoles have postpositions rather than prep-
ositions. In Holm and Patrick’s (2007) sample, Nagamese and Berbice Dutch are
the only creoles with postpositions, but Berbice also has prepositions (Kouwenberg
1994: 192 .). e Surinamese creoles have both, or rather a combination of prepo-
sitions and postpositions (archaic Sranan na hosi ini– LOC house in). Considering
the fact that postpositions are common in many substrate languages of the Atlantic
creoles, pre-nominal adpositions may be a typical property of the lexiers, and the
SVO order can perhaps be directly connected to the pidginization or creolization
process.
Chapter 5. Creole typology I 91
5.4.6 Attributive possession
Attributive possession concerns the expression of genitive constructions, in which
a relationship of ownership between a nominal, usually animate, possessor (PR)
and a possessed item (possessee, abbreviated PE), is sometimes expressed in com-
bination with a marker (M). ree English examples are: (a) her car (PR-PE), (b)
John’s nose (PR-M-PE), (c) the money of my friend (PE-M-PR).
APiCS data show that possessor-possessee order is less common than the re-
verse (Huber et al. 2013b), with 47 to 56 languages– but many allow both orders.
Attributive possession has been studied in more detail for a sample of 44 pidgin
and creole languages by Heine and Kuteva (2001). ey found only seven types
of attributive possession in pidgins and creoles, out of 14 theoretical possibilities:
two constructions without a marker: PR-PE (type A), PE-PR (type B), three with
a xed connective marker: M-PR-PE (G), PE-M-PR (C) and its mirror image PR-
M-PE (E) and nally two constructions with distinct (usually suppletive) markers
for singular and plural possessors, PR-M-PE (D) and M-PE-PR (F).
Most individual creole languages make use of several dierent constructions.
Types E, F and G are rare in creoles, and all creoles that have these constructions
also have alternative ways of expressing attributive possession. e PE-PR (type B)
construction is only found in Romance-based creoles in their survey. By far, the
most common construction belongs to type C, found in 28 creoles, and in some
pidgins, out of the sample of 44 languages.
Rijkho (2004: 194–196) investigated the order of possessor and possessee in
a sample of 50 non-creole languages. 29 had the order PR-PE, 10 the order PE-PR
and 11 a combined order PR-PE-PR. 18 of the languages had a marker, but it is not
clear what the position is with regard to the PR and PE elements. It is clear that the
frequencies are quite dierent: 28 out of 44 creoles (64%) have the order PE-PR,
but only 22% of the non-creoles.
5.4.7 Predicative possession
By far the most common way of expressing predicative possession is with a verb
meaning “to have, to possess”, although alternatively, some creoles can also use a
construction involving a genitive phrase to the same eect (e.g. with “it is to me”,
see Stassen 2013). Korlai Portuguese creole of India forms an exception, in that it
only has a locative way of expressing possession, along the line of “near me is X”
(Clements 2013).
92 Peter Bakker and Aymeric Daval-Markussen
A verb “to have” is only found in 26% of the world’s languages (Stassen 2013). In
Asia a verb meaning “to have’ is very rare. Here again, creoles dier from non-cre-
oles in proportions of types.
5.4.8 Summary: Creole constituent order
Whereas NP order shows little or no deviation from the lexier except sometimes
in the position of demonstratives and adpositions with regard to the noun, the verb
phrase is usually radically restructured: an order S-NEG-TMA-V-O predominates.
ere are also SOV and VSO creoles. Serial verbs, ditransitives and possessives
show a variety of constructions, oen linked to substrate inuence.
5.5 e creole lexicon
e lexicon of creoles has not been studied systematically from a cross-linguistic
point of view, and this section is therefore more a summary of some previous work,
and contains some suggestions for future studies.
ere are a number of questions that have been asked with regard to the lexi-
con of creoles. First, creolists have discussed whether the lexicon of creole languag-
es is more or less mixed than the lexicon of non-creole languages. Second, there
has been a discussion on the size of creole lexicons: are there more or fewer words
or roots in creoles than in other languages? Related to this is the question of expan-
sion of the lexicon: how can one create new meanings on the basis of a set of exist-
ing words and meanings? ird, there is an idea in the creolist world that a creole
language can replace all of its lexicon, perhaps with the exception of a few traces,
towards a dierent lexicon. is idea has been called the relexication hypothesis.
ere are in fact three distinct meanings of the term relexication, to be discussed
below. Fourth, creolists have attempted to nd traces of substrate languages in
creoles, i.e., when discussing lexicon, vocabulary from– in the case of Atlantic
creoles– African languages. Not all of those West African patterns are direct bor-
rowings of words, they include collocations e.g. “eye water” for “tear”. Fih, one
can ask whether creoles behave like other natural languages in the range of basic
meanings, in the sense of atoms and molecules, following the Natural Semantics
Metalanguage framework (e.g. Goddard 2011). Next, Holm (1988, chapter3) has
pointed out that creoles oen display archaisms, nautical terms, vulgar terms and
traits from certain regions in the homeland of the lexiers (Holm 1988: 100–101).
Finally, the words may have quite dierent meanings from the cognates of the
lexier due to inuence from the substrate languages. e meaning of the word
for “hand” for instance may also be extended to mean “arm” (no fewer than 43
Chapter 5. Creole typology I 93
of 75 APiCS languages), or “father” may also mean “uncle, father’s brother”. All
lexiers have a word for “tear”, while 38 of 66 APiCS languages (55%) have a mo-
no-morphemic word for “tear”. Mono-morphemic words are more common in
Asian contact languages, bimorphemic ones in the Caribbean creoles.
5.5.1 e lexicon: Mixedness
If one counts all the dictionary entries of a language like Spanish, Swedish, or Dutch,
borrowed vocabulary as a rule exceeds inherited vocabulary. Perhaps up to 80% of all
dictionary entries are not inherited from the Proto-languages. To what extent this is
also true for languages not inuenced by foreign vocabulary of a learned nature or
special register (Greek, Latin, Arabic, Persian, Russian, Chinese, depending on what
part of the world it is spoken), or a lexicon obtained through trade and contact, is not
clear. ese same languages, with more borrowings than inherited words, however,
show very little admixture in their basic vocabulary (see below).
It has been observed before that the proportion of loans in languages increases
the larger and less basic the lexicon is (Grant 2010). is appeared to be true for
all of the 41 languages in the typologically-broad sample used by Haspelmath and
Tadmor (2009).
Here, creoles tend to dier from non-creoles. Mauritian creole derives only
10% of t he lexicon from non-French sources (Baker 1994: 66), and in the basic
lexicon it is 99% French. Tadmor (2009: 57) compares systematically a sample
of 41 of the world’s languages, for which translation equivalents were sought for
over 1000 words. e actual number of words ranged from 982 (Gawwada) to
2158 (Otomi). e one creole included, Seychellois, ended up as no. 36 of 41, with
only 10.7% loanwords, only surpassed by Ket (9.7%), Manange (8.3%), Old High
German (5.8%) and Mandarin Chinese (1.2%). If Seychellois is representative for
creoles, this would indicate that creoles are less lexically mixed than most languag-
es. e basic 200-word vocabulary list of most languages usually contains at least
a few loanwords, but there are as a rule fewer loans in creoles than in non-creoles,
despite the fact that creoles are oen considered “mixed” due to their supposed
multiple ancestry. Mauritian French creole, for instance, has no non-French items
among the 200 list of basic vocabulary (see below).
5.5.2 e lexicon: Quantity of roots and words
It is notoriously dicult to count the exact number of words or roots for a lan-
guage. Perhaps the best documented lexicon of any creole is that of Mauritian. e
dictionary of Baker and Hookomsing (1987) contains 18,000 entries, of which at
least 15,000 are individual words (around 13,500 are from French, Baker 1994).
94 Peter Bakker and Aymeric Daval-Markussen
On the other hand, it has been estimated that only 700 English roots ended up in
Sranan English creole (Smith 2001: 53). Unfortunately, detailed studies are lacking,
which prevents any further generalization on the topic.
5.5.3 Expansion of the lexicon
If a language has fewer roots, speakers can reach full expressivity by using mor-
phological devices. ese are found in many creole languages. Quite a few creoles
make use of zero-derivation, resulting in one root functioning both as a noun and
as a verb (this is of course also found in non-creole languages, e.g. English and
Salish). For instance, Saramaccan dëê´wojo (itself a compound of “dry” and “eye”)
means both “brazen” and “brazenness”. e root lánga “long” also means “t o elon-
gate”, and hánso “pretty” (< handsome) means both “pretty” and “to make pretty”.
Serial verbs can also be used to expand the lexicon, e.g. Tok Pisin painim “to
search” (from English nd him), painim pinis “to nd” (Mühlhäusler 1997: 158).
Where the lexifier often has separate roots, the creole may have a com-
pound, e.g. phrases may also be used originating from circumscriptions, e.g.
kuku ania gauna “pipe”, literally “smoke eat thing” in the Hiri Motu pidgincreole
(Mühlhäusler 1997: 158).
Hancock (1974) considers creoles as displaying a “closed system”, which leads
to such languages facing special challenges in lexical expansion. Aer pidginiza-
tion, full expressability is reached through expansion of meaning, compounding
and circumlocution.
5.5.4 Substrate
Almost all if not all creoles have a number of words from their so-called substrate
languages, e.g. African languages in the case of Atlantic creoles, or Austronesian
items in the case of Pacic creoles, and Dravidian or Indic in the case of Indian
creoles. As discussed above, the number of words derived from a substrate may
be very small in a creole. Baker and Hookomsing’s dictionary (1987) of Mauritian
Creole contains 15,000 entries, and only 194 of these are African (out of 662 words
that are not of French origin). Baker (2012a) estimates 10% of the vocabulary to
be from sources other than French. Farquharson and Baker (2012) identied 306
words of African origin in Jamaican, and also Baker (2012b) identied more than
300 African words in Haitian. No total vocabulary is mentioned, but these num-
bers constitute probably just a few percent of the total lexicon of these languages.
In some languages, these substrate words refer mostly to ora, fauna and religion
(Bartens & Baker 2012) and in other languages, mostly maroon creoles, they may
Chapter 5. Creole typology I 95
enter the basic vocabulary (e.g. Angolar and Berbice Creole). As this is mostly of
interest for historical linguistics and not so much for typology, we will not discuss
the matter further here. For discussion, see e.g. Muysken & Smith (1986), Mufwene
& Condon (1993) and Parkvall (forthcoming).
5.6 Conclusions
There are no linguistic properties that are unique to creole languages.
Phonologically, creoles avoid extremes and are average languages. Creoles never
inherit contextual inection from their lexiers, but they may inherit or develop
inherent inection. Compounding is common. Creoles tend to have a xed order
of constituents, oen SVO, with the possibility of movement of the constituents.
Despite the diversity of creoles, it is possible to present generalizations that cover
most creole languages, including creoles of both the Atlantic, Indian Ocean and
the Pacic, as well as creoles with non-European lexiers (see also Bakker 2014).
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