Do Creoles conform to typological patterns? Habitual marking in Palenquero

Hiram L Smith

doi:10.1017/s0954394521000053

Abstract

AbstractIt is widely debated whether creole languages form a typological class; however, crosslinguistic generalizations from functional typology are seldom tested in creoles. Typological studies report a strong crosslinguistic tendency for asymmetries in habitual grammatical expressions across the present and past temporal reference domains (Bybee, 1994:245–8; Bybee, Perkins, & Pagliuca, 1994:151–60). This study analyzes two linguistic variants, preverbal asé and zero, which compete for habitual marking in Palenquero Creole (Colombia). I ask here: To what degree does the linguistic patterning of these forms conform to the crosslinguistic tendency? Results show that, despite Palenquero having widely cited creole features (e.g., preverbal markers and bare verb stems), the asymmetrical expression, distribution, and relative ordering of forms in the variable contexts closely align with crosslinguistic predictions for habituals, thus giving convincing evidence of typological markedness and not a Creole Prototype.

Highlights

The variable interplay between overt and zero marking has been the focus of several studies, it is still noteworthy that “the debate about the typological status of creole languages has severely suffered from a lack of systematic empirical study” (Bakker, Daval-Markussen, Parkvall, & Plag, 2011:6)
I investigate whether Palenquero Creole, which has an emerging complex of preverbal forms and rampant zero-coded verb stems, conforms to presumed universals of typological markedness
In example (1), we observe that preverbal asé and a zero-coded verb stem may covary in the same habitual context

Summary

Introduction

The variable interplay between overt and zero marking has been the focus of several studies, it is still noteworthy that “the debate about the typological status of creole languages has severely suffered from a lack of systematic empirical study” (Bakker, Daval-Markussen, Parkvall, & Plag, 2011:6). Typological studies report that there is a strong crosslinguistic tendency for habituals, whether they are overtly or zero coded, to develop through grammaticalization and in accord with specific markedness constraints (see the section for a definition of markedness) (Bybee, 1985:52, 53; Bybee, 1994:245–8; Bybee et al, 1994:151–60) Do these broad findings apply to habitual marking in creoles?

Objectives

Findings

Conclusion