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Creole Genesis and the Acquisition of Grammar

The Case of Haitian Creole

Claire Lefebvre

Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511519826

Online ISBN: 9780511519826

Hardback ISBN: 9780521593823

Paperback ISBN: 9780521025386

Chapter

Notes pp. 408-423

Chapter DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511519826.019

Cambridge University Press

408

Notes

1 The problem of creole genesis and linguistic theory

1 The contents of this section build on a preliminary discussion in Lefebvre and Lumsden(1989a, 1994a).

2 There is a general consensus in the literature that multilingualism is a required featureof communities where creoles may emerge. However, this proposal has recently beenchallenged by Smith, Robertson and Williamson (1987), who claim that Berbice Dutchemerged out of contact between only two languages: Dutch and Eastern Ijo. Assumingthat Berbice Dutch is a true creole (as opposed to a mixed language, see chapter 2) andthat Ijo was the sole African language present at the time this creole was formed, thiscase would constitute the first documented evidence against Whinnom’s widely acceptedclaim. For further discussion of this issue, see also Foley (1988).

3 For a discussion of competing theories of creole genesis with respect to this inventoryof properties, see Lefebvre and Lumsden (1989a).

4 For a discussion of these three approaches, see Arends, Muysken and Smith (1995).5 French après (‘after’) is part of a periphrastic expression used to encode the progress-

ive. Était is the imperfect form of the verb ‘to be’. Avoir means ‘to have’; va is thethird person of the verb ‘to go’ and is also part of a periphrastic expression used toencode the future; avant is an adverb meaning ‘before’. The French expression fait quemay be translated as ‘just’ in the sense referred to in the quotation. The facts discussedin this quotation are examined in detail in chapter 5.

6 See e.g. Lefebvre (1982a, 1984, 1986, 1993a, 1994a, 1996a, 1996b); Lefebvre andKaye (1985–9 Projects); Brousseau, Filipovich and Lefebvre (1989); Lefebvre andLumsden (1989a, 1994a).

7 Major category lexical items are nouns, verbs, adjectives, prepositions and adverbs. Theyare defined by the major categorial features [αn, βv] (see Chomsky 1972; Jackendoff1976). In current theories (see Lieber 1980, and the references therein), derivationalaffixes are also specified for major categorial features. Functional or minor categorylexical entries are defined by minor syntactic features such as Tense, Wh, etc. (see DenBesten 1978). They include Tense markers, Wh-words, determiners, etc.

8 In a more recent paper written in collaboration with Norval Smith (Muysken and Smith1990: 884), Muysken amends his earlier claim, allowing for relexification in languagegenesis only in bilingual situations: ‘We reject the gradual “relexification” of believersin monogenesis (from a West African Portuguese Pidgin) or Afrogenesis, in situationsof communal linguistic confrontation between, e.g. a European planter class and anAfrican slave class. We do accept the possibility of relexification as a mechanism informing a new language in a bilingual situation.’

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2 Cognitive processes involved in creole genesis

1 The term target language might not be the most appropriate term given the variouscircumstances in which relexification applies. Mühlhäusler (1986a), Thomason andKaufman (1991) and Baker (1990) have discussed this issue extensively. In this text,I will use the term lexifier language instead.

2 Note, however, that, while Michif da/dã is a preposition, its Cree counterpart is apostposition. The question of word order in relexification will be discussed in section2.5.

3 For an extensive discussion of the properties of mixed languages, see e.g. Thomasonand Kaufman (1991) and Bakker and Mous (1994a). For case studies of a large sampleof mixed languages, see the papers in Bakker and Mous (1994b).

4 For a preliminary discussion of this topic, see Lefebvre and Lumsden (1989a).5 For a discussion of the relationship between calquing and relexification, see Allsopp

(1980).6 For competing views on this matter, see the papers in Andersen (1983b).7 Saramaccan is an English-based creole which also has Fongbe as one of its sub-

stratum languages (see Smith 1987) and is claimed to be even closer to Fongbe thanHaitian is (see Muysken 1994a).

8 The functional category lexical entry wY basically introduces new information. Adescription of the properties of this lexical entry can be found in Lefebvre (1992a)and it will be further discussed in chapter 7.

9 According to Mühlhäusler, Tolai is one of the substratum languages of Tok Pisin.10 As will be seen in chapter 3, Fongbe is one of the substratum languages of Haitian.11 Since then, a new theory of word order has been developed by Kayne (1994) whereby

all languages have the same underlying word order. The data presented in this bookare not discussed within Kayne’s framework.

12 I am indebted to Christine Jourdan for finding these data for me.13 The time span covered by the term ‘early creole’ remains to be determined.14 For discussions of this point based on various cases of dialects in contact, see Sankoff

(1984); Trudgill (1986: 98); Gambhir (1988: 77); Singler (1988); Thomason andKaufman (1991); Harris (1991: 199); Siegel (to appear).

15 The criteria governing the selection between competing forms require further research(see Mufwene 1986, 1990). For a preliminary discussion of this point, see Siegel(to appear).

3 The research methodology

1 The historical research was designed during the 1985–7 and 1987–9 Projects with thehelp of Caroline Fick, a historian at the Centre de Recherches Caraïbes (Université deMontréal), and the collaboration of John Singler during the Linguistic Institute of theLinguistic Society of America (New York, Summer 1986). An outline of this researchprogramme was presented at the Conference on Africanisms in Afro-American Lan-guage Varieties (University of Georgia, February 1988) and published in the proceed-ings of the conference (see Lefebvre 1993a). The actual research was carried out byJohn Singler during the third year of the 1989–94 Project. For a detailed report on hisfindings, see Singler (1993b, 1996).

Notes to pages 16–53 409



2 Carden and Stewart (1988: 17) also state that there was an established creole in Haitiat least by 1740 or 1750.

3 According to Singler (1996: 189), the engagés were indentured servants from Franceemployed for three years. Together with the population of colour, they formed theagricultural labour force.

4 The censuses studied by Singler are the Guadeloupe census of 1664 and the Martiniquecensus of 1680. According to Singler’s (1993b: 171) description, ‘the Guadeloupecensus provides a name and/or an ethnic designation for roughly 2,100 of the slavesbeing counted, while the Martinique census does so for 3,900. Because of this detail,they have the potential to provide valuable evidence as to the ethnic composition ofFrench Caribbean colonies in this earlier period.’

5 The Remire inventory is Goupy des Marets’ 1690 inventory of a plantation at Remirein French Guyana. For a detailed discussion of this inventory, see Singler (1993b).‘Mallet’ in Table 3.3 refers to a Muslim brought to the Bight of Benin from theinterior. Singler (1996: 205) presumes that the person so designated spoke either aMande or a Gur language.

6 The more recent classification of African languages in Bendor-Samuel (1989) groupsthese languages differently. I am using the earlier classification rather than the morerecent one only because it is more congruent with the literature of the 1970s and1980s that I am reviewing, and because it contains more information on morphosyntax.

7 The bulk of Koopman’s (1986) paper is dedicated to showing that verbs in West Africanlanguages (and in Haitian), taken as a group, have a large number of common properties.

8 Westerman and Bryan (1970) mention a group of isolated languages spoken inTogoland which exhibit class affixes and concord systems much like those of theBantu languages.

9 Although French is the main lexifier language of Haitian creole, the Haitian lexiconalso contains words of other origins. Amerindian languages spoken on the Island atthe time of the early Haitian colony contributed some 200 nouns designating localobjects such as plants and place names (see Hilaire 1992). A few words of Spanishorigin (see Hilaire 1992) and a few borrowings from English are also part of theHaitian lexicon. Most importantly, there are about 350 modern Haitian words whichhave forms and meanings similar to those of words found in one or several of thesubstratum languages of Haitian (see Hilaire 1993). These constitute cases of retentionfrom the West African languages spoken in Haiti at the time the creole was formed.

10 For extensive discussions of these issues, see Mougeon and Beniak (1994) and thepapers and references therein.

11 The features of an ideal versus a feasible test, due to time and resource limitations,are discussed in the proposals for grants to support research (see Lefebvre and Kaye1985–7, 1987–9 Projects; Lefebvre 1989–94 Project) and in papers reporting on themethodology adopted for the research (see e.g. Lefebvre 1986, 1993a; Lefebvre andLumsden 1989a, 1994a).

12 The choice of the substratum language to be studied in detail goes back to joint workwith Jonathan Kaye in the 1985–7 Project. The historical research was conductedduring the third year of the 1989–94 Project (see the Preface).

13 Hair (1966, 1970) provides a list of available early West African linguistic material,mainly vocabularies. He cites one reference on a Gbe language: Labouret and Rivet(1929). This book contains a short list of Gen words and prayers in Gen written bySpanish missionaries of the seventeenth century.

410 Notes to pages 53–69



14 Thanks to Ans de Kok for sharing with me her bibliography on seventeenth- andeighteenth-century French.

15 Alembert et al. (1776–7); Bary (1665); Bonnard (1982); Brunot (1905, 1926); Catach(1995); Darmesteter (1875); Dees (1971); Dubois et al. (1992); Féraud (1768); Fouché(1952); Furetière (1984); Galet (1971); Gauthier (1995); Gougenheim (1973); Guiraud(1966); Haase (1965); Huguet (1925); Imbs (1979); Joly (1995); Juneau (1972);Laborderie (1994); Nyrop (1936); Oudin (1640); Pierret (1983); Rey (1992); Robert(1985); Rosset (1911); Spillebout (1985); Thurot (1881–3); Van Daele (1929); Vaugelas(1647); Wagner and Pinchon (1962); Wartburg (1971); Zink (1991).

16 The semantics of verbs is the area of the lexicon where I found the most differencesbetween seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French and modern French. Thus, inthis case, the documentation of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century facts turned outto be important for the three-way comparison. Due to space limitations, however,these data will not be discussed here (see Lefebvre in press).

17 For a much more detailed discussion of this issue, see Koopman (1986: 248–51).18 Ans (1968); Faine (1937); Freeman (1988); Goodman (1964); Hall (1950, 1953); Hilaire

(1992, 1993); Sylvain (1936); Valdman (1970); Valdman et al. (1981); Védrine (1992).19 Anonymous (1983); Rassinoux (1987); Segurola (1963); Welmers (1973); Westerman

(1907).

4 Functional category lexical entries involved in nominal structure

1 For a discussion of the parallels between the allomorphy of the Haitian and Fongbedeterminers, see Brousseau (in preparation).

2 According to the data in Lumsden (1989), some Haitian speakers do not allow la andyo to co-occur. Other speakers do accept such sequences, however, as illustrated in(24).

3 The feature [+plural] may also be visible elsewhere in the French noun phrase due toagreement in gender and number between the various components of its structure(see e.g. Bernstein 1993).

4 Goodman (1964) points out that the French form eux is pronounced [yo] in Gasconand Auvergnat French. However, these dialects were not represented in Haiti at thetime Haitian creole was formed, so it is unlikely that Haitian yo was phonologicallyderived from [yo] in Gascon or Auvergnat French.

5 This is an interesting contrast, for in the literature such a contrast has not beenreported on. For example, in Valdman et al (1981), sa and sila are both glossed as‘this/that’ (see also e.g. Joseph (1989), Goodman (1964), etc. for further discussionsof these data).

6 In other frameworks sa and sila would be considered as having pronominal proper-ties. (Thanks to Dominique Estival for pointing this out to me.) If this were thecorrect analysis for Haitian, however, the data in (38) could not be explained sincepronouns typically cannot be modified.

7 P. Thibault (p.c.) notes that, in colloquial French, cela is a general deictic term justlike ça. Chaudenson (1993: 19) also points out that, in most varieties of French, çaand cela are equivalent in meaning.

8 Auger (1994) points out that there are two ças in French: the strong form discussed inthis section and a clitic form, not discussed here. In Ça, ça me plaît ‘This, it pleasesme’, the first ça is the strong form and the second one the clitic.




9 In Montreal colloquial French – considered to be a conservative dialect as comparedwith international modern French – the demonstrative forms with là can be used todesignate objects that are either close to or far from the speaker (P. Thibault, p.c.).

10 This is an interesting contrast because in the literature on Fongbe é/V and énX areglossed as ‘this/that’ respectively (see Anonymous 1983; Segurola 1963).

11 Wallace (1995d) and C. Collins (p.c.) point out that in Ewe, there are also twodemonstrative forms and that these forms bear the same features as the Fongbe terms.

12 Julie Auger (p.c.) points out that in Picard the form for French lui is also li.13 For further discussion on this topic, see the forthcoming literature.14 Case markers are functional lexical items which head the functional category pro-

jection K(ase)P (see Travis and Lamontagne 1992). In particular languages, they aresometimes homophonous with prepositions, which are major category lexical items(see Van Riemsdijk 1978). For example, of in English may be used either as a Casemarker or as a preposition (see Chomsky 1981). Syntactic tests distinguish betweenthe sometimes ambiguous syntactic functions of a given form (see e.g. Van Riemsdijk1978; Rouveret and Vergnaud 1980; Lefebvre and Muysken 1988).

15 The identification of this functional category is a matter of debate in the literature.For various proposals, see e.g. Abney (1987); Lumsden (1989, 1991); Ritter (1992);Szabolcsi (1987).

16 Traditional grammars generally consider à and de to be prepositions. Lumsden (1991)considers them as Case markers. For a discussion of this issue, see Kayne (1975,1981), Tremblay (1991) and the references therein.

17 For a different view on this matter, see Lumsden (1991).18 I cannot yet explain why the subset of speakers in Lumsden (1991) allow only one

argument to occur after the noun, given that they also appear to have two null Casemarkers in their lexicon.

19 According to Hazoumê’s (1990) description of the Gbe cluster of languages, all theselanguages encode possession similarly to Fongbe.

20 The data pertaining to the Northern dialect of Haitian call for further research.For example, the properties of the possessed np introduced by a need to be studied.Another question that must be addressed is how the details of these properties com-pare with those of the West African substratum languages which have a prenominalpossessive connector. We must also take into account the amount of exposure toFrench that the African speakers in the North had in comparison with those in theCentre and in the South (see chapter 3 for a preliminary discussion of this issue).Possibly, French à was acquired by the speakers in the North because they had bothmore exposure to French and a connector of the type in (85) in their own lexicon. Inshort, the Northern facts constitute a topic for further research.

5 The preverbal markers encoding relative Tense, Mood and Aspect

1 For a similar observation, see Bentolila (1971).2 The inventory of tma markers in Haitian and Fongbe is established in Lefebvre

(1996b) on the basis of syntactic tests which set the preverbal markers apart frommodal and aspectual verbs. First, they all occur between the subject and the verb.Second, preverbal markers occurring in the same column in (1) are mutually exclus-ive, showing that they are in a paradigmatic relationship. Third, while modal verbsdo allow for deletion of their vp complement, preverbal markers do not (for Haitian,




see Koopman and Lefebvre 1982; Magloire-Holly 1982; Spears 1990; for Fongbe, seeLefebvre 1996b). Fourth, most of the preverbal markers in (1) have no meaningoutside of the tma system. Finally, the tma markers may combine to form complextenses. There appears to be a general consensus in the literature to the effect that,although the preverbal markers have properties that distinguish them from verbs/prepositions, they are not functional heads. Without further discussion, I will thusassume that they are major category lexical items with restricted uses.

3 For competing views on this matter, see Damoiseau (1988); Déchaine (1991); Lumsden(in press b).

4 Note that Damoiseau’s (1988) classification of verbs in terms of their aspectual prop-erties differs from other classifications such as the one in Vendler (1967). Dynamicverbs in Damoiseau’s account may denote telic and non-telic events. Resultativeverbs correspond to the class of achievement verbs in Vendler.

5 The Fongbe marker of anteriority kò is homophonous with an adverb meaning‘already’ (see Anonymous 1983; Avolonto 1992). As is pointed out in Lefebvre (1996b),the claim that kò has two functions is supported by two sets of facts. First, there canbe two occurrences of kò within the same clause. In (i), the first occurrence of kòcorresponds to its function as a marker of anteriority, and the second to its functionas an adverb.

(i) Sìká kò nw kò 3à wh. fongbeCica ant use-to already prepare dough‘Cica had usually already prepared dough.’

(=(59) in Lefebvre 1996b)

Furthermore, as an adverb, kò must immediately precede the vp, but, as a markerof anteriority, it occurs as the first of a series of tma markers. For further discussionon the distribution of kò, see Lefebvre (1996b). The function of kò as a markerof anteriority must have been acquired through reanalysis. Westerman (1907: 139)reports that kò started as a (now obsolete) verb meaning ‘be, have finished’ and thatit has been reanalysed as a past tense marker.

6 Da Cruz and Kinyalolo (1994) have established tests distinguishing between dynamicand stative verbs in Fongbe. The data provided in Lefebvre (1996b) and in this chap-ter on the interpretation of the Fongbe tma markers in relation to the aspectual classof verbs provide evidence for a class of resultative verbs in Fongbe. For example, thetemporal interpretation of a clause containing a resultative verb in the context of abare sentence is different from that of a clause containing a dynamic or a stative verbin the same context (see section 5.3). This is evidence that resultative verbs constitutean aspectual class distinct from dynamic and stative verbs in the language.

7 Julie Auger informs me that in Picard the form corresponding to French été is té.8 It appears that the creators of Haitian did not select the locative preposition à (see

(20b) ) or the periphrastic expression en train de (see (20c) ) as the French phoneticform from which to derive an imperfective marker. The French-based creoles dis-cussed in Goodman (1964) have all chosen the same French form as Haitian. Thisraises the following question: what does après have that à and en train de do not fromthe point of view of the substratum speakers? This question should be addressedwithin the framework of a general theory of second language data processing, atheory not fully developed in this book (see chapter 2).




9 In Fongbe, wY has the basic and major function of introducing ‘new information’ (seechapter 7). The use of this postpositional item in the Fongbe imperfective construc-tion is exceptional with respect to other languages of the same family. As is pointedout in Fabb (1992), in the other Gbe languages, the imperfective aspect also makesuse of a locative preposition meaning ‘at’, but in these languages the prepositionselects a locative postposition meaning ‘in’ rather than the equivalent of Fongbe wY.

10 For syntactic analyses of the imperfective constructions in Fongbe, see Fabb (1992)and Kinyalolo (1992).

11 ‘Be sick’ and ‘know’ are both stative verbs. The former denotes a transitory propertyof the individual, whereas the latter denotes a permanent property (see Diesing 1990).This explains why ‘be sick’ may occur with an aspectual marker that triggers a non-complete interpretation of the event, while ‘know’ may not.

12 An account of these facts will be provided elsewhere.13 Anonymous (1983) reports that for some speakers the word order ná kò may also

yield a conditional interpretation.14 I would like to thank Dominique Estival for fruitful discussions on this point.15 The dictionaries consulted are: the Grand Larousse de la langue française, the Grand

Robert, Littré, Quillet, Logos, Grand dictionnaire de la langue française. Trésor de lalangue française, Furetière.

16 Westerman (1907: 139) reports that, in Gbe, the verb nW ‘remain, stay’ was reanalysed asa preverbal habitual marker. Evidence for this claim is discussed in Lefebvre (1996b).

6 Pronouns

1 As has been pointed out to me by Julie Auger, even the dialects of French, such asPicard, which do not distinguish between first- and second-person plural clitics dodistinguish between first- and second-person strong pronouns.

2 While, in standard French, eux must have a masculine antecedent, in popular French,eux’s antecedent may be either masculine or feminine (see e.g. Gougenheim 1973).For example, in Montreal French, we find les gars, eux ‘the boys, them’ and les filles,eux ‘the girls, them’ (A.-M. Brousseau, p.c.).

3 For an extensive description and account of the properties of this Fongbe lexical item,see Kinyalolo (1993b, 1993c).

4 Capo (1991) argues that the third-person [–nominative] clitic is, in fact, only a lowtone. The epenthetic vowel /i/ is added in order to make this low tone pronounceable.Fongbe dictionaries and texts use the notation è, however. In accordance with theliterature, I will use this notation throughout. Nothing hinges on this issue.

5 As is pointed out in Lefebvre (1991b), Da Cruz (1993) and Brousseau (1993), not allFongbe speakers manifest clitic climbing phenomena.

6 This proposal needs to be further documented on the basis of detailed analysesof clitics in other creoles. For example, Veenstra (1996) claims that Saramaccanhas syntactic clitics. On the basis of the evidence presented, however, it is notclear whether the Saramaccan clitics are really syntactic rather than phonological. Forexample, no mention is made of the position of object clitics with respect to the verb,or whether clitic climbing is available. More importantly, we need to know whetherclitics are allowed in the environment of a preposition (see (26) ).

7 According to Vasseur (1996: 75), in the Vimeu variety of Picard, the plural form leumay be used instead of se as in i leu battent ‘they beat themselves’.




8 The idea that -#éè could have been assigned a phonologically null representation atrelabelling is attributable to John Lumsden (research seminar, Fall 1993). The furtherdevelopment of this idea, as presented in this section, is mine.

9 This possibility was suggested to me by Yves-Charles Morin (p.c.).10 Note that both source languages of Haitian have similar ways of emphasising a reflex-

ive expression. Consider French Il s’est vu lui-même ‘He saw himself (emphatic).’ InFongbe, the emphatic form #ésu corresponds to mèm in Haitian and même in French.

11 Malagasy, a substratum language of Mauritian creole, does use the word for ‘body’ asa true reflexive (see Keenan 1976). Carden (1993) argues that this lexical entry playeda crucial role in determining the appearance of the body-part reflexive lekor (lit.: ‘thebody’) in Mauritian creole.

12 Valdman et al. (1981) also list the form witi ‘where’. They mention that this lexicalitem is rare. I did not find any Haitian informants who had this form in their lexicon.For that reason, this lexical entry is not considered here.

13 Valdman et al. (1981) mention sa as a variant of pou ki-sa. Since I could find noHaitian speaker who had this variant, I do not consider it here.

14 Citing Valdman (1978), Chaudenson (1996) reports the phrase ki kan (lit.: ‘whichwhen’) as an alternate phrase for ‘when’. None of the Haitian speakers I consultedhave this Wh-phrase. Furthermore, it has not been retained by Valdman et al. (1981).For these reasons, I do not consider it in this section.

15 In French, it is grammatical but very unusual to say Quelles choses as-tu achetées?‘What things did you buy?’ The complex phrase qu’est-ce que (lit.: ‘what is it that’)is used to question the object.

16 Whether the creators of Haitian were exposed to French Wh in situ is a question thatcannot be resolved on the basis of available data from the literature. The seventeenth-and eighteenth-century grammars report no such cases (see e.g. Wagner and Pinchon1962; Haase 1965). Olivier Tardif read three plays by Molière and did not find anycases of Wh in situ. In the written French texts, it appears that Wh in situ is firstattested in nineteenth-century authors (e.g. Flaubert). It is possible, however, that Whin situ was used in oral communication but not in writing at the time Haitian creolewas formed. In Furetière (1984), a seventeenth-century French dictionary, we findJe ne sais quoi ‘I do not know what.’ Furthermore, in popular French (such as thatspoken in Montreal, for example), Wh in situ is very productive (see Lefebvre 1982d;1989). It is thus likely that the creators of Haitian had been exposed to it.

17 For example, À xW é-tεεεεε ‘You bought what?’ is more acceptable than ??À xW àní in anecho question (see Brousseau 1995a).

18 The correspondence between French [=] and Haitian /i/ is rare. For a discussion ofthis point, see Brousseau (in preparation).

7 Functional category lexical entries involved in the structure of the clause

1 In the theoretical framework adopted here, heads select complements. In this view,verbs select the complementisers which introduce their complements. Likewise, com-plementisers select ips as their complements. Tenseless complementisers select tense-less ips, tensed complementisers select tensed ips, and so on.

2 This argument is based on binding theory as outlined in Chomsky (1981) and related work.3 Haitian speakers who speak a Gallicised version of Haitian may use the form ke to

introduce the tensed complement of verbs of the say-class. In the above discussion,




I do not consider these data since they are not part of the lexicon of speakers of thebasilect. If the use of ke were to become generalised among all Haitian speakers, itwould have to be considered a recent development.

4 Several syntactic tests distinguish the properties of the complementiser pou (see (9),(10) ) from those of the preposition pou (see (11), (13) ). For a detailed discussion ofthis topic, see Koopman and Lefebvre (1981, 1982); Koopman (1982a, 1982b); andSterlin (1988, 1989).

5 See the literature on the that-trace filter and Empty Category Principle (ecp) effects(e.g. Chomsky 1981, and related work).

6 To the best of my knowledge, DeGraff (1992a) is the only researcher to have pro-posed an analysis claiming that Haitian lacks that-trace effects. Given that the facts hepresents to support his analysis are unfamiliar to me as well as to other people whohave written on this topic, I will not discuss his analysis any further here.

7 For further discussion of Koopman’s analysis, see e.g. Lumsden (1990); Law (1992);Manfredi (1993).

8 Deprez (1992b) provides several arguments showing that movement is involved inthis construction.

9 For a discussion of variation among speakers with respect to these facts, see Law (1992).10 For further discussion of similar facts involving the verb gen ‘there is’, see Law

(1994a).11 The structure illustrated in (66a), containing relative pronouns, was not commonly

used in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French (see Bouchard 1982, and thereferences therein).

12 When the subjects of the two conjoined clauses are coreferential, another form of theconjunction may show up: bó. In this case, the clitic subject of the conjoined clause isnot spelled out.

13 The question of morpheme order in derived and compound words will be addressedin chapters 10 and 11.

14 Segurola (1963) translates nyì as ‘to be/to be named’.15 There is a fourth difference discussed at length by both DeGraff (1993a) and Deprez

(in press) which has to do with the way Haitian pa and French pas interact withnegative quantifiers. This topic will be addressed in chapter 12.

16 I am indebted to Jean-Robert Cadely and Michel DeGraff for fruitful discussions ofthese facts.

17 Thanks to Michel DeGraff and Jean-Robert Cadely for pointing out this fact.

8 The determiner and the structure of the clause

1 In both languages, the determiner is also involved in the structure of complex clauses,such as relative (see Koopman 1982a; Lefebvre and Massam 1988), conditional (seeKinyalolo 1993a), and factive clauses (see Kinyalolo 1993a; Collins 1994), as well asin verb-doubling constructions (see Lefebvre and Ritter 1993; Collins 1994; Lefebvre1994b).

2 Grammar 1 includes Haitian speakers from Jacmel and Port-au-Prince and Fongbespeakers from Abomey and Cotonou. Grammar 2 also includes speakers from the sameareas. Fongbe speakers from Ouidah present yet a third grammar since they do not usethe determiner in simple clauses. There is one Haitian speaker in Lefebvre’s (to appearb) sample who exhibits no clausal determiner.




3 Da Cruz (1994) glosses wY as Det. In (23), wY is in complementary distribution withthe determiner V and it entails that the information contained in the clause is newinformation. For a discussion of the semantics of wY, see Lefebvre (1992a). WY appearsto be another multifunctional item in Fongbe. Its various uses are listed in Anonymous(1983); some of them are discussed in Lefebvre (1992a). For analyses showing thevarious positions that can be headed by wY, see Kinyalolo (1992), and Law and Lefebvre(1995).

4 For a detailed discussion of negative clauses, see Da Cruz (1994).5 Note that the two classes of markers described for Fongbe have properties which

parallel the two classes of validational markers found in Quechua, a South AmericanAmerindian language spoken in the Andes (see Lefebvre and Muysken 1988, for adetailed discussion of these two classes of morphemes in Quechua).

6 On the analysis in Lefebvre and Lumsden (1995), Haitian èske appears in the specifierposition of the projection headed by the yes–no question marker à in Fongbe.

7 According to Segurola (1963: 418), nùgbó means both ‘truth’ and ‘truly’: ‘The word isused to assert [the content of a proposition] with force.’

8 Note that speakers of grammar 1 may also use these adverbs after the assertive marker.9 Note that, in the Fongbe dialect of Ouidah, the assertive marker has the form lá. This

form is used to encode surprise in the Fongbe dialect of Abomey (see (3) ).

9 The syntactic properties of verbs

1 The term Lexical Conceptual Structure is used as in Hale and Laughren (1983) andHale and Keyser (1986, 1987). It consists in the representation of the concept namedby the verb. In this framework, the participants in the event described by the verb arerepresented as variables.

2 As is pointed out in Brousseau (1995b), the Haitian verbs in (11b) may appear withtèt-li but in these cases, it is not simply interpreted as a reflexive, a fact which isindicated by #. As Brousseau (1995b: 7) puts it: ‘En effet, tèt-li renforce le rôleagentif, soit en précisant le caractère volitionnel de l’action, en précisant l’autonomiede l’action de l’Agent en opposition à toute autre cause extérieure ou en attirantl’attention sur le caractère exceptionnel ou non attendu d’une telle action.’ [In fact,tèt-li reinforces the agentive role, by specifying the volitional nature of the action,emphasising the autonomy of the Agent’s action in opposition to any other externalcause or drawing attention to the exceptional or unexpected nature of such an action.]This is exemplified in (i).

(i) Jan rapele tèt-li fòk li wè Jak. haitianJohn remember head-3rd must he see James‘John forces himself to remember that he must see James.’

(=(8b) in Brousseau 1995b)

3 Given the Haitian facts described above, I would not be surprised to find a lot ofvariation among Haitian speakers with respect to the selectional properties of reflex-ive verbs. I suspect that this area of the grammar would be a gold mine for anyoneinterested in variation within speech communities (see Carden and Stewart 1988, fordiscussion of this point).

4 This situation suggests that Haitian posib has been acquired from French.




5 Note that the French expression corresponding to Haitian genlè selects ça rather thanil as an expletive subject (see (ib) ). The Haitian verb genlè admits neither li nor sa, asshown in (ia).

(i) a. Te genlè Jan renmen Mari. haitian*Li te genlè Jan renmen Mari*Sa te genlè Jan renmen Mari

it ant seem John love Mary‘It seemed that John loved Mary.’

b. *Il a l’air que Jean aime Marie frenchÇa a l’air que Jean aime Marie.it seem that John love Mary‘It seems that John loves Mary.’

6 Note that sentences of the type in (b) are sensitive to definiteness effects (see Massam1989). For detailed semantic and syntactic analyses of this verb, see e.g. Massam(1989); Ritter (1991); Lumsden (1993a).

7 For various analyses of manke, see Massam (1989), Ritter (1991) and Lumsden(1993a).

8 As A.-M. Brousseau has pointed out to me (p.c.), the missing object can appear insubject position when it is interpreted as part of the Locative as in Trois pagesmanquent dans ce document ‘Three pages are missing from this document.’

9 For extensive theoretical discussions of the properties of the verb sanble ‘to seem’,see e.g. Dumais (1988); Ritter (1991); Law (1991, 1992); DeGraff (1992a, 1992b);Deprez (1992a); Lumsden (1993a). For competing views on whether this Haitianconstruction involves movement, see e.g. Law (1991, 1992) and Ritter (1991). For theimplications of these data for government theory, see Law (1991, 1992) and Deprez(1992a).

10 See Lappin (1984) for a discussion of sentences such as John seems as if/like he isunhappy.

11 Note that the embedded Fongbe clause has the structure of a relative clause headedby mY ‘person’ followed by a clause introduced by the operator #I, discussed inchapter 7.

12 For various accounts of the Haitian facts presented above, see Law (1994a); Ritter(1991); Deprez (1992a); Vinet (1991); DeGraff (1992a, 1992d).

13 In my view, it is most probable that the affix -yen on gen is the spelled-out trace of itsfronted internal argument. This is a topic for further research.

14 I have not been able to identify the phonological source of the Haitian verb gen.15 For an analysis of ná in this context, see Kinyalolo (1992).16 Verbs such as bà ‘to want’ and byW ‘to ask’ also allow for an infinitival complement

with an overt subject, as shown below.

(i) Éi bà èj yì. (ii) Éi byw èj yì. fongbe‘He wants him to leave.’ ‘He asked him to leave.’

17 What we do find in Haitian, however, is the type of construction in (i).

(i) Jan dòmi yon ti dòmi. haitianJohn sleep a little sleep‘John slept a little.’




While the phrase yon ti dòmi in (i) modifies the event denoted by the verb (as can beseen by the translation), the Fongbe cognate object discussed in the text does not havethis function. According to Dumais (1992), the construction illustrated in (i) is quiteproductive in Haitian. It is not modelled either on Fongbe or on French, for neitherhas such a construction. According to the methodology adopted in this book, thisHaitian construction must result from either the contribution of other substratumlanguages or an innovation from within the creole.

18 See for example Lumsden (1987) and the references therein for changes in the Case-assigning properties of verbs in the history of English.

19 Since the appearance of the paper by Barss and Lasnik (1986), the fact that thedouble-object construction exhibits Theme/Goal asymmetries has been the object ofa major debate in the literature. The central question is whether these asymmetriesshould be accounted for in terms of dominance (e.g. Larson 1988, 1990; Aoun and Li1989; Den Dikken 1991) or precedence (e.g. Barss and Lasnik 1986; Jackendoff1990; Tremblay 1991). In English, the double-object construction allows for only oneword order: the Recipient always precedes the Theme. This makes it difficult to testthe contribution of linear precedence to these asymmetries in the English data. Alanguage in which the double-object construction allowed for the two surface wordorders Recipient–Theme and Theme–Recipient would clarify this issue. Lefebvre(1993c, 1994c) provides extensive evidence that the Fongbe double-object construc-tion exhibits both word orders and there is no difference in meaning between them.With both word orders, the Fongbe double-object construction manifests the sameRecipient–Theme asymmetries as the double-object construction in English. This arguesfor a dominance account of the asymmetries: in the double-object construction, theRecipient must asymmetrically c-command the Theme.

20 Veenstra (1992) points out, however, that negative polarity items and superiorityeffects cannot be tested for Haitian due to other intervening factors.

21 Lumsden (1993b: 54) points out that: ‘Although it has fallen from use in modernFrench, the verb bailler “to give” (the probable source of the phonological form ofthe Haitian Creole verb bay, “to give”) was once more common. As the followingexample from Huguet’s (1925) Dictionnaire de la langue française du seizième siècle(Tome I, p. 456) demonstrates, bailler was a Theme/Goal verb.

(i) Rabelais II,2Au temps que Phebus bailla le gouvernement de son chariot lucifique à son filzPhaeton [At the time that Phoebus gave the control of his glowing chariot to hisson Phaeton].

22 Lefebvre (1993c, 1994c) contain examples for all the tests except the one involvingnegative polarity items, for which the data were not available at the time.

23 The discrepancy between the two inventories may be attributable to the type ofexamples provided in Valdman et al. (1981) rather than to a substantial differencebetween the two sets of data.

24 Note that the Haitian verb paye ‘to pay’ may also take a pp complement introduced bythe preposition pou, as shown in (i). In this case, however, the complement is notassigned the Goal thematic role, as can be seen from the translation.

(i) Jan pran kòb paye pou Mari. haitianJohn take money pay for Mary‘John paid on behalf of Mary.’




10 Are derivational affixes relexified?

1 The epenthetic consonants identified in this section are not always predictable. Exactlyhow they were established is a topic for future research.

2 Note, however, that Valdman et al.’s (1981) and Védrine’s (1992) dictionaries bothlist kale with the meaning ‘to shell’. Neither dictionary lists mwèle as an independentword.

3 Brousseau, Filipovich and Lefebvre (1989: 12) remark that some Haitian words end-ing in ay are listed as unanalysable simplexes.

The word vwazinay ‘neighborhood’, for example, is probably not derived from averb, since, for most Haitian speakers, there is no verb vwazine; most likely, thislexical item has been borrowed from French voisinage as a simplex. Similarly,vakabonday ‘vagrancy’ would be the Haitian version of French vagabondage,briganday ‘tumult’ of French brigandage, lib+tinay ‘licentiousness’ of Frenchlibertinage, and betay ‘cattle’ of French bétail . . . In the same fashion, we donot consider the following to be derived words: zanmiray ‘friendship’, kuzinay‘collection of cousins’, and fanmiray ‘family’. First, it should be noted that thelist of such words is extremely small. Moreover, they are not accepted by allinformants. Second, the potential affix -ay found on such words is not product-ively used to form other words that would have a collective meaning:

*frè-r-ay ‘the collection of brothers’*sè-r-ay ‘the collection of sisters’

Third, the potential affix -ay is not used with bases other than those of Frenchorigin (e.g. Spanish words or words of West African origin). For these reasons,we consider the words listed above as simplex frozen forms and not as derivedwords.

4 Adjectival conversion manifested in languages such as English is assumed to deriveadjectives from the participial form of the verbs (see e.g. Levin and Rappaport 1986).In this chapter, I adopt the view argued for in Brousseau (1994a) whereby deverbaladjectives and participial forms in Haitian are both derived from the base form of verbs.

5 See also Trésor de la langue française for comparable data on -age and a longdiscussion of the evolution of this affix in French.

6 Variation in the pronunciation of some derivational affixes between classical andmodern French is discussed in Juneau (1972).

7 Brousseau (1994a) points out that the agentive affix -tV may also take a nominal basein a few cases as is exemplified in (i):

(i) àzé-tv ‘sorcerer’ àzé ‘magic’gbé-tv ‘hunter’ gbé ‘bush’

8 For an extensive discussion of the derivation of adjectival and verbal passives inFongbe, see Brousseau (1993).

9 I do not know, however, which Haitian affix corresponds to which Fongbe one.10 For a discussion of the semantic contribution of RE-, see Brousseau (1993).11 Brousseau (1993) claims that RE- is specified only for the feature [+n]. Her analysis,

however, also makes use of the feature [αv]. In claiming that RE- is identified forthe features [+n, αv], I depart from her analysis only in notational terms rather thanon theoretical grounds. But see Brousseau (1993) for a discussion of percolationconventions.




12 In more recent work, blocking is seen as the expression of a tendency towards economyin the lexicon rather than a general principle of lexical organisation. For a discussionof this point, see e.g. Scalise (1984).

13 Reduplication of words is a widespread phenomenon in creoles of the Caribbean. It isgenerally considered to be a discourse process used to convey intensification. Casesof this type of reduplication are reported in Jamaican creole (see e.g. Cassidy 1957;DeCamp 1974), Sranan (see e.g. Sebba 1981), Saramaccan (see e.g. Bakker 1987),and Berbice Dutch (see Kouwenberg 1990). Haitian is no exception in using thisstrategy to convey intensification (see Sylvain 1936; Hall 1953; Valdman 1970). Thefollowing example illustrates this type of reduplication.

(i) M’ t’ a tiretire. haitianI ant ind-fut shoot shoot‘I would have shot a lot.’

(from Sylvain 1936: 83)

Very few Caribbean creoles, however, have an affix which involves either partial ortotal reduplication of the base. I know of only two for which a true prefix RE- has beenargued: Berbice Dutch (see Kouwenberg 1994) and Saramaccan (see Bakker 1987;Smith 1995).

14 This proposal would be independently supported if it could be shown that creoleswhich did retain RE- (e.g. Berbice Dutch and Saramaccan) did not make the sameparametric choice with respect to headedness.

15 It should be noted that this type of reanalysis, revealing input from the superstratumlanguage morphology, has no counterpart in inflectional morphology, as we saw inchapters 4 to 8.

11 The concatenation of words into compounds

1 Brousseau’s data on Haitian and Fongbe compounds are original, as are some of herFrench data. Other data are drawn from the literature on French compounds (see e.g.Bauer 1980; Barbaud 1971; Darmesteter 1875; Giurescu 1975; Miller 1978; Moody 1973).

2 Brousseau (1989) remarks that the use of kalbas-tèt ‘skull’ in Haitian has a somewhatironical flavour.

3 The suffix -nV which occurs with this Fongbe compound in (5c) is the attributive suffixdiscussed in chapter 10. The suffix -tW which occurs in (5f) is the Agentive suffixdiscussed in chapter 10.

4 Valdman et al. (1981) lists tèt-di as two different lexical entries. The first is describedas an attributive phrase meaning ‘stubborn’, and the second as a compound meaning‘stubbornness’. The first usage of this compound is discussed together with the set ofexamples in (5). The second usage is discussed in connection with (6).

5 The Haitian lexical entry mare ‘tie’ probably derives its phonological representationfrom the phonetic matrix of the French verb amarrer ‘attach, tie, fasten’ in use inNorman French (see Moisy 1969).

6 Brousseau (1988a) lists a few Haitian compounds she describes as appositional. Shelater reanalyses them as headed compounds (see Brousseau 1994a).

7 Smith and Veenstra (1994) list two additional types of syntactic compounds in Fongbe:n–vv–tV and n–v–p–n–tV. These types of compounds were not incorporated intoBrousseau’s inventory because they are not productive. In her view, they would com-pare to kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate (a type of flower) in English.




8 The word order in the Saramaccan compound differs from that of its Fongbe counter-part. This discrepancy, I believe, can be accounted for along the lines of the analysispresented in section 11.2 to account for word order in Haitian compounds.

9 The fact that the Fongbe compounds in (31a) correspond to the French vn compoundsin (25a) rules out the possibility that this type of compound is lacking from Haitianbecause of the absence of similar compounds in French. An account of the lack ofcompounds of type (31a) in Haitian will have to await further research. For a prelimin-ary discussion of this topic, see Brousseau (1989: 308).

12 Parameters

1 For extensive discussions on parameters and parameter setting in first language acquisi-tion, see Roeper and Williams (1987); for second language acquisition, see Ritchieand Bathia (1996a, 1996b) and the references therein.

2 An evaluation of the issues involved in this proposal may be found in Law (1992).3 In view of the enormous literature on the topic, I will limit the discussion to a few of

the proposed parameters. For further discussion, see, for example, Muysken (1988d)and the literature cited therein. Furthermore, since I am discussing the availability ofthe serial verb construction in terms of parametric variation, I do not take into accountproposals which link this construction to the lexical properties of verbs, such as theirCase-assigning, thematic or control properties.

4 For more details on this proposal on the basis of Kwa and Bantu languages, see Baker(1991).

5 For an extensive discussion of serial verbs as secondary predicates, see Larson (1991).6 As is pointed out by Muysken (1988d) and by Baker and Stewart (1996), a theoretical

account of this correlation still remains to be formulated within the framework of thetheory of principles and parameters.

7 See also Lefebvre (1990a) for a detailed analysis of the full range of prepositions inFongbe and the non-availability of preposition stranding in the language. Lefebvre(1990a) also presents data on the resumptive strategy which is available in somecases.

8 In most contexts, this is not visible, since nouns and strong pronouns are not overtlydistinguished for Case in these languages (see chapter 6). We know from chapter 6,however, that in Fongbe clitics are specified for [+/−nominative Case]: while the objectclitic bears a Low tone, the subject clitic bears a High tone. Since syntactic clitics donot occur as complements of ps, this distinction is not visible in the context underdiscussion here.

9 This fact is salient in Fongbe, which has overt nominalising morphology, but not inHaitian since, as shown in chapter 10, Haitian has a phonologically null nominalisingaffix.

10 There is a general consensus in the literature to the effect that the copy’s sentence-initial position is a derived one (that is, the copy is moved there from an inner clausalposition). (But see Lefebvre and Ritter 1993, for a discussion of this issue.) Both theposition out of which the copy is moved and the positions into which it moves,however, are a matter for debate. This debate stems from two other debates concern-ing, first, the categorial status of the copy, i.e. whether it is of the category v (seeKoopman 1984; Ndayiragije 1993) or n (see e.g. Lefebvre 1994b; Collins 1994; Lawand Lefebvre 1995) and, second, whether movement of the copy involves movement




of an x0 (see Koopman 1984; Ndayiragije 1993) or an xp (see Lefebvre 1994b;Collins 1994; Law and Lefebvre 1995). Any detailed discussion of these issues wouldgo far beyond the scope of this section. My position to date, on the basis of whatis known about these constructions, is that the copy projects and that it thereforeinvolves movement of a maximal projection (see Lefebvre 1994b; Collins 1994).On the basis of parallelism between the copy in (27)–(30) and cognate objects, I takethe copy to be base-generated in the same position as cognate objects (see Lefebvre1994b). I believe the surface position (that is, the landing site) of the copy to be Speccp in temporal and causal clauses. Lefebvre and Ritter (1993) and Collins (1994) haveargued that, in factive constructions, the copy is outside cp. I will assume that, in thiscase, it is adjoined to cp, along the lines of the analysis in Collins (1994). In thepredicate cleft construction, the copy occurs in a clefted constituent. Assuming the bi-clausal structure of Haitian and Fongbe clefts argued for in Lumsden (1990) and Lawand Lefebvre (1995), respectively, in the predicate cleft construction, the copy mustbe in a different clause from the verb that it is the copy of.

11 In sentences involving verb-doubling phenomena, no further extraction is allowed,that is, no argument of the verb can be either questioned or clefted. For specificdiscussions of these facts, see Piou (1982a), Lefebvre (1990b), Lumsden and Lefebvre(1990), Lefebvre and Ritter (1993) for Haitian; Ndayiragije (1993) and Law andLefebvre (1995) for Fongbe; and Collins (1994) for Ewe and Fongbe. See alsoKoopman (1984) for a discussion of this topic on the basis of several West Africanlanguages and Haitian.

12 See Collins (1994) for additional facts on determiners in the context of verb-doublingin Ewe and Fongbe.

13 Similar facts are also reported in Lefebvre and Ritter (1993).14 A more detailed discussion of this proposal on the basis of Fongbe data can be found

in Law and Lefebvre (1995).

13 Evaluation of the hypothesis

1 The definite determiner, the plural marker and the demonstrative terms were relexified.These have the common property of being definite in some sense. In contrast, thesubstratum languages so-called indefinite determiner was abandoned. The copula nyìwas not relexified nor was the existential verb. Interestingly enough, in these threeareas of the lexicon, Haitian speakers have had to independently develop morphemesfrom within the creole: yon, se and gen. What these lexical entries have in common isthat they are all indefinite in some sense, assuming that existential verbs may be seenas indefinites. Is it possible that, for semantic reasons, indefinite/existential items can-not be relexified? I leave this question open for further research.

2 The results of the study in Lefebvre (in press) are comparable to those in Lumsden(1994b) based on a different set of data.

3 This discussion is based on an extensive study that I conducted with Danielle Dumaison adjectives in Fongbe and Haitian based on lists of adjectives in dictionaries andsupplemented by work with informants for syntactic tests.

4 Thanks to Paul Kay for fruitful discussions of this issue.5 For a discussion of this point on the basis of data drawn from several creole languages,

see Muysken (1981c).6 Thanks to Christine Jourdan for fruitful discussions of this issue.




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