Notes on the history and the syntax of Mauritian Creole
1995; De Gruyter; Volume: 33; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1515/ling.1995.33.3.531
ISSN1613-396X
Autores Tópico(s)Language, Linguistics, Cultural Analysis
ResumoThe central question behind the various topics discussed in this paper is the question o f the l i n g u i s t i c status o f Creole languages.They do have similar historical backgrounds, but do they also have linguistic features in common, and i f so, how can they be explained?Certain features o f the history and syntax o f Mauritian Creole (MC) are used to bring more light to this problem area.The view is defended that M C was not, or not significantly, influenced by any West African languages.Verb serialization and predicate clefting, two clearly West African linguistic features found in the Caribbean Creoles, are notably absent in MC.No other convincingly West African features can be identified.The highly particular features common to M C and the French-based Caribbean Creoles are'tentatively attributed to a French-based nautical pidgin and/or Creole in French trading posts in East and West Africa.Against this background a few MC-specific grammatical phenomena, in particular the rule o f verb apocope, in connection with phenomena o f verb complementation, the formation o f WH~words, and the system o f preverbal markers for tense, modality, and aspect, are described and analyzed.M C appears to have two raising rules, predicate raising and subject raising, which alternate in such a way that SVO word order is not disturbed.It is shown that all the phenomena in question manifest a tendency to maximize semantic transparency (in the sense that the amount o f process ing required to get from semantic structures to surface structures and vice versa is minimized).The idea is put forward that semantic transparency is a powerful determinant in the genesis o f Creole languages generally.It is argued, furthermoret that no evidence is available for any Creole-specific substantive universals.
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