The emergence of productive morphology in creole languages: the case of Haitian Creole (original) (raw)

Abstract

The most intriguing question about creole languages is without doubt that of how they come about. This paper addresses the problem of the emergence of productive morphology in these languages on the basis of the case study of Haitian Creole (henceforth HC). The aim of this paper is threefold: 1) propose methodologies that need to be developed in order to study the morphology of creole languages; 2) present a scenario of the emergence of productive morphology in these languages within the framework of what has come to be known as the relexification account of creole genesis (Lefebvre 1998 and the references therein) 1 ; and 3), address the current issues bearing on the study of the derivational morphology of creole languages on the basis of the data discussed in this paper. The paper is organised in the following way. Section 1 addresses the problem of identifying affixes that are potentionally native (that is productive) to a given creole and proposes tests designed to identify this potentially productive morphology. Section 2 addresses the issue of the productivity of the affixes identified as potentionally native to a * The content of this paper was presented at the Siegen International Workshop on the Phonology and Morphology of Creole Languages, August 2001, under the title " O n developing methodologies for studying the morphology of creole languages". I would like to thank the participants to the workshop for their most useful comments and questions. I am greatful to

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