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Article published In: Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages
Vol. 36:2 (2021) ► pp.336–361

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‘Fact type’ complementizer in Guadeloupean Creole

 | University of Chieti-Pescara, Italy
Published online: 14 January 2022
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https://doi.org/10.1075/jpcl.00078.tra
Abstract
This paper aims to give account of the distribution in Guadeloupean Creole of the form of the complementizer kè. It claims that it has a specific distribution, as it seems to appear in opposition to the zero form. Besides a sociolinguistic component, the presence of kè is associable with the fact type semantics of the completive event (Dixon, Robert Malcolm Ward. 2006. Complement clauses and complementation strategies in typological perspective. In Dixon, Robert Malcolm Ward & Alexandra Aikhenvald (eds.), Complementation. A cross-linguistic typology, 1–46. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), and so do other grammatical functions and markers that are featured in the completive clauses when kè is present, such as independent TAM markers on the verb and the obligatory featuring of a subject form in case of subject coreference.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical and methodological framework
    • 2.1Fact type, activity type and potential type complements
    • 2.2The complement-taking predicates
    • 2.3The collection of data
  • 3.The syntax of the fact-type and potential-type completive clause in gc
    • 3.1The distribution of the forms of complementizers
    • 3.2Values and percentage of the distribution of kè
    • 3.3Complementizers and other elements in the languages of the Balkan League
    • 3.4The distribution of TAM markers on the main and completive verbs
    • 3.5Subject coreference
  • 4.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Bibliographic references
References (46)
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