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The copula sendá in the revitalization of Palenquero Creole

Fresh evidence

 | Università degli Studi “G. d’Annunzio” Chieti-Pescara, Italy
Published online: 28 January 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1075/jpcl.22015.mar
Abstract
This study provides a first description of the distribution of the copular items of the Spanish-lexified Creole Palenquero (San Basilio de Palenque, Colombia). Notably, besides the descriptions of the occurrence of the oppositional couple ta/é (and its variants era and jue), the distribution of the third and most innovative copula sendá (< Sp. sentar(se) ‘to sit’) has not yet been clarified. This study reveals that the distribution of the copulas é/jue/era ~ sendá is stratified by age. Although sendá has been recorded in previous traditional corpora with low frequency of occurrence, this paper demonstrates that young Palenquero speakers nowadays regularly select the copula sendá in both attributive and identificational equative copular constructions. Elderly traditional speakers prefer using the copulas é, jue, and era in this context. The change in usage is particularly prevalent among second language users of Palenquero who acquired it as part of language revitalization activities.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Sociolinguistic background and language revitalization practices
    • 2.1The resulting sociolinguistic profile of San Basilio de Palenque after community-based efforts to reverse the language shift
    • 2.2Acquisition of the Creole through school
    • 2.3Structural innovations and language change
  • 3.The copula system in Palenquero: State of art
    • 3.1Gaps in previous research
      • 3.1.1Temporal properties of jue
      • 3.1.2Distribution in equative clauses
  • 4.Variationist quantitative analysis
    • 4.1Data and methodology
    • 4.2The overall frequency of the copulas in the corpus
    • 4.3Overall distribution of é/jue/era ~ sendá by sex and age
      • 4.3.1Results from the multivariate analysis
  • 5.Qualitative analysis
    • 5.1Data and methodology
    • 5.2Distribution of é, era, jue, sendá and ta by extra-linguistic and linguistic variables
      • 5.2.1Copula distribution by complement type: Spanish to Palenquero translation
      • 5.2.2Copulas selection by tense, mood and aspect categories: Palenquero to Spanish translation
      • 5.2.3Acceptability judgements: Task 3
  • 6.Findings and main discussion
  • 7.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (48)
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