The Copula in Vernacular Negerhollands

Using the texts collected by J.B.P. de Josselin de Jong as a data base, the paper describes the linguistic conditioning associated with copula forms in Negerhollands, a Dutch-lexicon Creole which was once spoken in what are now the U.S. Virgin Islands. Seven copula forms are identified: wees, bi, bin, bee, mi, a, and zero. The findings suggest that Negerhollands is similar to several other creoles in that there is a tripartite copula in the present tense; however, it is also shown that the Negerhollands copula differs from previously described language varieties.