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Article published In: Language Ecology
Vol. 3:1 (2019) ► pp.89–119

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Creole typology is analytic typology

 | University of Hong Kong
 | University of Chicago
 | University of Hong Kong | University of Sydney
Published online: 12 June 2019
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/le.17003.sze
Abstract
This paper reviews a number of specific features typical of analytic languages, in an attempt to investigate whether Creole languages can indeed be grouped, at least structurally, with other languages of the analytic (or isolating) type. Based on Sybesma, Rint, Enoch O. Aboh, Umberto Ansaldo and Lisa L. S. Cheng (forthcoming). Analyticity: A Comparison of Sinitic and Kwa. Unpublished draft., a study of the nature of analyticity, we select eight features which constitute rather obvious structural parallels between two unrelated groups, namely Sinitic and Kwa. In terms of Creole languages, these eight features can be also clearly located within the APiCS (Michaelis, Susanne Maria, Philippe Maurer, Martin Haspelmath and Magnus Huber, eds. 2013. The Survey of Pidgin and Creole Languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). Contrary to works like Bakker, Peter, Aymeric Daval-Markussen, Mikael Parkvall and Ingo Plag. 2011. Creoles are typologically distinct from non-creoles. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 26(1): 5–42. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar which argue for the existence of a “Creole Prototype”, our results show that Creole languages do not cluster with each other against other non-Creole languages. Instead, various Creoles clearly owe their grammatical profile to the languages that dominate the typological environment in which they are formed.
Article outline
  • 1.On linguistic complexity
  • 2.Kwa and Sinitic
    • 2.1Tone
    • 2.2Bare Nouns
    • 2.3Determiners and classifiers
    • 2.4Inherent objects
    • 2.5Verb-object compounds
    • 2.6Tense
    • 2.7Serialization
    • 2.8Reduplication
    • 2.9Nominal case marking
  • 3.Creole features
  • 4.Additional features that Creoles and analytic languages share
    • 4.1‘Say’-complementizer
    • 4.2Utterance particles
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
References (65)
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