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Home , French conjugation, Schwa (Cyrillic)

Morphology of creole languages Tracing origins of inflection

Fabiola Henri

University of Kentucky [email protected]

LSA Summer Institute July 7th, 2017

Partly in collaboration Olivier Bonami, Ana R. Luís

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 1 / 70 Review Outline

Review

On Creole morphology

Comparing lexifier to creole Organization of the French paradigm Quantitative take on paradigm opacity

Verb form alternation in FLC Mauritian Verb form alternation in FLC Indo-portuguese

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 2 / 70 Review Basic assumptions

Ï Creoles emerged in particular context Ï Multiple factors participate in its development Ï Creoles are not nativized pidgins Developmental sciences: examine the ingredients that contribute to the outcome

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 3 / 70 Review Language ideology

“Anomaly” doesn’t exist in language, rather, lurk- ing behind it are anomalous presumptions and convictions that obtain in linguistic theory.

ACKERMAN & NIKOLAEVA 2010, 304 [QUOTE FROM A. . KIBRIK]

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 4 / 70 On Creole morphology Outline

Review

On Creole morphology

Comparing lexifier to creole Organization of the French paradigm Quantitative take on paradigm opacity

Verb form alternation in FLC Mauritian Verb form alternation in FLC Indo-portuguese

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 5 / 70 On Creole morphology The inflectional complexity of Creoles

Ï Long history of claims on the morphology of Creole languages: Ï Creoles have no morphology (Seuren 1986) Ï Creoles have simple morphology (McWhorter 2001) Ï Creoles have simpler inflection than their lexifier (Plag 2006) Ï Belongs to a larger family of claims on the simplicity of Creole languages (Bickerton 1988) Claims on Creoles need to substantiated by quantitative analysis and deeper examination of the data.

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 6 / 70 On Creole morphology Historical bases

Creoles are characterized as corrupted versions of their lexifier languages during the colonial period. (Degraff 2005)

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 7 / 70 On Creole morphology Historical bases

Creole languages result from the adaptation of a language, especially some Indo-European lan- guage, to the (so to speak) phonetic and gram- matical genius of a race that is linguistically infe- rior.

DEGRAFF 2005, 297 [QUOTE FROM VINSON 1889]

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 8 / 70 On Creole morphology Historical bases

Le maniement du verbe français avec ses flexions mode, de temps, de nombre et de personne, offrait des complications que le créole devait néc- essairement écarter. Ici la simplification a été poussée à ses dernières limites. Le thème verbal n’a qu’une forme unique : mo vini viens; to té vini tu venu; li va vini il viendra; etc., etc.

BAISSAC 1880

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 9 / 70 On Creole morphology Creole Simplicity

The world’s simplest grammars are creole gram- mars

MCWHORTER 2001

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 10 / 70 On Creole morphology Creole Simplicity

Ï Morphology as a measure of language complexity in both creoles and non-creoles revived in the last decades Ï Traditional grammar = Morphology Proto Indo-European → ... → Latin → ... → French Ï The comparative method has been used in creolistics for typological classification but also complexity classifications Ï Creoles form a natural class distinct from other languages (McWhorter 2001, Bakker et al. 2017)

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 11 / 70 On Creole morphology Creole Simplicity

Ï Complexity is evaluated on the basis of Ï Paradigm size, 51 cells in French vs 2 FLC Ï Number of features, 6 in French vs undecidable in FLC Ï Number of processes, in French stem selection + affixation vs stem selection in FLC Ï Complexity in terms of description length (Degraff 2005) Ï Not all languages can be described withing the morphemic approach.

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 12 / 70 On Creole morphology Form and content paradigms

Ï Important distinction drawn by (Ackerman 2004) and later work: Ï The content paradigm of a lexeme is the structured collection of sets of morphosyntactic properties the lexeme inflects for Ï The form paradigm of a lexeme is the structured collection of forms the lexeme exhibits Ï The distinction is useful because of the existence of mismatches between content and form. Ï A prime example of such a mismatch is syncretism: a single form-paradigm cell for two content-paradigm cells.

PRST.IND FUT.IND PRST.SUBJ

1SG reg-: reg-a-m reg-a-m 2SG reg--s reg-e:-s reg-a:-s ... Example of syncretism in Latin : REGO ‘rule’

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 13 / 70 Comparing lexifier to creole Outline

Review

On Creole morphology

Comparing lexifier to creole Organization of the French paradigm Quantitative take on paradigm opacity

Verb form alternation in FLC Mauritian Verb form alternation in FLC Indo-portuguese

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 14 / 70 Comparing lexifier to creole Our claim for today’s class

1. Statistically prevalent features of the lexifier system shape the creole system 2. This is partly independent of the actual forms the creole inherits

Heavy use of quantitative data on the lexifiers and, where available, on the creoles to show that French lexified creoles and Indo-Portuguese

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 15 / 70 Comparing lexifier to creole Organization of the French paradigm Outline

Review

On Creole morphology

Comparing lexifier to creole Organization of the French paradigm Quantitative take on paradigm opacity

Verb form alternation in FLC Mauritian Verb form alternation in FLC Indo-portuguese

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 16 / 70 Comparing lexifier to creole Organization of the French paradigm Sources: French vs Mauritian

Ï Linguistic descriptions Mauritian (Henri 2010) Ï Lexica Mauritian Database of inflected verbs compiled on the basis of (Carpooran 2011) French Lexique 3 (New 2007): database of French inflected words with frequency data compiled from post-1950 novels + film subtitles Ï Corpora Written French 2 years of the newspaper Le Monde (2003–2004; 38.5M words), tagged and lemmatized using MElt (Denis 2009) Spoken French C-ORAL-ROM (Cresti 2004), collection of balanced corpora of spoken French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese (∼ 300000 words for each language), transcribed, tagged and lemmatized Assumption that the frequency distribution of verb forms did not vary heavily in French since the time of colonization.

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 17 / 70 Comparing lexifier to creole Organization of the French paradigm The French conjugation system

Ï 51 cells laver ‘wash’:

Finite forms

TAM 1SG 2SG 3SG 1PL 2PL 3PL

PRS.IND lav-e lav-es lav-e lav-ons lav-ez lav-ent PST.IND.IPFV lav-ai-s lav-ai-s lav-ai-t lav-i-ons lav-i-ez lav-ai-ent PST.PFV lav-ai lav-as lav-a lav-ˆa-mes lav-ˆa-tes lav-`-ent FUT.IND lav-er-ai lav-er-as lav-er-a lav-er-ons lav-er-ez lav-er-ons PRS.SBJV lav-e lav-es lav-e lav-i-ons lav-i-ez lav-ent PST.SBJV lav-ass-e lav-ass-es lav-ˆat lav-ass-i-ons lav-ass-i-ez lav-ass-ent COND lav-er-ais lav-er-ais lav-er-ait lav-er-i-ons lav-er-i-ez lav-er-aient IMP --- lav-e --- lav-ons lav-ez ---

Nonfinite forms

PST.PTCP INF PRS.PTCP M.SG F.SG M.PL F.PL lav-er lav-ant lav-´e lav-´ee lav-´es lav-´ees

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 18 / 70 Comparing lexifier to creole Organization of the French paradigm The French conjugation system

Ï 51 cells laver ‘wash’:

Finite forms

TAM 1SG 2SG 3SG 1PL 2PL 3PL

PRS.IND lav-e lav-es lav-e lav-ons lav-ez lav-ent PST.IND.IPFV lav-ai-s lav-ai-s lav-ai-t lav-i-ons lav-i-ez lav-ai-ent PST.PFV lav-ai lav-as lav-a lav-ˆa-mes lav-ˆa-tes lav-`er-ent FUT.IND lav-er-ai lav-er-as lav-er-a lav-er-ons lav-er-ez lav-er-ons PRS.SBJV lav-e lav-es lav-e lav-i-ons lav-i-ez lav-ent PST.SBJV lav-ass-e lav-ass-es lav-ˆat lav-ass-i-ons lav-ass-i-ez lav-ass-ent COND lav-er-ais lav-er-ais lav-er-ait lav-er-i-ons lav-er-i-ez lav-er-aient IMP --- lav-e --- lav-ons lav-ez ---

Nonfinite forms

PST.PTCP INF PRS.PTCP M.SG F.SG M.PL F.PL lav-er lav-ant lav-´e lav-´ee lav-´es lav-´ees

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 19 / 70 Comparing lexifier to creole Organization of the French paradigm Orthography vs Speech

The distinctions seen in the differ from those in speech.

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 20 / 70 Comparing lexifier to creole Organization of the French paradigm The French conjugation system

Ï 51 cells laver ‘wash’: Finite forms

TAM 1SG 2SG 3SG 1PL 2PL 3PL

PRS.IND lav lav lav lav-˜O lav-e lav PST.IND.IPFV lav-E lav-E lav-E lav-j-˜O lav-j-e lav-E PST.PFV lavE lava lava lava-m lava-t lavE-K FUT.IND lav@-K-E lav@-K-a lav@-K-a lav@-K-˜O lav@-K-e lav@-K-˜O PRS.SBJV lav lav lav lav-j-˜O lav-j-e lav PST.SBJV lava-s lava-s lava lava-s-j-˜O lava-s-j-e lava-s COND lav@-K-E lav@-K-E lav@-K-E lav@-K-j-˜O lav@-K-j-e lav@-K-E IMP --- lav --- lav-˜O lav-e ---

Nonfinite forms

PST.PTCP INF PRS.PTCP M.SG F.SG M.PL F.PL lave lav-˜A lave lave lave lave

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 21 / 70 Comparing lexifier to creole Organization of the French paradigm The French conjugation system

Ï 51 cells laver ‘wash’: Finite forms

TAM 1SG 2SG 3SG 1PL 2PL 3PL

PRS.IND lav lav lav lav-˜O lav-e lav PST.IND.IPFV lav-E lav-E lav-E lav-j-˜O lav-j-e lav-E PST.PFV lavE lava lava lava-m lava-t lavE-K FUT.IND lav@-K-E lav@-K-a lav@-K-a lav@-K-˜O lav@-K-e lav@-K-˜O PRS.SBJV lav lav lav lav-j-˜O lav-j-e lav PST.SBJV lava-s lava-s lava lava-s-j-˜O lava-s-j-e lava-s COND lav@-K-E lav@-K-E lav@-K-E lav@-K-j-˜O lav@-K-j-e lav@-K-E IMP --- lav --- lav-˜O lav-e ---

Nonfinite forms

PST.PTCP INF PRS.PTCP M.SG F.SG M.PL F.PL lave lav-˜A lave lave lave lave

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 22 / 70 Comparing lexifier to creole Organization of the French paradigm The French conjugation system: neutralization

Ï 51 cells laver ‘wash’: Finite forms

TAM 1SG 2SG 3SG 1PL 2PL 3PL

PRS.IND lav lav lav lav-˜O lav-e lav PST.IND.IPFV lav-E lav-E lav-E lav-j-˜O lav-j-e lav-E PST.PFV lavE lava lava lava-m lava-t lavE-K FUT.IND lav@-K-E lav@-K-a lav@-K-a lav@-K-˜O lav@-K-e lav@-K-˜O PRS.SBJV lav lav lav lav-j-˜O lav-j-e lav PST.SBJV lava-s lava-s lava lava-s-j-˜O lava-s-j-e lava-s COND lav@-K-E lav@-K-E lav@-K-E lav@-K-j-˜O lav@-K-j-e lav@-K-E IMP --- lav --- lav-˜O lav-e ---

Nonfinite forms

PST.PTCP INF PRS.PTCP M.SG F.SG M.PL F.PL lave lav-˜A lave lave lave lave

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 23 / 70 Comparing lexifier to creole Organization of the French paradigm The French conjugation system: Historical context

Ï 51 cells laver ‘wash’: Finite forms

TAM 1SG 2SG 3SG 1PL 2PL 3PL

PRS.IND lav lav lav lav-e lav PST.IND.IPFV lav-E lav-E lav-E lav-j-e lav-E PST.PFV lavE lava lava lava-t lavE-K FUT.IND lav@-K-E lav@-K-a lav@-K-a lav@-K-e lav@-K-˜O PRS.SBJV lav lav lav lav-j-e lav PST.SBJV lava-s lava-s lava lava-s-j-e lava-s COND lav@-K-E lav@-K-E lav@-K-E lav@-K-j-e lav@-K-E IMP --- lav --- lav-˜O lav-e ---

Nonfinite forms

PST.PTCP INF PRS.PTCP M.SG F.SG M.PL F.PL lave lav-˜A lave lave lave lave

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 24 / 70 Comparing lexifier to creole Organization of the French paradigm The French conjugation system: colloquial French

Ï 51 cells laver ‘wash’: Finite forms

TAM 1SG 2SG 3SG 1PL 2PL 3PL

PRS.IND lav lav lav lav-e lav PST.IND.IPFV lav-E lav-E lav-E lav-j-e lav-E PST.PFV FUT.IND lav@-K-E lav@-K-a lav@-K-a lav@-K-e lav@-K-˜O PRS.SBJV lav lav lav lav-j-e lav PST.SBJV COND lav@-K-E lav@-K-E lav@-K-E lav@-K-j-e lav@-K-E IMP --- lav --- lav-˜O lav-e ---

Nonfinite forms

PST.PTCP INF PRS.PTCP M.SG F.SG M.PL F.PL lave lav-˜A lave lave lave lave

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 25 / 70 Comparing lexifier to creole Organization of the French paradigm The French conjugation system: colloquial French

Ï 51 cells laver ‘wash’: Finite forms

TAM 1SG 2SG 3SG 1PL 2PL 3PL

PRS.IND lav lav lav lav-e lav PST.IND.IPFV lav-E lav-E lav-E lav-j-e lav-E PST.PFV FUT.IND lav@-K-E lav@-K-a lav@-K-a lav@-K-e lav@-K-˜O PRS.SBJV lav lav lav lav-j-e lav PST.SBJV COND lav@-K-E lav@-K-E lav@-K-E lav@-K-j-e lav@-K-E IMP --- lav --- lav-˜O lav-e ---

Nonfinite forms

PST.PTCP INF PRS.PTCP M.SG F.SG M.PL F.PL lave lav-˜A lave lave lave lave

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 26 / 70 Comparing lexifier to creole Organization of the French paradigm The French conjugation system: periphrases

Ï 51 cells laver ‘wash’: Finite forms

TAM 1SG 2SG 3SG 1PL 2PL 3PL

PRS.IND lav lav lav lav-e lav PST.IND.IPFV lav-E lav-E lav-E lav-j-e lav-E PST.PFV FUT.IND v-E lave v-a lave v-a lave al˜O lave ale lave v-˜O lave PRS.SBJV lav lav lav lav-j-e lav PST.SBJV COND IMP --- lav --- lav-˜O lav-e ---

Nonfinite forms

PST.PTCP INF PRS.PTCP M.SG F.SG M.PL F.PL lave lav-˜A lave lave lave lave

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 27 / 70 Comparing lexifier to creole Organization of the French paradigm The French conjugation system

Ï One productive conjugation (LAVER) Ï Stable but closed second conjugation (FINIR) Ï 61 patterns with 1 to 50 verbs

Conjugation 1 2 3a 3b 3c 3d 3e ... LAVER FINIR RENDRE TENIR CUIRE PEINDRE METTRE ... Types (Lexique) 5678 282 50 28 28 27 15

INF lave finiK K˜AdK t@niK k4iK p˜EdK mEtK PST.PTCP lave fini K˜Ady t@ny k4i p˜E mi

PRS.1SG lav fini K˜A tj˜E k4i p˜E me PRS.2SG lav fini K˜A tj˜E k4i p˜E me PRS.3SG lav fini K˜A tj˜E k4i p˜E me PRS.1PL lav˜O finis˜O K˜Ad˜O t@n˜O k4iz˜O peñ˜O met˜O PRS.2PL lave finise K˜Ade t@ne k4ize peñe mete PRS.3PL lav finis K˜Ad tj˜ k4iz pEñ mEt

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 28 / 70 Comparing lexifier to creole Organization of the French paradigm Interim conclusion

Striking contrast between a long and a short form Even without discarding tenses like the PST.PFV, PST.SBJV, etc.

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 29 / 70 Comparing lexifier to creole Organization of the French paradigm Syncretism in French

Ï Prevalence of syncretism in the French system

Paradigm class 1 class 2 cells LAVER FINIR PRS/IMP.2PL -ise IPFV.SG/3PL -e INF PST.PTCP -i PRS.SG PRS.3PL ; -is SBJV.SG/3PL

In 18th century French, infinitive final -r was consistently dropped for verbs of all conjugations, except those with a final schwa (Rosset 1911, Y.-C. Morin, p.c.). Ï Lack of statistically usable historical data (Baker 2007) Ï Mismatch: Ï Almost no parallelism of function across the FLC

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 30 / 70 Comparing lexifier to creole Quantitative take on paradigm opacity Outline

Review

On Creole morphology

Comparing lexifier to creole Organization of the French paradigm Quantitative take on paradigm opacity

Verb form alternation in FLC Mauritian Verb form alternation in FLC Indo-portuguese

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 31 / 70 Comparing lexifier to creole Quantitative take on paradigm opacity Class-specific syncretism

Ï French conjugation is characterized by the high prevalence of inflection class specific patterns of syncretism

LAVER FINIR RENDRE CUIRE POUVOIR DIRE ... PRS/IMP.2PL dit -ise r˜Ade k4ize puve IPFV.SG/3PL dize -e INF r˜AdK k4iK puvwaK diK PST.PTCP -i K˜Ady py k4i di PRS.SG K˜A pø PRS.3PL ; pv -is -K˜Ad -k4iz diz SBJV.SG/3PL p4is

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 32 / 70 Comparing lexifier to creole Quantitative take on paradigm opacity Paradigmatic opacity

Ï A form is paradigmatically opaque when it is compatible with more than one inflection class. Ï Opaque forms are commonplace in French

PRS.SG INF PRS.SG INF paliK (PÂLIR) paKe (PARER) pali paK palje (PALLIER) paKtiK (PARTIR)

PRS.2PL INF PRS.2PL INF tapiK (TAPIR) p˜EdK (PEINDRE) tapise pEñe tapise (TAPISSER) pEñe (PEIGNER) Ï A paradigm cell is opaque if the exponents in contains do not allow to unambiguously predict the lexeme’s inflection class.

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 33 / 70 Comparing lexifier to creole Quantitative take on paradigm opacity Paradigm opacity

Ï Theme vowels are not helpful in identifying conjugation classes in French Ï Only the infinitive, the past , the simple past and the (barely used) past subjunctive contain a theme vowel giving unambiguous information on conjugation class. That is, only 14 out of 51 cells are diagnostic.

Type frequency Token frequency Token frequency (written corpora) (spoken corpora) French 27% 33.77% 28.53% Proportion of paradigm cells with a diagnostic vowel alternation (data from Le Monde and C-ORAL-ROM)

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 34 / 70 Comparing lexifier to creole Quantitative take on paradigm opacity Refining the view of paradigm opacity

Ï In fact paradigm opacity comes in different flavors and degrees Ï A paradigm cell may be partially opaque; cf. the Portuguese present Ï A better indicator of paradigm opacity is paradigm entropy (Ackerman et al. 2009), a quantitative measure that synthesizes the difficulty of predicting paradigm cells from one another.

Language p. entropy

French 0.2117 bits Bonami & Luis (2013) Maintaining the French system is very costly

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 35 / 70 Comparing lexifier to creole Quantitative take on paradigm opacity Opacity and Syncretism

Ï Both paradigm opacity and class-specific syncretism contribute to making French conjugation highly unpredictable Predictions: it would be surprising for a French-based creole to maintain the conjugation system of its lexifier.

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 36 / 70 Comparing lexifier to creole Quantitative take on paradigm opacity Reorganizing French paradigms

Ï On the other hand, the syncretic patterns of French first conjugation verbs are very perceptible

among 1st conj. tokens among all verb tokens C-ORAL-ROM lexique 3 C-ORAL-ROM lexique 3 ‘long form’ 49.4% 49.1% 14.6% 19.3% ‘short form’ 40% 40.1% 11.8% 15.8% contrasting forms 89.4% 89.2% 26.4% 35.2%

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 37 / 70 Comparing lexifier to creole Quantitative take on paradigm opacity Interim conclusion

Ï If creole formation is at all sensitive to statistical properties of the lexifier’s lexicon, the distinction between a long and a short form is expected to be present in French-based creoles Ï However since the two forms are highly syncretic, there is no stable function for the form alternants to inherit. Cf. also (Chaudenson 2003, Becker & Veenstra 2003) Ï Veenstra (2004) argues that they are inherited form the 3SG.PRST and the INF respectively Ï will argue that creoles are sensitive to the French alternation but innovate their own

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 38 / 70 Verb form alternation in FLC Mauritian Outline

Review

On Creole morphology

Comparing lexifier to creole Organization of the French paradigm Quantitative take on paradigm opacity

Verb form alternation in FLC Mauritian Verb form alternation in FLC Indo-portuguese

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 39 / 70 Verb form alternation in FLC Mauritian The Mauritian conjugation system: forms

Ï The Mauritian verbal paradigm : 2 cells Ï 70% of the 2079 verbs extracted from Carpooran 2011 alternates between a long and a short form – stable over time It distinguishes morphologically between long and short forms (Becker & Veenstra 2003, Henri 2010)

LF bKije bKije v˜Ade am˜Ade k˜Osiste Keste fini vini SF bKij bKije van am˜Ad k˜Osiste Kes fini vin

TRANS. ‘shine’ ‘mix’ ‘sell’ ‘amend’ ‘consist’ ‘stay’ ‘finish’ ‘come’

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 40 / 70 Verb form alternation in FLC Mauritian Predictibility

Ï Morphological alternation (Contra Corne 1982)

LF bKije fini vini k˜Osiste egziste am˜Ade dem˜Ade ⇓ SF bKije bKij fini vin k˜Osiste egzis am˜Ad deman ‘mix’ ‘shine’ ‘finish’ ‘come’ ‘consist’ ‘exist’ ‘amend’ ‘ask’

LF paste pas b˜Ade ban fKize fKiz feKe feÄ ⇑ SF pas ban fKiz feÄ ‘filter’ ‘succeed’ ‘bandage’ ‘prevent’ ‘curl’ ‘freeze’ ‘shoe’ ‘do’

Predictibility as a measure of complexity (next class)

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 41 / 70 Verb form alternation in FLC Mauritian The Mauritian conjugation system: forms

The forms seen in Mauritian are different from those in French

LF ale bKije v˜Ade am˜Ade asize Keste soÄti vini SF al bKij van am˜Ad asiz Kes soÄt vin

TRANS. ‘go’ ‘shine’ ‘sell’ ‘amend’ ‘sit’ ‘stay’ ‘go out’ ‘come’

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 42 / 70 Verb form alternation in FLC Mauritian Paradigm shape vs. forms in the paradigm

Ï Question: how did the Mauritian forms stem from French forms? Ï Possible scenarios: 1. Two syncretic forms were inherited holistically Prediction: for verbs which do not exhibit the expected syncretism, random choice of one of the forms. 2. Two specific paradigm cells (e.g. INF and PRS.SG) were inherited (Chaudenson 2003, Becker & Veenstra 2003) Prediction: for verbs with an exceptional relationship between these two paradigm cells, we should witness the same exceptional relationship in the creole 3. One specific paradigm cell (e.g. INF) was coopted; alternations are native to the creole Prediction: the long form systematically relates to the form filling a specific French paradigm cell Exhaustively checked the 1932 verbs whose etymon is undisputably a French verb in Carpooran (2011)

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 43 / 70 Verb form alternation in FLC Mauritian Possible sources of long and short forms

Ï Possible sources of the long form:

French cells example #

INF or PST.PTCP or. . . laver > lave 1767 INF croire > krwar 129 PST.PTCP offert > ofer 11 PRS.SG doit > dwa 9 other cases asseoir > asize 16

Ï Where the short form coincides with the French PRS.SG:

alternation examples #

LF = SF + e lave 1353 LF = SF fini, dwa 121 other — 0

No evidence of direct inheritance of short forms from French

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 44 / 70 Verb form alternation in FLC Mauritian Remarkable cases

Ï In all cases where French has an alternation other that LF = SF + e, Mauritian uses only one of the two forms.

French Mauritian trans. INF PRS.SG LF SF ale va ale al go sOKtiK sOK soÄti soÄt exit v@niK vj˜E vini vin come d@vwaK dwa dwa dwa owe valwaK vo vo vo be worth

Ï This is despite the existence of 129 Mauritian verbs whose French etymon does have a relevant alternation. Wherever this can be checked, Ï mauritian verbs inherit from a single French form Ï that form is the infinitive 78% of the time, and exceptions are scattered The infinitive can be assumed as the only source for 98% of the verbs

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 45 / 70 Verb form alternation in FLC Mauritian Sources of long forms: verbs in -i and -e

Alternation Source of long form examples #

INF/PST.PTCP/. . . laver > lave 1353 X e ∼ X non-INF kone 2 form+e assis > asize 2 ambiguous mettez/mett- > mete 8

X e ∼ Y INF/PST.PTCP/. . . rester > reste 19

INF/PST.PTCP/. . . jongler > zongle 284 X e ∼ X e other né > ne 3

X i ∼ X i INF/PST.PTCP/. . . fini > fini 109

X i ∼ X INF/PST.PTCP/. . . sortir > sorti 2 Mauritian verbs ending in -e or -i

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 46 / 70 Verb form alternation in FLC Mauritian Sources of long forms: other verbs

Ï The remaining verbs are all non-alternating

French paradigm cell examples # dire > dir vivre > viv 129 croire > krwar mort > mor PST.PTCP foutu > fouti 11 offert > ofer doit > dwa PRS.SG comprend > konpran 9 vaut > vo déteint > detin 3 Other éclos/éclot > eklo ?éteigne > tengn Mauritian verbs not ending in -e or -i

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 47 / 70 Verb form alternation in FLC Mauritian Interim conclusions

Ï The kind of morphology found in the creoles correlates with highly perceptible properties of the inflectional morphology of the lexifier Ï Prevalence of syncretism in French Assumption that the statistical distribution of inflected forms in spoken French have been rather stable over time. Ï Origin of Mauritian forms: Ï The Mauritian paradigm always stems from a single French form Ï That form is most often but not always the a syncretic form corresponding to the INF or PST.PCP or 2PL.PRST, ... . Ï Interesting result: French alternations play a crucial role in shaping Mauritian paradigms, but the alternating forms did not survive.

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 48 / 70 Verb form alternation in FLC Mauritian Interim conclusions

Ï Many possible causes for why the French forms did not survive, which, in many cases can’t be told apart for lack of documentation. Ï Independent influence of holistic perception of paradigms and specific inheritance of forms Ï Late regularization because of sustained influence from French Ï Substratic contribution Ï ... Ï Differences in FLC can also be explained by the nonstandard varieties spoken, type and token frequency (kouri vs galoupe)

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 49 / 70 Verb form alternation in FLC Mauritian Predictions

Is a similar development born out in other French lexified creoles? Alternating forms but not similar functions.

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 50 / 70 Verb form alternation in FLC Verb form alternation in FLC

Cross creole comparison 11

Reunionese Louisiana Creole Guadeloupean Haitian

Gloss LF SF LF SF LF SF LF SF

6 ale ale ale ale ale ay ale al/ay ‘go’

7 vɛne vɛn vini vin vini vin vini vin ‘come’

soɚti soɚrt sɔɾti sɔɾ sɔti sɔt sɔti sɔt ‘exit/go out’

save sav konɛt kone kɔnɛ ̃ kɔnɛ ̃ { } kɔnɛ ̃ kɔn ‘know’ kɔnɛt kɔnɛt

Table 3: Comparison of 4 French-based creoles’ long and short forms. Figure: Comparison of verb form alternation across FLC (Henri et al, to appear) While we focus here only on three French-based creoles, Mauritian, Guadeloupean and Haitian, we hypothesizeHenri (Lexington) that verb form alternationsMorphology of in creole French languages-based creoles are unequivocallyJuly 2017 more 51 / 70 complex than previously acknowledged. Moreover, this complexity is highlighted in word formation processes such as conversion, which we examine in the next section.

5 Approaches to derivation and conversion

Our analysis is based within theoretical framework of lexeme-based morphology (Matthews 1972, Aronoff 1994) where the lexeme is defined as an entity abstracted away from the syntactic contexts in which it may appear. In inflectional languages, a lexeme is usually associated a collection of stems used to form the inflected forms that can be inserted into sentences. For

instance French verb BOIRE ‘to drink’ has a stem [byv] upon which are built the inflected forms [byvɔ] (buvons), [byve] (buvez), [byvɛ] (buvais), etc. and a stem [bwa] upon which are formed the word-forms [bwa] (bois, boit). Those stems are morphomic as defined by Aronoff (1994). That is they are pure forms, without any meaning, and bearing no morphosyntactic properties.

6 Louisiana Creole shows a short form [al] alternating with the verb [ale] meaning ‘to haul/pull’. 7 Both Mauritian and Louisiana Creole have the form [vjɛ]̃ but are late borrowings and are used next to [vin].

Verb form alternation in FLC Verb form alternation in FLC Lousiana creole

Ï Linguistic descriptions Neumann (1985) Klingler (2003) Ï Lexica Database of inflected verbs under construction on the basis of (Valdman 1998) Ï Corpora Translation-Example Questionnaire Fieldwork: December 2013, February 2014 Spontaneous Interviews (with Tom Klingler)

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 52 / 70 Verb form alternation in FLC Verb form alternation in FLC Louisiana Creole

Ï More than 50% of Louisiana Creole verbs distinguish between long and short forms (Neumann 185, Klingler 2003)

LF mete kon˜E pEdi sORti uRa k˜OpRan gOn viv SF mEt kon˜E pEd sOÄ uRa k˜OpR˜A gOn viv

TRANS. ‘put’ ‘know’ ‘lose’ ‘go ‘hurry’ ‘understand’ ‘go’/ ‘live’ out’ ‘went’

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 53 / 70 Verb form alternation in FLC Verb form alternation in FLC Louisiana creole: True morphology

The alternation is a morphological one It is not phonologically predictable

LF abitSwe fini vini men˜E kon˜E bat abat ⇓ SF tSu/tSi/ty abitSwe fini vin vj˜E mEn kon˜E ba abat ‘kill’ ‘used to’ ‘finish’ ‘come’ ‘bring’ ‘know ’ ‘beat’ ‘depressed’

LF pikte pike baRe baRde f˜Ode f˜On t˜Ade t˜An ⇑ SF pik baÄ f˜On t˜An ‘nibble’ ‘prick’ ‘lock’ ‘dart off’ ‘establish’ ‘melt’ ‘hear’ ‘hang out’

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 54 / 70 Verb form alternation in FLC Verb form alternation in FLC Haitian

Ï Linguistic descriptions Lefebvre (1998), Degraff (2001, 2005, 2007) Ï Lexique Database of verbs compiled from Valdman (2007) Ï Corpus linguistic atlas of Haiti (Fattier 1998) Fieldwork data (with Herby Glaude)

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 55 / 70 Verb form alternation in FLC Verb form alternation in FLC Haitian

Ï Collection of 2657 distinct verbs listed in Valdman (2007) Ï Phentic transcription of their long and short forms. Ï Only 12 verbs alternate Dictionaries are often non exhaustive ...

FL ale baj fEt fl˜Ake fute gade g˜Ej˜E kOn˜E mete fini sOti vini FC al ba fE fl˜Ak fut gad g˜E kOn met fin sOt vin

TRAD.‘go’‘give’‘do’‘chuck out’‘throw’‘look’‘get’‘know’ ‘put’ ‘finish’‘go out’‘come’

Ï Phonological reduction (Alleyne 96), precisely a reduction in syllabic structure General tendecny in Haitian (Cadely 1994)

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 56 / 70 Verb form alternation in FLC Verb form alternation in FLC Prédictibilité La taille du phénomène Haïtien Prédictibilité Ï The short form in Haitian seems to be phonologically predictable Ï 9 cases of final vowel truncation with resyllabification (ale, fl˜Ake, fute, ! Si l’alternancegade, kOn˜E, mete résulte, fini d’un, sOti amuïssement,, vini - Schema alors 1) la FC est phonologiquementÏ 2 cases final vowel prédictible truncation (baj, fEt - Schema 2) Ï 1 case final syllable truncation (g˜Ej˜E) ! 9 cas de de chute de la voyelle finale avec resyllabification (ale, fl˜Ake, Glides exhibit particular properties fute, gade, kOn˜E, mete, fini, sOti, vini -Schéma1) Ï The fact that we have phonological predictability does not mean the ! 2 cas de chute de la consonne finale (baj et fEt -Schéma2) phenomenon shoud be left unaccounted for ! 1 cas d’amuïssement de la syllabe finale (g˜Ej˜E) Ï The distribution of LF and in Haitian is rule-governed; not necessarily ☞ Les semi-consonnes ont souvent des propriétés particulières phonologically conditioned

σ σ σ

A R A R A R

C N C C N C C N C

V l V b V j✄

a e✁ a

Henri (Lexington) Figure: PhonologicalMorphology of predictibility creole languages in Haitian July 2017 57 / 70 Henri (Paris7/LLF, Paris) CIEC 2012 8 / 32 Verb form alternation in FLC Verb form alternation in FLC Guadeloupean

Ï Linguistic descriptions No description on verbs since it is assumed there is no inflection Also Martiniqué and other Lesser Antillean French lexified creoles Ï Lexica Database of inflected verbs under construction on the basis of (Tourneux & Barbotin 1990, Ludwig et al. 2002) Ï Corpora Translation-Example Questionnaire Fieldwork: December 2012 Spontaneous Interviews

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 58 / 70 Verb form alternation in FLC Verb form alternation in FLC Guadeloupean

Ï Collection of 1825 distinct verbs listed in Tourneux & Barbotin (1990) and Ludwig et al. (2002) Ï 34 Guadeloupean verbs distinguish between a long and short form

LF mete save k˜Ebe fEt fale bay gade fute SF mEt sav kEn fe fo ba/b˜A fu

TRANS. ‘put’ ‘know’ ‘hold’ ‘do’ ‘must’ ‘give’ ‘look’ ‘throw’

Ï Not phonologically predictable given the suppletive forms found in the paradigm

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 59 / 70 Verb form alternation in FLC Verb form alternation in FLC Other French lexified creoles

Ï The extent of verb form alternation is similar across Indian Ocean creoles: Seychellois, Rodriguais, Chagossien, Reunionese Ï Reunionese has been argued to be decreolizing due to the use of a the FUT.IND in some varieties Plain contact? Ï Lesser Antillean French creoles: The phenomenon has been ignored Ï Tayo: Erhart (1993) mentions 3 alternating verbs

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 60 / 70 Verb form alternation in FLC Verb form alternation in FLC Verb form alternation: function

Ï The function of verb form alternation differs across FLC Ï More homogeneity in IOC Ï Drastically different in the Americas Next time: Distribution of verb form alternation in FLC

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 61 / 70 Verb form alternation in FLC Verb form alternation in FLC Extending the methodology to other creoles

Ï Indo-Portuguese Ï The inflectional paradigm in IP is reminiscent of the structure of Portuguese The sociohistorical contexts palays a role in the extension seen in IP Ï Sranan: wan, wani ‘want’, drink, drinki ‘drink’, ... Ï Are the English bare and forms salient and most frequent?

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 62 / 70 Verb form alternation in FLC Indo-portuguese The Portuguese conjugation system

Ï Portuguese verbal paradigm: 66 cells Ï 3 conjugation classes, each with its own perceptible theme vowel Ï lavar ‘wash’ (class1)

TAM 1SG 2SG 3SG 1PL 2PL 3PL

IND.PRS lav-o lava-s lava lava-mos lava-is lava-m IND.PST.IPFV lava-va lava-vas lava-va lav´a-vamos lava-veis lava-vam IND.PST.PFV lav-ei lava-ste lavou lav´a-mos lava-stes lava-ram IND.PST.PRF lava-ra lava-ras lava-ra lav´a-ramos lav´a-reis lava-ram IND.FUT lava-rei lava-r´as lava-r´a lava-remos lava-reis lava-r˜ao SBJV.PRS lav-e lave-s lave lave-mos lave-is lave-m SBJV.PST lava-sse lava-sses lava-sse lav´a-ssemos lava-sseis lava-ssem SBJV.FUT lava-r lava-res lava-r lava-rmos lava-rdes lava-rem COND lava-ria lava-rias lava-ria lava-r´ıamos lava-r´ıeis lava-riam IMP --- lava lave lave-mos lava-i lave-m INF.PERS lava-r lava-res lava-r lava-rmos lava-rdes lava-rem

INF.IMPERS PTCP GER lava-r lava-do/a lava-ndo

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 63 / 70 Verb form alternation in FLC Indo-portuguese The Portuguese conjugation system

Ï lavar ‘wash’ (class1)

TAM 1SG 2SG 3SG 1PL 2PL 3PL

IND.PRS lav-o lava-s lava lava-mos lava-is lava-m IND.FUT lava-r´a lava-r´as lava-r´a lava-remos lava-reis lava-r˜ao

Ï beber ‘drink’ (class2)

TAM 1SG 2SG 3SG 1PL 2PL 3PL

IND.PRS beb-o bebe-s bebe bebe-mos bebe-is bebe-m IND.FUT bebe-r´a bebe-r´as bebe-r´a bebe-remos bebe-reis bebe-r˜ao

Ï subir ‘go up’ (class3)

TAM 1SG 2SG 3SG 1PL 2PL 3PL

IND.PRS sub-o sobe-s sobe subi-mos subi-s sobe-m IND.FUT subi-r´a subi-r´as subi-r´a subi-remos subi-reis subi-r˜ao Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 64 / 70 Verb form alternation in FLC Indo-portuguese The Daman / Korlai conjugation system

Ï Verbal paradigms in Daman & Korlai creoles: 4 cells Inflection classes marked by theme vowels Extension of a 4th class for loans of substratic origin.

kanta kume subi beblu ‘sing’ ‘eat’ ‘go up’ ‘mutter’

BASE kanta kume subi beblu PAST kant-o kume- subi-u beblu PROGRESSIVE kanta-n kume-n subi-n beblu-n COMPLETIVE kanta-d kumi-d subi-d beblu-d Daman Creole Portuguese Adapted from Clements (2002)

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 65 / 70 Verb form alternation in FLC Indo-portuguese The origin of D/K paradigms

Ï Each paradigm cell has a clearly identifiable precedent in Portuguese, both in terms of form and in terms of function.

Daman Portuguese Daman Portuguese BASE FORM INFINITIVE COMPLETIVE PST.PTCP lava ⇐= lava-r lava-d ⇐= lava-do/a kume come-r kumi-d comi-do/a subi subi-r subi-d subi-do/a

PAST FORM PST.PFV PROGRESSIVE lav-o ⇐= lav-ou lava-n ⇐= lava-ndo kume-u come-u kume-n come-ndo subi-u subi-u subi-n subi-ndo

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 66 / 70 Verb form alternation in FLC Indo-portuguese The origin of D/K paradigms

Ï Conclusion: Indo-Portuguese has retained much of the Portuguese structure

K/D survival of inflection class system yes survival of function of paradigm cells yes origin of forms clear

Ï Opaque forms are not commonplace in Portuguese unlike French

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 67 / 70 Verb form alternation in FLC Indo-portuguese Paradigm opacity in Portuguese

Ï In EP, almost all cells in the paradigm contain a theme vowel precluding paradigm opacity This is true for all but 1 (PRS.IND.1SG) of the 66 paradigm cells

Type frequency Token frequency Token frequency (written corpora) (spoken corpora) Portuguese 98% 99.96% 92.57% French 27% 33.77% 28.53% Proportion of paradigm cells with a diagnostic vowel alternation (data from CETEMPúblico, Le Monde and C-ORAL-ROM)

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 68 / 70 Verb form alternation in FLC Indo-portuguese Paradigm entropy

Ï In portuguese the paradigm is partially opaque

lexeme 1SG 2SG 3SG 1PL 2PL 3PL INF lavar l"avu l"av5S l"av5 l5v"5muS l5v"aiS l"av˜5˜u l5v"aR beber b"ebu b"Eb@S b"Eb@ b@b"emuS b@b"5iS b"Eb˜5˜ı b@b"eR subir s"ubu s"Ob@S s"Ob@ sub"imuS sub"iS s"Ob˜5˜ı sub"iR

Ï Paradigm entropy in Portuguese compared to French

Language p. entropy

French 0.2117 bits E. Portuguese 0.1197 bits

Maintaining the Portuguese system is not as costly as in French

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 69 / 70 Verb form alternation in FLC Indo-portuguese Sociohistorical contexts

Ï The sociohistorical context where IP emerge is slightly different fron that of other Portuguese lexifier creoles

Henri (Lexington) Morphology of creole languages July 2017 70 / 70