Genetic Descent/Haitian Creole

[X99Lynx at aol.com]

There is a larger issue that has come up in this discussion of "finite verb
morphology"  as an indicator of language relatedness.  Awhile back we saw the
following exchange:

Larry Trask wrote:
<< The lexicon of Laha is largely native, though partly borrowed from Malay.
But the grammar is almost 100% Malay, with only a few fragments of native
Laha grammar surviving.  So, my question for David White is this: is Laha a
variety of Malay, or not?  Since the grammar is almost entirely Malay, it
would seem that he must answer "Yes; it's Malay." >>

In a message dated 5/25/2001 8:15:42 PM, dlwhite at texas.net replied:
<< I would need to know what the "few bits of Laha grammar" are.  If they
involve finite verbal morphology, then what I have been saying is wrong....
If they involve nominal morphology, derivational or non-finite verbal
morphology, or (worse yet) mere categories, then what I have been saying is
not wrong.>>

Let's look at Dr White's approach here and what it might mean:

Situation #1:  Language A shares its ENTIRE "nominal morphology, derivational
or non-finite verbal morphology,... and categories" with Language B, but it's
"finite verbal morphology" is shared with no known language.

RESULT: There should be no doubt in anyone's mind that this would be
universally seen as establishing a genetic relationship between A and B.

Situation #2: Same as above, but Language A's "finite verbal morphology" is
shared with Language C

RESULT:  ENTIRE "nominal morphology, derivational or non-finite verbal
morphology,.." etc., are now "non-genetic."  Language A is now genetically
related to Language C.

So, a large part of Language A goes abruptly from "genetic" to "non-genetic"
depending on the presence of certain verb morphology.

I think any good scientist would, in the example above, call the distinction
between "genetic" and  "non-genetic" operationally useless.  The second you
can see the interpretation of the whole data (the whole language) turned 180
degrees based on the presence or absence of one element ("finite verbal
morphology"), you know that nothing else is really being measured BUT that
one element.

Operationally, this simply means "genetic" equals "finite verbal morphology."
 What happens in its absence, doesn't matter.  The rest of the language can
only be a relative statistical indicator.  The correlation between "finite
verbal morphology" and "genetic" is determinative, no matter how the theory
behind the operation explains it.

The road that Dr. White goes down in the quote above is one inevitable result
of the assumption that languages can be "genetically" descended from ONLY one
ancestor.  Sooner or later, you will have one "genetic" element coming up
against another.  The contest then becomes which "genetic" element is the
winning "genetic" element.  Everything else loses and becomes non-genetic.
And you will have Dr. White always trumping the table because "finite verbal
morphology" is never "borrowed" or has some other claim to being preemptive.
He wins by definition, so the game is pointless.

None of this has anything to do with comprehension of the languages in
question.  None of it has to do with the possibility that each element has
its own independent, inherent claims to being genetic.  Claims to being
genetic that should not change whether or not Dr. White's trump card is
present.

dlwhite at texas.net also writes:
<<So even the mixed language crowd now admits that a language which

has grammar from source A and (non-grammatical) lexicon from source B is a

form of language A?  That is pretty much what I have been saying. >>

Common sense and half-way decent science would suggest that it is a form of
both source languages.  Why should one genetic element make another
non-genetic?

Words and morphs are not like biological cells.  Each word or piece of
morphology does not contain a hologram of the entire language in its DNA.  We
cannot clone an entire language out of a single word or verb morphology.  A
language is made up of many totally independent parts.  Why should the
"genetics" of one part affect the "genetics" of another part.

Haitian Creole speakers were largely descended from West African speakers.
Haitian Creole used West African lexicon and 17th Century French affixes.
What is the possible usefulness of calling it French and not African?  What
did those speakers of African descent do exactly?  Learn French, temporarily
forget West African and then later borrow West African words from themselves?

Common sense and half-way decent science would suggest that there is
something wrong here.  Obviously there are different elements in Haitian
Creole and they obviously come from different sources.  The older source
among the generations of speakers who passed on the language was West
African.  The later French element may be "more genetic."  But why would that
make the West African elements "non-genetic"?  They can lay claim to being
original, continuous and native with those speakers.  How could they suddenly
become totally non-genetic?

Isolating systematic elements of two languages to find a common ancestor is a
powerful methodology.  But why would we conclude from that process that
either of those languages as a whole can only descend from one ancestor?
What makes one element genetic and a similar element borrowed?

Back in 1997, Stefan Georg - who was and may still be a member of this list -
discussed on the HistLing list his work on Itel'men and Chukchi-Koryak.
There he wrote something that has always struck me as being just on the brink
of the cross-over in thinking.  He wrote:
<<There *are* degrees of language relationship (certainly there are degrees
of *discernability* of language relationship), relationship is simply not
always a binary +/- thing.>>

Once you perceive relationship as a matter of degree, you leave room for less
than 100% singular descent.  And for multiple descent.  You are not stuck
with relating a language as a single lump, so you don't need to define a
whole language by a single ancestor.  You can look at the parts.  You can
avoid the situation where the map of human language development is just a
trail of "finite verbal morphology" - which is nothing but a part of a
language and a part that doesn't come close to defining the essence of a real
life working language.

Regards,
Steve Long