On Haitian Creole borrowing /plat/ , on reanalysis, etc

[Michel DeGraff]

I thank Sally for clarifying a most unwelcome ambiguity in one of my
previous messages.  My caveats about the "radical-break" scenarios of
creolization (and the empirical and theoretical pitfalls) therein were
mostly concerned with Haitian Creole, not Chinook Jargon.  CJ genesis
obviously occurred along very different socio-history and demographics than
HC genesis.  CJ would also differ drastically from HC in terms of the role
of L2A and L1A in their respective histories.

This points to something else which I think is as important: Whatever
"creolization" means, I don't think it can refer to a unitary phenomenon
--- *somewhat* along the lines sketched in Sally's message.  What I've
argued elsewhere is that "creolization" reduces to more basic
(individual-level and socio-linguistic) processes.  One of the interests of
the CJ-vs-HC comparison mentioned by Dave is that it shows the same process
(reanalysis) showing in the diachronic of these two languages and in other
languages (like the ones discussed by Saussure).  This is not surprising:
CJ and HC speakers (as well as that of the English speakers who created
"apron" and "whole nother") share similar language-related capacities.

                                 -michel.
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