[fwd] Note & URL: DeGraff: Against Creole genesis as "abnormal transmission"

[Dave Robertson]

LhaXiyEm, khanawi-lhaksta,

Nawitka na kEmtEks ma milhEt wEXt khapa uk list yEkwa, Michel, bEt dret na
tiki munk-milhayt uk ma t'sEm-pipa khapa CHINOOK...Dave

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 *************   CreoLIST posting   **************
 Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 21:16:54 -0500
 From: Michel DeGraff <degraff at MIT.EDU>
 Subject: Against Creole genesis as "abnormal transmission"


 Dear colleagues,

 For those who've asked and for those who may be interested in this topic,
 I've put a copy of my LSA 2001 handout on the web at:

    http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/www/degraff/lsa-handout-rev.pdf

 (It's 278,729 bytes in PDF format for Acrobat Reader.)

 This paper was presented on Saturday 6 January 2001 in the LSA session on
 Historical Linguistics.

 As usual, this is part of a "larger project" in the making, so comments are
 welcome, whether on CreoLIST or via direct e-mail.  Because of time
 constraints, I may not be able to respond individually to specific
 feedback, but I'll surely do my very best to take them into account in the
 written version(s) of this work, to the extent possible.

 Here's the short abstract from the LSA program booklet:


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               Against Creole genesis as "abnormal transmission"

  It is often claimed (e.g., in classic treatises and popular textbooks)
that
  Creole languages emerge "non-genetically" through some abnormal "break in
  transmission" whereas non-Creole languages evolve "genetically" via
"normal
  transmission".  The litmus test is primarily structural:
  abnormal/broken/non-genetic "transmission" implicates "significant
  discrepancy between the degree of lexical correspondence and the degree of
  grammatical correspondence" (Thomason & Kaufman 1988:206).  The classic
  Creole-genesis scenarios also postulate sui-generis ("abnormal")
  developmental processes; e.g., a pidginization process that eschews
  (virtually) all morphology (Jespersen 1922, Hjelmslev 1938, Bickerton
1988,
  Seuren & Wekker 1986, McWhorter 1998, Seuren 1998, etc.).

  I question the textbook orthodoxy, using Haitian Creole (HC) data.
  Sociohistorically, HC is a prototypical Creole.  Abstracting away from
  substratum-cum-language-shift effects (which are documented beyond
  Creole-genesis), a preliminary comparison of HC and French morphosyntax
  provides no STRUCTURAL basis for the afore-mentioned dualism.  Certain
  "discrepancies" in French and English diachrony seem as "significant" as
in
  HC diachrony.  Furthermore, HC morphology argues against a pan-Creole
  morphological "break in transmission" (qua affixless-pidgin stage); see
  http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/www/degraff/festschrift.pdf .

  UG itself offers no conceptual room for any fundamental (diachronic)
  opposition between Creoles and non-Creoles.  Assuming parameter-setting,
  acquisition is not "transmission", but UG-guided (re-)creation with
  contingent, limited and heterogeneous PLD.  `Language creation' happens
  everywhere and always.

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                                           -michel.
 ___________________________________________________________________________
 MIT Linguistics & Philosophy, 77 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge MA 02139-4307
 degraff at MIT.EDU        http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/www/degraff.home.html
 ___________________________________________________________________________



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