This paper re-examines the history and contemporary structure of Caribbean English creole continua, with illustration from the varied sociolinguistic situations in Belize, Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad. It argues for the view that continua existed in these situations from the earliest period of contact, and challenges the claim that they evolve solely via`decreolization' of basilects under influence from acrolects. It also argues for a co-existent systems approach to the contemporary structure of these continua. The evidence of sociolinguistic studies supports the idea that they result from interaction between relatively stable grammars, conditioned by social and situational factors. The variation produced by this interaction provides insight into the kinds of shift and contact-induced change that have always operated in these situations.

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Traditionally, contact-induced changes in languages have been classified into two broad categories: those due to "borrowing" and those due to "interference" by an L1 or other primary language on an L2 in the course of second language acquisition (SLA). Other terms used for "interference" include "substratum influence" and "transfer". Labels like these, unfortunately, have been used to refer both to the outcomes of language contact and to the "mechanisms" or processes that lead to such results. This imprecision in the use of key terms poses serious problems for our understanding of what is actually involved in the two types of crosslinguistic influence. Moreover, it has led to pervasive inaccuracy in our assignment of changes to one or the other category. The aim of this paper is to re-assess the conventional wisdom on the distinction between borrowing and "interference" and to clarify the processes as well as the outcomes characteristic of each. My approach is based on van Coetsem's (1988) distinction between the mechanisms of borrowing under RL agentivity and imposition under SL agentivity, with their shared but differently implemented processes of imitation and adaptation. Crucially, this approach recognizes that the same agents may employ either kind of agentivity, and hence different psycholinguistic processes, in the same contact situation. It is the failure to recognize this that has sometimes led to inaccuracy in accounts of the nature and origins of contact-induced changes, as DONALD WINFORD 130 well as to conflicting classifications of the outcomes of contact. The present paper proposes a more rigorous and consistent classification, based on the kinds of agentivity involved.

This article compares the marking of past temporal reference in Black English Vernacular (BEV) and Trinidadian English (TE), with particular attention to the alternation of Ø and {ed}. The comparison reveals similarities in the patterns of variation according to verb type and phonological conditioning which suggest that past marking in contemporary BEV preserves traces of an earlier process of shift from a creole pattern to one approximating the Standard English pattern. Further examination of the TE data reveals that the use of {ed} is highly constrained in cases where habitual or characteristic past meaning is conveyed; in such cases, the use of Ø is near categorical. These findings may have implications for BEV which future research can clarify. The article also considers the case of stressed remote BIN in BEV and argues that it may have arisen as the result of reanalysis of an earlier creole anterior bin under the influence of unstressed (continuative perfect) bin, derived from English have + been. This provides further support for the view that, though early BEV may not have been a fully fledged creole, it arose through a process of restructuring in which a creole substrate played a significant role. Finally, the article notes that past marking is only one aspect of the overall organization of the BEV tense/mood/aspect system, which shares other features in common with creole varieties, including resultative done and combinatory possibilities among auxiliaries. Future research on these aspects of the BEV verb complex can shed more light on the BEV/creole connection.