From OV to VO linguistic negotiation in the development of Berbice Dutch creole

Kouwenberg, Silvia

doi:10.1016/0024-3841(92)90044-j

Cited by 32 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…A significant feature of creoles is that they are almost always SVO (Bakker, 2008; McWhorter, 2001). Indeed, SVO is found even when a creole's input languages were SOV (Kouwenberg, 1992). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive constraints on constituent order: Evidence from elicited pantomime

Hall¹,

Mayberry²,

Ferreira³

2013

Cognition

153

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To what extent does human cognition influence the structure of human language? Recent experiments using elicited pantomime suggest that the prevalence of Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) order across the world's languages may arise in part because SOV order is most compatible with how we conceptually represent transitive events (Goldin-Meadow, So, Özyürek, & Mylander, 2008). However, this raises the question as to why non-SOV orders exist. Two recent studies (Meir, Lifshitz, Ilkbasaran, & Padden, 2010; Gibson et al., 2013) suggest that SOV might be suboptimal for describing events in which both the agent and patient are plausible agents (e.g. a woman pushing a boy); we call these “reversible” events. We replicate these findings using elicited pantomime and offer a new interpretation. Meir et al.'s (2010) account is framed largely in terms of constraints on comprehension, while Gibson et al.'s (2013) account involves minimizing the risk of information loss or memory degradation. We offer an alternative hypothesis that is grounded in constraints on production. We consider the implications of these findings for the distribution of constituent order in the world's spoken languages and for the structure of emerging sign languages.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive constraints on constituent order: Evidence from elicited pantomime

Hall¹,

Mayberry²,

Ferreira³

2013

Cognition

153

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Similar observations have been made in the literature on pidgins and creoles, which suggests that the new norm does not simply settle on the lowest common denominator but represents the cumulative result of different speakers' perceptions of what they have in common and what they do not -a marked word order in one lect may be perceived as similar to an unmarked order in another lect (Thomason 2001: 181). SOV languages in contact have been known to give rise to SVO creoles for this reason (Kouwenberg 1992). As a result of all of these factors, language-internal as well as language-external, verb-second declined and the word order of Present-day English, rigidly SVO, emerged.…”

Section: B E T T E L O U L O Smentioning

confidence: 99%

The consequences of the loss of verb-second in English: information structure and syntax in interaction

Los¹

2009

English Language and Linguistics

105

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The consequences of the loss of verb-second in English:information structure and syntax in interaction 1 B E T T E L O U L O SRadboud University Nijmegen (Received 13 February 2008; revised 10 December 2008) English syntax used to have a version of the verb-second rule, by which the finite verb moves to second position in main clauses. This rule was lost in Middle English, and this article argues that its loss had serious consequences for the information structure of the clause. In the new, rigid subject-verb-object syntax, the function of preposed constituents changed, and the function of encoding 'old' or 'given' information in a pragmatically neutral way was increasingly reserved for subjects. Pressure from information structure to repair this situation subsequently led to the rise of new passive constructions in order to satisfy the need for more subjects; the change in the informational status of preposed constituents triggered the rise of clefts. If information structure can be compromised by syntactic change in this way, this suggests that it represents a separate linguistic level outside the syntax. IntroductionEver since the work done by the Neogrammarians in the nineteenth century, we know that sound changes may disrupt morphological paradigms, with morphological regularity often being restored by the process known as 'analogy'. An example is the Latin intervocalic -s-> -r-that disrupted the paradigm of the s-stem nouns: the -s remained in nominative honos 'honour' because it was not intervocalic in that position, but changed to -r-in the rest of the paradigm: honoris, honorem, etc. Analogy then intervened by 'regularizing' the nominative honos to honor (Hock 1986: 180). Similar disruption was caused by Verner's Law, where a sound change that was conditioned by syllable stress applied exclusively to some but not to other forms in the verbal paradigm (Verner 1875). Such changes exemplify the relative autonomy of the various linguistic levels: phonological change is 'blind' to the disruption it causes to other levels. Another example is Roberts & Roussou's (2003) hypothesis that syntactic change (more especially grammaticalization) is driven by morphological loss. The situation could be summed up by Lightfoot's dictum: 'grammars practise therapy, not prophylaxis' (Lightfoot 1979: 123).The present article will argue that changes in syntax may similarly disrupt information structure (IS). Its case study will be the loss of verb-second in English, which prompted 'therapy' in early Modern English in the form of new clefts and new passive structures -even to structures that are typologically very marked. The change 1 I would like to thank Anthony Warner and two anonymous referees for their comments on earlier drafts of this article. in the syntax apparently ran its course in spite of the havoc caused at the IS level, which demonstrates that IS and syntax are just as autonomous as the phonology and morphology of the Neogrammarian examples above. Syntax and information structureInformation structure is about...

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“…f. Berbice Dutch: sentence-final negation with ka(nE) (e.g. Kouwenberg 1992Kouwenberg , 1994b It is only with Palenquero and Berbice Dutch (and some other creoles not discussed here, e.g. Stolz (1986: 140-142), Schwegler (1996)) that transfer can be assumed, since in these languages we find patterns that go beyond pre-verbal negation, and which at the same time mirror structures we find in the substrate languages.…”

Section: Negationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Creoles as interlanguages

Plag

2008

JPCL

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From OV to VO linguistic negotiation in the development of Berbice Dutch creole

Cited by 32 publications

References 8 publications

Cognitive constraints on constituent order: Evidence from elicited pantomime

Cognitive constraints on constituent order: Evidence from elicited pantomime

The consequences of the loss of verb-second in English: information structure and syntax in interaction

Creoles as interlanguages

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