Our creolized tongues

Abstract

It is often assumed that creole languages represent 'exceptional' language development in which a contact language or a variety largely spoken by late L2 learners nativizes and becomes the main language of a community. It is therefore not uncommon that scholars of contact languages or revitalized languages (e.g., Hebrew) ask whether such languages are creoles or not. The common assumption is that so-called creoles exhibit certain specific linguistic features which distinguish them from other non-creolized languages, and which could be used as a yardstick to evaluate the status of other languages as creoles. But, what if any given language is a creolized form of a pre-existing language spoken by previous generations? In this paper, I argue that language acquisition always happens in a situation of contact comparable to creole contexts, in which learners are faced with heterogeneous inputs and recombine competing linguistic features into new linguistic items. Under this view, all natural languages involve a hybrid grammar. I further discuss how recombination leads to linguistic variation both at the learner's and population level.

Lessons From Neuro-(a)-Typical Brains: Universal Multilingualism, Code-Mixing, Recombination, and Executive Functions

“…Aboh, 2009), I further propose that what S-learners internalize is a rainbow of pieces of grammars (such as in 10) that are put together in communication. The central point here is that learning feeds on heterogeneous inputs that are in a state of flux, and the outputs of recombination are hybrid mental grammars (Aboh, 2015b(Aboh, , 2019a. The proposed view in terms of recombination as a fully automated cognitive process, independent of lexical insertion, leads me to conclude that acquisition of a language (i.e., a conventionalized system used in a speech community) boils down to deploying the executive functions to map the outputs of recombination on specific lexica.…”

“…The proposed view in terms of recombination as a fully automated cognitive process, independent of lexical insertion, leads me to conclude that acquisition of a language (i.e., a conventionalized system used in a speech community) boils down to deploying the executive functions to map the outputs of recombination on specific lexica. In this regard, I (Aboh, 2015b(Aboh, , 2017(Aboh, , 2019a explain the role of recombination of linguistic features in the emergence of bundles of features that are mapped onto specific lexical items, in contact situations that led to the emergence of creole languages 11 . The demonstration is based on the Minimalist assumption that a lexical item embeds three components minimally: phonology, morphosyntax, and semantics (cf.…”

“…In principle, every acquired lexical item relates to seven potential competing variants. Consider Figure 3 (taken from Aboh, 2017Aboh, , 2019a in which the digit 0 represents the target language, while 1 represents a point of change.…”

“…Therefore, the usage of manger with non-consumable abstract object DPs to form expressions with unpredictable meanings appears much more productive in Béninois French, than it seems in Standard French. Aboh (2009Aboh ( , 2015bAboh ( , 2017Aboh ( , 2019a show that such expressions derive from a combination of Standard French with properties of Inherent Complement Verbs (ICV) found in Gbe and many Kwa languages (cf. Essegbey, 1999;Aboh, 2015a).…”

“…In this regard, Aboh (2015bAboh ( , 2019a reports a fact discussed in the literature since the early 80s by typologists as well as creolists (e.g., Bickerton, 1981Bickerton, , 1988Muysken, 1981a;Foley and Van Valin, 1984;Baker, 1985;Bybee, 1985;Hengeveld, 1989) and further formalized recently by Cinque (1999) within the cartographic framework: All human languages described to date display a fixed ordering of Tense, Mood, and Aspect (TMA) expressions as schematized in (18a). In this schematic sequencing, each label stands for a more articulate domain involving distinct tense, mood, or aspect expressions.…”