French Creoles - A Comprehensive and Comparative Grammar (PDFDrive)

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French Creoles
A Comprehensive and Comparative Grammar
French Creoles: A Comprehensive and Comparative Grammar is the first

complete reference to present the morphology, grammar, and syntax of a
representative selection of French creoles in one volume.
The book is organised to promote a thorough understanding of the grammar

of French creoles and presents its complexities in a concise and readable
form. An extensive index, cross-referencing, and a generous use of headings
provide readers with immediate access to the information they require.
The varieties included within the volume provide a representative collection
of French creoles from the Indian, Atlantic, and Pacific Oceans, including:
Mauritian Creole, Seychelles Creole, Réunion Creole (where relevant),
Haitian Creole, Martinique Creole, Guadeloupe Creole, Guyanese French
Creole, Karipuna, St. Lucia Creole, Louisiana Creole, and Tayo.
By providing a comprehensive description of a range of French creoles in a
clear and non-technical manner, this grammar is the ideal reference for all
linguists and researchers with an interest in Creole studies and in French,
descriptive and historical linguistics.
Anand Syea is Reader in Linguistics at the University of Westminster

(London) and a native speaker of Mauritian Creole.
Routledge Comprehensive Grammars
Comprehensive Grammars are available for the following languages:
Bengali
Burmese
Cantonese
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Danish
Dutch
French Creoles
Greek
Indonesian
Japanese
Kazakh
Modern Welsh
Modern Written Arabic
Panjabi
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Swedish
Turkish
Ukrainian
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French Creoles
A Comprehensive and
Comparative Grammar
Anand Syea
First published 2017
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2017 Anand Syea
The right of Anand Syea to be identified as author of this work has
been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or
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registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
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To my family and my very good friend, Robert Leyland
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Contents
List of tables xv
Acknowledgements xvii
List of abbreviations xviii
List of symbols xix
1 Introduction 1
1.0 Introduction 1
1.1 Theories of creole development 2
1.1.1 Monogenesis theory 2
1.1.2 Substratist theory 3
1.1.3 Superstratist theory 3
1.1.4 Universalist theory 4
1.1.5 Feature pool hypothesis – an ecological approach 5
1.2 Contemporary debates 6
1.3 The comparative approach 7
1.4 About this book 9
1.5 About the French creoles 10
1.5.1 The Atlantic French creoles 10
1.5.2 The French creoles of the Americas 11
1.5.3 The French creoles of the Indian Ocean 12
1.5.4 The French creole of New Caledonia (Pacific) 13
2 Nouns 14
2.0 Introduction 14
2.1 General 14
2.2 Nouns in French 16
2.2.1 Subcategories of nouns 16
vii
Contents 2.2.2 Gender 18
2.2.3 Number 20
2.2.4 Agreement 21
2.2.5 Word order 23
2.3 Nouns in the French creoles 23
2.3.1 Subcategories of nouns 25
2.3.2 Gender 28
2.3.3 Number 31
2.3.4 Definiteness and specificity 35
2.3.5 Bare nouns 35
2.3.6 Noun-noun constructions 41
2.3.7 Nouns and derivational morphology
in the French creoles 44
2.4 Concluding remarks 46
3 Determiners 47
3.0 Introduction 47
3.1 General 47
3.2 Determiners in French 49
3.2.1 The definite article 49
3.2.2 The indefinite article 50
3.2.3 The partitive article 51
3.3 Determiners in the French creoles 52
3.3.1 Loss of French definite articles 53
3.3.2 The indefinite article 59
3.3.3 The definite determiner 61
3.3.4 The demonstrative determiner 74
3.3.5 The possessive determiner 78
4 Pronouns 85
4.0 Introduction 85
4.1 General 85
4.2 Pronouns in French 86
4.2.1 Personal pronouns 86
4.2.2 Demonstrative pronouns 90
4.2.3 Possessive pronouns 90
4.2.4 Reflexive pronouns 91
4.2.5 Impersonal/expletive pronouns 92
4.3 Pronouns in the French creoles 93
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4.3.1 Personal pronouns in the French creoles 93 Contents
4.3.1.1 Personal pronouns in the IOC 93
4.3.1.2 Personal pronouns in Haitian 96
4.3.1.3 Personal pronouns in Lesser
Antillean creoles 98
4.3.1.4 Personal pronouns in Guyanese 100
4.3.1.5 Personal pronouns in Karipuna 101
4.3.1.6 Personal pronouns in Louisiana Creole 102
4.3.2 Demonstrative pronouns in the French creoles 104
4.3.2.1 Demonstrative pronouns in the IOC 104
4.3.2.2 Demonstrative pronouns in Haitian 105
4.3.2.3 Demonstrative pronouns in
Lesser Antillean creoles 106
Guyanese and Karipuna 107
Louisiana Creole 108
4.3.3 Possessive pronouns in the French creoles 110
4.3.3.1 Possessive pronouns in the IOC 110
4.3.3.2 Possessive pronouns in the Atlantic
French creoles 111
4.3.3.3 Possessive pronouns in Karipuna
and Lousiana Creole 112
4.3.4 Reflexive pronouns in the French creoles 115
4.3.4.1 Reflexive pronouns in the IOC 115
4.3.4.2 Reflexive pronouns in Haitian 119
4.3.4.3 Reflexive pronouns in Lesser
Antillean creoles 121
4.3.4.4 Reflexive pronouns in Guyanese
and Karipuna 122
4.3.4.5 Reflexive pronouns in Louisiana
Creole 123
4.3.4.6 Reflexive pronouns in Tayo 124
4.3.5 Impersonal/expletive pronouns in the French
creoles 126
4.3.5.1 Impersonal/expletive pronouns
in the IOC 126
in Haitian 127
in Lesser Antillean creoles 129
ix
Contents 4.3.5.4 Impersonal/expletive pronouns
in Guyanese and Karipuna 130
in Louisiana Creole 132
4.3.5.6 Impersonal/expletive pronouns in Tayo 134
5 Adjectives 136
5.0 Introduction 136
5.1 General 136
5.2 Adjectives in French 137
5.2.1 Adjectives as modifiers 137
5.2.1.1 Post-nominal adjectives 138
5.2.1.2 Pre-nominal adjectives 139
5.2.1.3 Pre- and post-nominal adjectives 139
5.2.2 Adjective order 140
5.2.3 Agreement between adjectives and nouns 141
5.2.4 Adjectives as heads and complements 143
5.2.5 Adjectives as nouns and adverbs 144
5.2.6 Comparative and superlative adjectives 145
5.3 Adjectives in the French creoles 145
5.3.1 Post-nominal adjectives 146
5.3.2 Pre-nominal adjectives 148
5.3.3 Pre- and post-nominal adjectives 151
5.3.4 Adjective order 152
5.3.5 Adjectives as heads and complements 153
5.3.6 Adjectives as nouns and adverbs 155
5.3.7 Comparative and superlative adjectives 156
5.3.8 Adjective reduplication 159
5.3.9 Adjective compounds 161
6 Adverbs 163
6.1 General 163
6.2 Adverbs in French 165
6.3 Adverbs in the French creoles 166
6.3.1 Adverb order 173
6.3.2 Adverb reduplication 178
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7 Prepositions 180 Contents

7.1 General 180
7.2 Prepositions in French 182
7.3 Prepositions in the French creoles 183
7.3.1 Absence of French grammatical prepositions 183
7.3.2 The semantics of prepositions 190
7.3.3 The syntax of prepositions 196
7.3.3.1 Preposition reanalysis 199
8 Verbs 203
8.1 General 203
8.2 Verbs in French 205
8.2.1 French verb morphology 206
8.3 Verbs in the French creoles 211
8.3.1 Morphology of verbs 211
8.3.2 Typology of verbs in the French creoles 214
8.3.2.1 Transitive verbs 214
8.3.2.2 Ditransitive verbs 220
8.3.2.3 Unaccusative verbs 224
8.3.2.4 Unergative verbs 225
8.3.2.5 Ergative verbs 228
8.3.3 Complex-transitive verbs 229
8.3.4 Raising verbs 231
8.3.5 Control verbs 236
8.3.6 Existential verbs 240
8.3.7 Causative verbs 245
8.3.8 Serial verbs 248
9 Tense, mood, and aspect 254

9.1 General 254
9.2 Tense, mood, and aspect in French 256
9.3 Tense, mood, and aspect in the French creoles 258
9.3.1 Tense in the French creoles 263
9.3.1.1 Present tense 263
xi
Contents 9.3.1.2 Past tense 269
9.3.1.3 Future tense 272
9.3.2 Aspect in the French creoles 275
9.3.3 Modality in the French creoles 284
9.4 Order of tense, modal, aspect markers 294
10 Negation 299
10.1 General 299
10.2 Negative sentences in French 301
10.3 Negative sentences in the French creoles 305
10.4 Negative words in the French creoles 311
11 Clause structure and word order 318

11.1 General 318
11.2 Typology of sentences in French 319
11.3 Typology of sentences in the French creoles 322
11.4 Word order in the French creoles 325
11.5 Structure of sentences in the French creoles 330
11.6 Subject-less and object-less sentences 333
11.7 Independent verb-less sentences 342
12 Clausal complements and complementisers 353

12.1 General 353
12.2 Clausal complements and complementisers in French 355
12.3 Clausal complements and complementisers in
the French creoles 359
12.3.1 Clausal complements and complementisers
in the IOC 360
in Haitian 364
in Lesser Antillean creoles 367
in St. Lucian 369
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12.3.5 Clausal complements and complementisers Contents
in Guyanese 371
in Karipuna 373
in Louisiana Creole 374
12.4 Small clause complements in the French creoles 377
13 Relative clauses 382

13.1 General 382
13.2 Relative clauses in French 384
13.3 Relative clauses in the French creoles 387
13.3.1 Relative clauses in the IOC 387
13.3.2 Relative clauses in Haitian 391
13.3.3 Relative clauses in Martinican, Guadeloupean,
St. Lucian, and Guyanese 394
13.3.4 Relative clauses in Karipuna 398
13.3.5 Relative clauses in Louisiana Creole 400
13.3.6 Relative clauses in Tayo 403
13.4 Non-finite relative clauses in the French creoles 404
13.5 Free relatives in the French creoles 406
14 Questions 410
14.1 General 410
14.2 Questions in French 412
14.3 Questions in the French creoles 415
14.3.1 Yes/no questions 415
14.3.2 Wh-questions 418
14.3.2.1 Direct wh-questions 418
14.3.2.2 Indirect wh-questions 431
14.3.2.3 Long wh-questions 433
14.3.2.4 Multiple wh-questions 435
14.3.2.5 Wh-in-situ questions 436
14.3.3 Verification tag questions 438
14.4 A note on questions in Tayo 439
xiii
Contents 15 Cleft, topic, and dislocated constructions 443
15.1 General 443
15.2 Cleft, topic, and left dislocated constructions in French 445
15.3 Cleft, topic, and left dislocated constructions in the
French creoles 447
15.3.1 Cleft constructions 448
15.3.1.1 Cleft constructions in the IOC 448
15.3.1.2 Cleft constructions in Haitian 454
15.3.1.3 Cleft constructions in Martinican
and Guadeloupean 458
15.3.1.4 Cleft constructions in St. Lucian 460
15.3.1.5 Cleft constructions in Guyanese 461
15.3.1.6 Cleft constructions in Karipuna 463
15.3.1.7 Cleft constructions in Louisiana Creole 463
15.3.1.8 Summary 464
15.3.2 Topic constructions 466
15.3.2.1 Topic constructions in the French creoles 467
15.3.2.1.1 Topic constructions in
the IOC 467
15.3.2.1.2 Topic constructions
in Haitian 470
Martinican and
Guadeloupean 471
Karipuna 473
Louisiana Creole 474
15.3.3 Dislocated constructions in the French creoles 475
15.3.3.1 Left dislocated constructions
in the IOC 475
15.3.3.2 Left dislocated constructions in Haitian 478
15.3.3.3 Left dislocated constructions
in Martinican and Guadeloupean 478
15.3.3.4 Left dislocated constructions in
Guyanese and St. Lucian 481
15.3.3.5 Left dislocated constructions in
Karipuna and Louisiana Creole 482
xiv
Bibliography 486
Index 495
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Tables
2.1 Determiner-less (bare) nouns in English, French,

and the IOC 36
2.2 Derivational morphology in French 44
3.1 Agglutinated indefinite articles in Louisiana Creole
and the IOC 57
3.2 The demonstrative determiners in the French creoles 75
3.3 French attributive possessive determiner 79
3.4 The possessive determiner in the French creoles 79
4.1 French personal pronoun system 87
4.2 French absolute possessive pronouns 91
4.3 IOC personal pronoun system 93
4.4 Réunion Creole personal pronoun system 96
4.5 Haitian personal pronoun system 97
4.6 Lesser Antillean personal pronoun system 98
4.7 Guyanese personal pronoun system 100
4.8 Karipuna personal pronouns 101
4.9 Louisiana Creole personal pronoun system 102
4.10 Demonstrative pronouns in the French creoles 109
4.11 Possessive pronouns in the IOC 110
4.12 Absolute possessive pronouns in Réunion Creole 114
4.13 Possessive pronouns in the French creoles 115
4.14 Reflexive pronouns in the French creoles 125
4.15 Distribution of the impersonal, pleonastic/expletive
pronouns in the French creoles 134
5.1 Distribution of comparative markers in the French creoles 158
6.1 Types of adverbs in the IOC 168
6.2 Types of adverbs in Haitian Creole 169
6.3 Types of adverbs in Martinican 170
6.4 Types of adverbs in Karipuna 171
xv
Tables 6.5 Types of adverbs in Louisiana Creole 172
8.1 Existential verbs in the French creoles 244
8.2 Causative verbs in the French creoles 247
9.1 Inventory of tense, mood, and aspect markers
in the French creoles 283
9.2 Summary of modality markers in the French creoles 293
11.1 Referential, arbitrary, and expletive null subjects
and objects in the French creoles 342
14.1 Question words in the French creoles 424
15.1 Topic, cleft, and left dislocation in the French creoles 485
xvi
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Acknowledgements
I am immensely grateful to Paul Bennett for his detailed comments on the

chapters in this book. I would also like to thank him for his support, kind-
ness, and generosity over the last thirty-odd years.
I am also grateful to Alain Kihm from CNRS (Paris) for reading and com-
menting on some of the chapters.
I would also like to thank members of GDRI-Seepicla group (including Anne

Zribi-Hertz, Olivier Bonami, and Emmanuel Schang, amongst others) for
inviting me to be part of the European research group on French creoles. The
meetings I attended were very fruitful and inspiring and gave me plenty to
think about when it came to planning this book.
My thanks also to the University of Westminster for granting me research

leave for one semester to work on this book.
Finally, I thank my wife, Susan, for her support and my daughter, Emma, for
her support and help with proofreading the manuscript. Needless to say all
errors remain my own.
xvii
Abbreviations
ADVP Adverbial phrase Lit Literally

AP Adjectival phrase M Martinican Creole
COMP Complementiser MC Mauritian Creole
D Dominican NEG Negative
DEF Definite NP Noun phrase
DEM Demonstrative PERF Perfective
DET Determiner PLU Plural
EMPH Emphasiser PP Prepositional phrase
Eq Equative PRES Present
Fr French PROG Progressive
FUT Future Q Question marker
G Guyanese French Creole REL Relative pronoun
Gu Guadeloupean Creole S Seychelles Creole
H Haitian Creole St. L St. Lucian Creole
HAB Habitual T Tayo Creole
IOC Indian Ocean creoles 1s First person singular
(Seychelles, Mauritius, 2s Second person singular
Rodrigues) 3s Third person singular
IRR Irrealis 1p First person plural
K Karipuna Creole 2p Second person plural
L Louisiana Creole 3p Third person plural
xviii
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Symbols
Ø zero morpheme
* ungrammatical
? questionable
?? very questionable
// phonemic transcription
[] phonetic transcription
() enclosed items are optional
= two words linked to gloss a single word
< comes from e.g. Creole ape < Fr(ench) après ‘after’
xix
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Chapter 1
Introduction
1.0 Introduction
French creoles are spoken in different parts of the world, particularly on

small islands in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Ocean. Those which are
spoken on some of the Atlantic islands include Haitian, St. Lucian, Martini-
can, Guadeloupean, and Dominican Creole (collectively known as the Carib-
bean French Creoles). Those which are spoken on some of the islands in the
Indian Ocean are Seychelles Creole, Mauritian Creole, Rodrigues Creole
(collectively referred to here as the IOC), and Réunion Creole. In the Pacific,
Tayo is spoken on the island of New Caledonia. French creoles are not how-
ever restricted to small islands but can also be found on coastal mainlands,
e.g. Guyanese Creole and Karipuna Creole are spoken in the northeast part
of South America, while Louisiana Creole is spoken in the state of Louisiana
in the United States.
Creole languages came into being in these different parts of the world in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when speakers of Portuguese, Spanish,
Dutch, French, and English came into contact with speakers of African lan-
guages, particularly those spoken on the west and east coast of Africa. The
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are well known for European expan-
sionism, in particular the colonisation of countries, large and small, around
the world, including those in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. This
was also the period of the slave trade. Many Africans, speaking a multitude
of mutually unintelligible languages, were taken to these remote places,
where they became instrumental in their subsequent economic, social, and
linguistic developments. Contacts between colonisers and slaves as well as
contacts between slaves speaking mutually unintelligible languages during
this period led to the emergence of restructured forms of the European lan-
guages. These subsequently developed into independent languages (creoles),
each with its own grammatical system but with most of its lexical items 1
1 inevitably drawn from the European languages. Looking at creoles across the
Introduction world, particularly those which emerged and developed on plantations,
whether in the Atlantic or Indian Ocean, it is evident that they have become
successful languages. This success is attributable to the fact that both the
colonisers and the slaves themselves needed a common language to commu-
nicate with each other.
Attitudes towards creole languages have been mostly negative. Bloomfield

(1933: 472) refers to them as ‘lower’ languages resulting from non-Europeans’
attempts at learning a restructured (simplified) version of the ‘upper’ (i.e.
European) language. Other derogatory terms abound, e.g. ‘baby-talk’, ‘bas-
tardised’, ‘inferior dialect’, ‘degenerate offshoots’ of European languages,
and so on. Even today creoles are seen by some as ‘simple’ languages, which
is surprising in the light of mounting evidence that they have developed quite
complex grammatical rules (see DeGraff 2011). Attitudes towards creole
languages in most countries where they are spoken continue to be negative.
The general view that they are inadequate for the purposes of education and
administration persists even amongst their native speakers. However, there
is a growing recognition in a few countries that creoles can function just as
well as the established languages from which they derive in the field of educa-
tion and government administration.
1.1 Theories of creole development
Different theories have been proposed to explain how the creoles which are
spoken by millions of people today emerged and developed. These languages,
regardless of their European lexifiers, share many structural or grammatical
commonalities, and it is these, among other things, that the different theories
outlined below have sought to explain.
1.1.1 Monogenesis theory
One of the earliest theories to explain these commonalities was the mono-
genesis theory (Whinnom 1965). It claimed that the creoles spoken around
the world originated from a common Portuguese-based pidgin which was
spoken in the Mediterranean and along the west coast of Africa in the fif-
teenth century. It was further claimed that this structurally basic pidgin was
dispersed around the world as its speakers came into contact with speakers
of other languages, who then relexified it (i.e. translated it word for word
into their native languages) whilst keeping its structure more or less
unchanged. What therefore resulted from these contacts were structurally
2 similar pidgins and creoles but with words drawn from different lexifiers
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(e.g. French, Spanish, English, and Dutch). Others who shared this view Theories
were Thompson (1961), Stewart (1962), Taylor (1963), Goodman (1964), of creole
and Voorhoeve (1973). On this approach, the original model was adopted development
and adapted by new speakers, and different pidgins and creoles emerged
from it. However, not everyone believed that the shared features came from
a common Portuguese-based source. Hancock (1969) and Goodman (1987)
for instance expressed doubts as to whether positing such a source was
necessary for explaining the similarities which exist between creoles.
1.1.2 Substratist theory
Another theory which seeks to explain how pidgin and creole languages came
about is the substratist theory. A key claim of this theory is that the slaves who
were instrumental in the establishment and development of pidgin and creole
languages used their knowledge of their native languages in the process of
acquiring the European languages with which they came into contact. In other
words, they transferred grammatical, lexical, and phonological features of their
native languages in the process of creating new pidgins and creoles (see Sylvain
1936, Bentolila 1971, Baker and Corne 1982, Lefebvre 1986, 1998, 2014,
Lefebvre and Lumsden 1994). Evidence which lends support to this theory often
comes from phonological, lexical, and structural phenomena which exist in the
pidgins and creoles but are not found in their European lexifier languages. One
such example, often held up as evidence of African substrate influence, particu-
larly of West African languages, is the phenomenon of serial verb constructions,
which exists in the Atlantic creoles but not in any of the European languages
from which they derived. Substratists are therefore essentially concerned with
tracing linguistic features or structures which exist in pidgins and creoles to their
substrate languages. The strongest form of this approach (e.g. Sylvain 1936)
claims that creoles are African languages with European words.
1.1.3 Superstratist theory
A third approach which also seeks to explain how pidgins and creoles
emerged is the superstratist theory. In the strongest version of this theory
(e.g. Faine 1937), it is claimed that creoles are no more than dialects of their
European lexifiers. French creoles, for instance, are said to be dialects of
some varieties of French, e.g. Haitian Creole as a dialect of Norman French
(Faine 1937). There are others who subscribe to a weaker form of this
approach in that they do not claim that the creoles are dialects of their lexi-
fiers but they nevertheless descend directly from them without any break in
transmission. Among these are Valdman (1978) and Chaudenson (1979,
1992, 1995). Chaudenson’s view is that the development of creole 3
1 languages, particularly French creoles, went through two key phases: first
Introduction the société d’habitation (homestead phase) and second the société de planta-
tion (plantation phase). The former is characterised as the establishment of
small holdings in which Europeans and slaves (in more or less equal num-
bers) settled, lived, and worked together within close proximity over a
period of years. This provided the non-Europeans (slaves) with direct access
to the European languages.
The second stage, société de plantation (plantation phase), is characterised by
a difference in number between Europeans and slaves, the latter being increas-
ingly numerous as more and more were brought to these small islands to help
develop an agricultural economy (mainly sugar plantation). The non-Europeans
who had settled on these islands during the first phase played a crucial part
in helping to manage the new arrivals, who Chaudenson (1995: 65) refers to
as bossales. Some of them would have been entrusted with a few supervisory
and overseeing tasks which only the Europeans had performed during the first
phase (i.e. the homestead phase). They in fact became the middlemen who
liaised, on the one hand, with the Europeans and, on the other, with the then-
recent arrivals. It is assumed on this approach that the newly arrived hands
did not have direct access to the language spoken by the Europeans but to an
‘approximation’ of that language or a restructured version of it as it was
spoken by the middlemen. It is also suggested that subsequent arrivals on
these islands had even fewer opportunities to hear the Europeans speak their
language and instead heard and acquired an even more restructured version
of that language or, further down the line, an ‘approximation’ of an ‘approxi-
mation’. A central aspect of this theory is that there was no break in the
transmission of the lexifier language and therefore no pidgin stage. A second
aspect, also vital, is that the native languages of the non-Europeans (i.e. the
substrate languages) had no significant contribution to make to the develop-
ment of creoles, although it does allow for convergence of structures which
belonged to different (sometimes typologically different) languages (see
Chaudenson 1995: 79). However, it has been suggested that there are some
creoles which have emerged from pidgins (e.g. Hawaiian Creole from Hawai-
ian Pidgin English, see Siegel 2008) and that there is also evidence of substrate
influence on the genesis and development of creoles. Lefebvre (1998), for
instance, argues that many of the structures in Haitian Creole have their roots
in the African language Fongbe, a Gbe language.
1.1.4 Universalist theory
A fourth theory, which has been influential in the field of Creole linguistics
and general linguistics in the last few decades, is the universalist theory. Its
main proponent is Bickerton (1981, 1984), and its basic claim is that creoles
4 were created not by adults, as assumed in all the previous theories, but by the
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children of the slaves who worked on sugar plantations. These children were Theories
exposed to a pidgin which was rudimentary, unstructured, and unstable. Out of creole
development
of this rather chaotic and inadequate input, they then created a creole by rely-
ing on an innate linguistic mechanism (i.e. a language bioprogram). The pro-
cess of creolisation, according to Bickerton, is complete within a generation.
The similarities which creoles share are seen as a consequence of this interven-
tion by this innate/universal apparatus. There have been several objections to
Bickerton’s universalist approach. Arends (1993) has argued, on the basis of
historical evidence relating to the development of Sranan, that the process of
creolisation is a gradual one, spanning several generations, rather than an
abrupt and unigenerational one, as suggested by Bickerton. It is also suggested
that adults played a role in the development of this creole, and creolisation
must therefore be seen as the result of processes of second language acquisi-
tion rather than first language acquisition. Roberts (1998, 2000, 2005) simi-
larly argues, on the basis of historical evidence pertaining to the development
of Hawaiian Creole, that the children who developed this creole were in fact
not exposed to an unstable and unstructured pidgin, as claimed by Bickerton
(1981, 1984), but to an already expanded pidgin (with fairly complex struc-
tures) spoken by their parents, who were second generation immigrants in
Hawaii and also had some knowledge of their ancestral languages. Bickerton
had previously claimed in support of his approach that the children who cre-
ated creole languages did not have access to their ancestral languages but only
to a structurally minimal pidgin spoken by adults. The question of whether
creoles were created by children out of some structurally minimal and unsta-
ble input or from expanded pidgins and the question of whether adults had a
role to play in the process of creolisation are both far from resolved.
1.1.5 Feature pool hypothesis – an ecological approach
This approach to the formation and development of creole languages is out-

lined in the work of Mufwene (2001, 2008) and is built around two key ideas
drawn from evolutionary biology, namely competition and selection. The
central idea here is that, in contact situations, different languages and differ-
ent varieties of a language are in competition, and only a few are selected to
be part of the communal language. This idea of languages competing with
each other in contact situations can also be found in the ‘complementary’
approach of Hancock (1986, 1993) and Baker (1993). Mufwene, however,
extends it to linguistic features and structures. His proposal is that where
creoles developed, different substrate languages and different non-standard
varieties of the lexifier contributed features (phonological, morphological,
syntactic, and so on) to a feature pool (the feature pool hypothesis). These
features competed with each other, and a few were then selected on the basis
of ecology-sensitive markedness (Mufwene 2001: 34) to be part of a 5
1 ‘communal’ language. The winners from this pool were decided on the basis
Introduction of such ecological factors as frequency, regularity, semantic transparency,
perceptual salience, and so on. Different ecological or ethnographical factors
are thus said to have favoured some variants over others.
The feature pool hypothesis takes language as an essentially social rather

than structural phenomenon, and it therefore accounts for variations which
are at the surface, particularly those relating to morpho-syntax (e.g. changes
in the categorial and functional status of certain words derived from non-
standard varieties of a lexifier (e.g. preposition functioning as complemen-
tiser) and phonology (e.g. changes in pronunciation (accents)), and so on).
However, it is less clear on the selection of the more abstract structural vari-
ants (e.g. whether movement in a grammatical system obeys locality condi-
tion or not). Another problematic example is the absence of passive structure
in a creole whose lexifier has passive constructions (e.g. the French creoles
and French). A formal causal explanation for its absence in a French creole
can be arrived at by linking it to the absence of verbal passive morphology.
An ecological approach, in contrast, must appeal to processing complexity
or semantic transparency to explain why this feature/structure is not selected.
The obvious problem with such ecological factors lies in their general quan-
titative vagueness. It is also worth pointing out that structural variants are
generally fewer in number than other types of variants when different varieties
of a language are competing with each other, whether these varieties exist in
one country or different countries (e.g. British English, American English,
Australian English, and so on). This would also have been the case in the
early stages of creole development (e.g. the homestead stage). For example,
any structural differences (e.g. word order) between different varieties of
French would have been minimal. The ecological approach, it would appear,
has little to say as far as the structural development of creole languages is
concerned.
1.2 Contemporary debates
Even though there is as yet no definitive answer to the question of why creoles,
regardless of how far apart they are geographically, share a number of struc-
tural similarities, it is fair to say that the different theories mentioned here
have made significant contributions to our understanding of issues relating to
the genesis and subsequent development of creoles. Interestingly, these issues
continue to be aired and debated. In recent years for instance the nature of
creole languages has once again come under the spotlight. The debate is
between those who claim that creoles are exceptional languages (see for
6 instance McWhorter 1998, 2001) and those who claim that creoles are just
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like other non-creole languages, and there is nothing exceptional about them The
(see for instance DeGraff 2001, 2003). The exceptional nature of creole lan- comparative
guages is partly based on another claim, viz., that creole languages have the approach
simplest grammars (see McWhorter 2001) and therefore are unlike their lexi-
fiers, which have over time developed more complex and more developed
grammatical systems. It is also claimed that creoles involve a break in trans-
mission from the lexifier (i.e. discontinuity), and they therefore begin de novo
(see Bickerton 1981, 1984, McWhorter 2001). These claims are disputed by
others, e.g. Arends (2001), DeGraff (2001, 2003), and Mufwene (2001), who
point out that the creole linguistic systems are just as complex as those of
non-creole languages and that the similarities between creoles and their lexi-
fiers at different linguistic levels suggest continuity of transmission from lexi-
fier to creole. The role of substrate languages also continues to be discussed,
and there appears to be general agreement at least in recent years (see
Chaudenson 1995, Chaudenson and Mufwene 2001, Corne 1999, Mufwene
2001, among others) that convergence has an important role to play in the
development of creole grammars.
1.3 The comparative approach
As we will see in this book, the question of structural similarities between

creoles and how they are accounted for is one which is prompted by the
comparison of the French creoles spoken in the Americas, the Atlantic, and
the Indian Ocean. Many of these similarities can quite easily be traced back
to their lexifier, i.e. French (or variety thereof), and the processes used in its
acquisition by adult non-Europeans. But the French creoles also share some
of their similarities with creoles based on other lexifiers (e.g. Portuguese,
Spanish, and so on). Some of these can be explained by examining the histori-
cal relationships between these languages, others by examining language-
internal developments as well as structural convergence.
Even though it is often claimed that French speakers cannot understand Hai-
tian speakers and vice-versa or that Haitian speakers cannot understand
speakers of Mauritian Creole and vice-versa, comparative studies of these
languages reveal that they share many structural similarities at the level of
phrases and clauses. Of course, there are also structural differences between
them, but this should not be surprising since these languages, once creolised,
have evolved independently of their lexifier and independently of each other
and, in most cases, through the natural processes of language change. They
have also come into contact with other languages which may have influenced
their phonology, morphology, semantics, and syntax (the influence of Cajun
French on Louisiana Creole is a case in point). 7
1 It is worth noting that even between French creoles which are historically
Introduction and geographically close, as is the case with the creoles in the Caribbean or
the creoles in the Indian Ocean, there are interesting micro-variations, e.g.
the use of nou for both first and second person plural in Haitian but for first
person plural only in Martinican, Guadeloupean, and St. Lucian, as well as
the rest of the French creoles; the use of pre-nominal possessive determiner
in Guyanese mo liv ya ‘my book’ but post-nominal analytic possessive in
Haitian, Martinican, and Guadeloupean liv (an) mwen (book (to) me) ‘my
book’; the use of pre-nominal demonstrative sa-N-an in Guyanese sa moun
an ‘that man’ but the use of post-nominal demonstrative in Haitian, Martini-
can, and Guadeloupean moun tala/sila/lasa ‘that man’; the use of sa and la
to express the demonstrative in Mauritian Creole sa kuto la ‘that knife’ but
only sa in Seychelles Creole sa kuto ‘that knife’; and the use of the synthetic
possessive in the IOC, Karipuna, and Louisiana Creole vwazen la so lisjen
‘the neighbour’s dog’ (lit. the neighbour his dog) in the IOC but the analytic
possessive in the Atlantic, particularly Caribbean, creoles chien a vwazen-la
‘the neighbour’s dog’ in Guadeloupean. Such variations raise interesting
questions, particularly in relation to the contributions which substrate lan-
guages may have made and in relation to how certain features or structures
from the lexifier language may have been selected. The role of convergence
of different grammars in these micro-variations is also one which requires
some consideration.
Comparative studies of French creoles are by no means new. Goodman

(1964) was the first to compare the French creoles spoken in the Atlantic, the
Americas, and the Indian Ocean. Since then a number of other comparative
studies of French creoles have been published. Valdman (1978), for instance,
compares the French creoles of the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean. Papen
(1978) is also a detailed comparative study, but it is limited to the French
creoles of the Indian Ocean, namely Seychelles Creole, Mauritian Creole,
Rodrigues Creole, and Réunion Creole. Similar comparative works but lim-
ited to the Atlantic creoles have appeared in recent years. Damoiseau (2003,
2005) compares the grammar of Haitian and Guyanese respectively to that
of French. Bernabé (2003), on the other hand, provides a comparison of the
grammar of Martinican and French. More recently, Damoiseau (2012) has
compared the grammars of four of these creoles, namely Martinican, Gua-
deloupean, Haitian, and Guyanese. Some other comparative studies have
compared French creoles with their African substrates. Lefebvre (1998), for
instance, compares Haitian Creole with the West African language Fongbe.
Other comparative works, although not limited to the French creoles, have
also been published. Holm (1988) provides interesting comparative historical
and grammatical information on the grammars of different French creoles.
Patrick and Holm (2007) is another study which compares the grammars of
8 different creoles, and it is also not restricted to the French creoles.
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It remains true however that very few comparative studies of the Atlantic and About this
Indian Ocean French creoles have appeared since the publication of Good- book
man’s (1964) A Comparative Study of Creole French Dialects. And yet, as
Chaudenson (1995: 25) notes, the French creoles of the Atlantic and those of
the Indian Ocean offer a unique opportunity for understanding how they
emerged from French and how they developed independently of both their
lexifier and each other. Of significance here is the fact that those who were
involved in the making of the Indian Ocean creoles and those who were involved
in the making of the Atlantic creoles came from different places. Speakers of
Malagasy were central in the making of the former, although there were also
speakers of East and West African languages in the early stages (see Corne
1999: 163–164). As far as the Atlantic creoles are concerned, their makers
were mainly speakers of West African languages. The comparison of these two
groups of French creoles at different linguistic levels can provide us with infor-
mation on the role that the African substrate languages played in their creation
and development. Ignoring such facts provides a rather incomplete explanation
of any structures or phenomena they share. These two groups of creoles are of
course not only similar but also different despite the fact that they come from
a common source. That such differences exist should not be a surprise given
that they have evolved independently not only of their lexifier but also of each
other in two different geographical regions. This situation must be seen as an
opportunity to study how they have evolved not only across a geographical
divide but also within the same area, as we saw earlier. Contacts with neigh-
bouring languages (e.g. Louisiana Creole and Cajun French) and internal lan-
guage changes could explain some of these differences. Comparative studies of
the French creoles are therefore essential to an understanding of their origin
and development, a point underlined by Chaudenson (1995: 45).
As will become clear from the data and discussion in the following chapters,
the French creoles are more similar to each other than they are different even
when they emerged and developed thousand of miles apart. They also display
remarkable similarities with their lexifier, and these reinforce the continuity
of transmission hypothesis from French to French creoles.
1.4 About this book
This aim of this book is then to provide a comparative description of some

aspects of the grammars of the French creoles spoken in the Atlantic (particu-
larly Haitian, Martinican, Guadeloupean, and St. Lucian), the Americas (Guya-
nese, Karipuna, and Louisiana), and the Indian Ocean (Seychelles Creole,
Mauritian Creole, and Rodrigues Creoles). Some occasional discussions of the
grammar of Tayo and Réunion Creole are also included. The grammatical 9
1 aspects which have been selected for detailed comparative description include
Introduction word classes such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, determiners, pronouns,
prepositions, complementisers, and negation, and larger units such as comple-
ment clauses, relative clauses, questions, clefting, topicalisation, and dislocation.
This selection was guided, in the main, by the availability of detailed grammars
of the selected creoles. The following are some of the major grammatical works
which were consulted: Neumann (1985), Valdman and Klingler (1997), and
Klingler (2003) for information on the grammar of Louisiana Creole; Bernabé
(1983, 2003), Gadelii (1997), and Damoiseau (2012) for information on the
grammar of Martinican and Guadeloupean; Carrington (1984) for informa-
tion on the grammar of St. Lucian; Damoiseau (2003, 2005, 2012) for infor-
mation on the grammar of Guyanese, Haitian, Martinican, and Guadeloupean;
Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy (1972) for details on the grammar of Guyanese
Creole; Sylvain (1936), Valdman (1978), Lefebvre (1998), and Damoiseau
(2005) for information on the grammar of Haitian Creole; Tobler (1983) for
information on the grammar of Karipuna; Baissac (1880), Baker (1972), Papen
(1978), and Syea (2013a) for information on the grammar of Mauritian Creole;
Papen (1978), Baker and Corne (1982), and Corne (1999) for information on
the grammars of Seychelles, Rodrigues, Mauritian Creole, and Réunion Creole;
Bollée (1977) and Corne (1977) for information on the grammar of Seychelles
Creole; Chaudenson (1974) for information on the grammar of Réunion Cre-
ole; and Ehrhart (1993) and Corne (1999) for information on the grammar of
Tayo. Corne (1999) also offers a survey of all the major French creoles and their
grammatical features.
It should be pointed out that the data on the IOC come from the author and
the sources mentioned here. It should also be pointed that in general there
are only minor syntactic differences between the creoles in the IOC (Sey-
chelles Creole, Mauritian Creole, and Rodrigues Creole). Where a significant
difference exists and is relevant to the discussion, it is highlighted.
1.5 About the French creoles
The following outline provides some brief historical information on the cre-
oles under consideration in this book.
1.5.1 The Atlantic French creoles
Haitian Creole is spoken by several million people on the island of Haiti

(previously Saint-Domingue), which was occupied by the French from 1697
to 1804, when it became independent. It has the largest number of creole
speakers in the world, and Haitian Creole is spoken by the majority of its
10
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population. It has joint official status with French, but its status in relation About the
to that of French remains low. Ferguson (1959) noted that Haitian creole and French creoles
French co-exist in a diglossic relation, with French being the language of
education, administration, the educated elite, and so on, which makes it the
language of high prestige, while Haitian Creole is the language with low
prestige and is used for everyday informal activities.
St. Lucian is spoken on the island of St. Lucia, a much smaller island than
Haiti and with a much smaller population (less than 10 per cent of the
population of Haiti). It was occupied by the French from 1640 to 1803,
although during this long period the island exchanged hands several times
between the French and English. St. Lucia became a British colony in 1813.
However, the French creole (i.e. St. Lucian Creole), which had developed
there while the French occupied the island, is the native language of the
majority of the St. Lucians (Carrington 1984: 3). French and English are in
use, and English has official language status.
The neighbouring islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe, together with

French Guyana in the northeast of South America and La Réunion in the
Indian Ocean, are known as Départements d’Outre Mer (i.e. the French
Overseas Departments). The French arrived in Martinique and Guadeloupe
in 1625 from the island of St. Kitts (Saint-Christophe) with a few Africans
(Bernabé 1983: 35) and took control of these islands from 1635 (Chauden-
son 1995: 26–27). In 1946, these two countries became French Overseas
Departments. Their official language remains French, and although French
is also the language that most people use in their everyday lives, a large num-
ber also speak French creole. The two French creoles, Martinican and Gua-
deloupean, are alike except for a few differences.
1.5.2 The French creoles of the Americas
French Guyana was occupied by the French from the very beginning of the sev-
enteenth century, although the very harsh conditions (e.g. famine, climate, fever,
and fighting between European rivals) on and around Cayenne island, where the
French landed in 1604 (Chaudenson 1995: 28), made settlement there much
more difficult than it had been or was going to be in other places in the region.
However, once the French settled there, a French creole developed and is now
the native language of 70 per cent of the population (Chaudenson 1989: 156).
Nevertheless, French is widely used and remains the official language.
Karipuna Creole, according to Tobler (1983: 6) and Corne (1999: 150), is a

dialect or variety of Guyanese French Creole. It is spoken mainly by a smaller
number of the Karipuna Indians of Brazil who live near the border of French
Guyana. It is said that these Indians used to speak a Tupi language before
11
1 they came in contact with French Guyanese Creole. Not surprisingly, the
Introduction grammars of Karipuna and Guyanese Creole have a lot in common.
Louisiana Creole arose when the French and their slaves moved to Louisiana
from Haiti, following the revolution of 1789, and from Guadeloupe and Mar-
tinique (Valdman 1978: 30). The language was not therefore created in-situ
but was imported, although it has been suggested (see Klingler 2003: 25) that
a form of French creole was probably already in use prior to their arrival,
since the presence of the French and their slaves in Louisiana date back to the
beginning of the eighteenth century (Corne 1999: 107, Klingler 2003: 25).
1.5.3 The French creoles of the Indian Ocean
The French creoles spoken on the islands of Mauritius, Rodrigues, and the
Seychelles have much in common. There is in fact very little difference between
the creoles on the islands of Rodrigues and Mauritius. Rodrigues is much
smaller in size and population and remains a dependant of Mauritius.
Mauritius was colonised by the French in 1721, and within a few decades,
with the arrival of an increasing number of slaves from Madagascar, West
Africa, and East Africa, a French creole had emerged (see Baker and Corne
1982). The island was taken by the English in 1810, and it remained a British
colony until 1968. The constitution of Mauritius makes no mention of an
official language, but English remains the nominal official language, with
French playing an equally important role in education, administration, and
general official communication in both Mauritius and Rodrigues. Creole is
spoken by the majority of the population on both islands and has been used
for some time in the media (national newspapers, radio, and television). It
has also recently become part of the curriculum in primary education.
The creole spoken on the Seychelles comes from the creole which was spoken
in Mauritius and La Réunion (then Bourbon) towards the end of the eigh-
teenth century. According to Chaudenson (1995: 29–30), the Seychelles were
colonised by the French from La Réunion and Mauritius in 1770, by which
time both countries had each developed their respective French creole. Sey-
chelles Creole displays grammatical features which one can trace back to the
French creole of La Réunion and Mauritius. The Seychelles also came under
British rule when they took Mauritius from the French, but it became inde-
pendent in 1976. The French creole spoken on the Seychelles enjoys a higher
status than the creole spoken in Mauritius and Rodrigues largely due to the
effort made by the Seychelles government to standardise its spelling and gram-
mar. It has the status of official language together with English and French.
The creole spoken on the island of La Réunion, however, is very different

from those spoken on the other three islands. The island was permanently
12
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settled from 1665 (Chaudenson 1995: 28), when a few French men and their About the
Malagasy employees (domestics) moved there from Madagascar (Corne French creoles
1999: 68). The island has remained under French rule ever since, and French
is the official language. As noted earlier, it is one of the four French Overseas
Departments. The creole spoken in La Réunion is often labelled a ‘semi-
creole’ (Holm 1988: 53) because it has both creole and non-creole features.
The reason why Réunion Creole has not developed into a full creole is largely
because the non-Europeans continued to have access to French, as there were
always more French speakers on the island than non-French speakers (e.g.
speakers of Malagasy), particularly during the key early years and for many
years later (see Corne 1999: 164). The conditions for the development of a
full creole, particularly limited access to the lexifier, were therefore never met.
1.5.4 The French creole of New Caledonia (Pacific)
Tayo is a French creole spoken on the island of New Caledonia in the Pacific.
According to Ehrhart (1993) and Corne (1999), Tayo emerged under plantation-
like conditions between 1860 and circa 1910 in the village of St. Louis, when
the Kanak people, who spoke mutually unintelligible (but related) languages,
were exposed to French by the Marist missionaries who had set up places for
converts and training centres for catechists. French was therefore acquired by
the Kanaks with variable degrees of success depending on the kind of access
they had to it. By the 1920s a restructured kind of French emerged and was
used by the Kanaks to communicate with each other, as they did not share a
common language. From that time onwards newly born children were exposed
to it, and they acquired it as their first language. Tayo thus became the first
language of the new generations. However, the research carried out by Speedy
(see for instance Speedy 2007a, 2007b, 2014) suggests that the creation and
development of Tayo is a lot more complicated than what Corne and Ehrhart
had assumed. In particular, Speedy suggests that Réunion Creole may have
played an important role in the development of Tayo. The evidence for this,
it is said, comes from the fact that following the sugar cane crisis in Réunion
in the 1860s and 1870s, a significant number of speakers of French (or a
variety thereof) and Réunion Creole, including rich planters, freed slaves,
coolies, and low-class poor whites, settled in New Caledonia near the village
of St. Louis and contributed to the development of Tayo, then a newly emerg-
ing variety of French, which had developed as the Marist missionaries and
Kanaks came into contact. The new arrivals came into contact with the
Marists and the Kanaks in their daily lives (work and trade), and it was inevi-
table that Réunion Creole would have been used to communicate with them
and would have influenced the development of Tayo. Speedy is, however, of
the view that Tayo did not derive historically from Réunion Creole, but its
development may have been influenced by it (see also Kihm 1995). 13
Chapter 2
Nouns
2.0 Introduction
This chapter discusses nouns in the French creoles. After a brief introduction
to nouns in English and French, it focuses on nouns in the creoles. It begins
by outlining the different subcategories of nouns and then discusses the
agglutination of French articles to nouns. A comparison of agglutinated
nouns across the creoles shows that the process of agglutination has applied
more extensively in some of the creoles than in others. With the loss of the
French definite and partitive articles, French creoles have developed new
ways of marking definiteness/specificity and plural number. The loss of
French definite and partitive articles has also resulted in nouns occurring as
bare nouns. This chapter considers their distribution and semantics before
concluding with a brief discussion of the two morphological processes in the
French creoles, namely derivation and compounding of nouns.
2.1 General
Nouns are traditionally defined as words which denote a thing (train), a person
(Max) or a place (Paris). More importantly, they are also words which display
certain morphological or syntactic properties. In English for instance they can
be suffixed with a plural morpheme (train-s, book-s, ox-en), although not
always (sheep, furniture). They are also words which can typically follow a
determiner (the train, a book, this bus, my school, every child) and can be
modified by adjectives (old trains, interesting books) or a relative clause (the
train that left at 6.30). These morphological and syntactic properties are gener-
ally thought to be more reliable than the traditional notional characterisation
when it comes to identifying nouns and other categories (verbs, adjectives, etc.)
14 in a language. The possibility of deverbal nouns such as management or
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de-adjectival nouns such as happiness presents the traditional approach to General
word-level categories with some difficulties: management denotes action rather
than a thing and, likewise, happiness denotes state, not a thing. Nouns function
as heads of noun phrases and typically occupy positions such as subject ( John
cycles every day), object of verb (The police arrested John), object of preposi-
tion (There is a letter for John), and possessor ( John’s sister) in a clause.
Nouns are also classified into different subcategories. This is largely because
certain properties of words which belong to this category can only be cap-
tured if these subcategories are recognised. For instance the oddity of sen-
tences such as (1b) and (2b) can be accounted for if we differentiate between
nouns on a semantic basis: animate (John) versus inanimate (the stick) and
count (chair) versus non-count (furniture) respectively. The restriction in
(1) is that the adjective careful is a property which can only be predicated of
an animate subject, while the restriction in (2) is that only count nouns can
be complement to a numeral determiner. (Note: the exclamation mark in
(1b) signals that the construction is semantically ill-formed.)
(1) a. John is being careful

b. ! The stick is being careful
(2) a. Mary bought two chairs

b. *Mary bought two furniture
Two further subcategories of nouns should also be recognised: proper and

common nouns and concrete and abstract nouns. These distinctions are moti-
vated, on the one hand, by the contrast between (3a) and (3b), which shows
that, without a modifying element present, a determiner can occur with a
common noun but not a proper noun, and, on the other hand, by the contrast
between (4a) and (4b), which shows that a concrete noun can be a comple-
ment to a verb like break whereas an abstract noun like honesty cannot.
(3) a. A/The boy left early

b. *A/The Max left early
(4) a. I broke a bottle

b. ! I broke honesty
Note that certain place names, which are proper nouns, like Hague/
Amazon/Himalayas can occur with a determiner (the definite article) even
without modification. These semantic distinctions (animate versus inanimate,
count versus non-count, proper versus common, and concrete versus abstract)
appear to be very well motivated, particularly in light of the linguistic facts
they help explain concerning the behaviour of nouns. 15
2 Nouns of course can occur on their own, in a sentence or in isolation: What
Nouns did you buy? Books. But generally they occur with other words and form
nominal groups of which they are the heads. Of these other words, we can
include (a) determiners of different types: article a car, possessive my car,
demonstrative this car, quantifier many cars; (b) adjectives big/expensive
cars; (c) prepositional phrases cars of different types; (d) relative clauses cars
which run on diesel; and so on. These different words can all co-occur inside
the nominal group: a big car, my beautiful expensive car, that big expensive
car which runs on diesel, and so on. In all these nominal expressions, the
head is the noun car, without which these expressions are all ill formed.
With some of the words listed here, the noun displays number agreement: a
book/*books, many *book/books, several *book/books, but there is no gen-
der agreement: in her father and his mother a masculine noun can occur with
a feminine possessive determiner and a feminine noun can occur with a mas-
culine possessive determiner. As we will see in chapter 3, determiners in
French, in contrast to those in English, show agreement with the nouns with
which they occur in both number and gender.
2.2 Nouns in French
In French too we need to recognise the fact that there are words which display
similar morphological and syntactic properties and are therefore best grouped
together in a class or category of their own (e.g. noun). They can be inflected
for number: un livre (singular)‘one book’/des livres (plural) ‘books’, un animal
(singular) ‘an animal’/des animaux (plural) ‘animals’ and gender: un cousin
(masculine) ‘a cousin’/une cousine (feminine) ‘a cousin’, le garçon (masculine)
‘the boy’/la fille (feminine) ‘the girl’. Some of the syntactic properties which
they share include: (a) modification by determiners la pluie ‘the rain’, by adjec-
tives une grande maison ‘a big house’, and (b) occurrence in subject position
and object position of verbs and prepositions: le garçon a vu la fille ‘the boy
saw the girl’; Jean est parti avec la fille ‘John left with the girl’.
2.2.1 Subcategories of nouns
The need to recognise not only the category of a noun but also its subcategories is
not limited to a language like English. This also arises in other languages. French,
similarly to English, has nouns which are either animate or inanimate, either count
or non-count (mass), either common or proper, and either concrete or abstract.
(5) Animate Inanimate

16 enfant ‘child’ table ‘table’
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chat ‘cat’ maison ‘house’ Nouns in
marin ‘sailor’ ciel ‘sky’ French
(6) Count Mass (non-count)
pomme ‘apple’ eau ‘water’
ville ‘town’ buerre ‘butter’
chambre ‘room’ gens ‘people’
(7) Proper Common
Pierre ‘Peter’ homme ‘man’
Londres ‘London’ village ‘village’
(La) Chine ‘China’ route ‘road’
(8) Concrete Abstract
foie ‘liver’ foi ‘faith’
orange ‘orange’ amour ‘love’
camion ‘lorry’ beauté ‘beauty’
These subcategories can be justified in the same way that subcategories of

nouns in English are justified. For instance, the subject of a verb like regarder
‘to look at’ cannot be inanimate but only animate.
(9) a. Jean regarde la chaise

‘John looks at the chair.’
b. ! La table regarde la chaise
! The table looks at the chair.
Count nouns can be quantified with numerals, but mass nouns cannot.
(10) a. Jean a vu trois étoiles

‘John saw three stars.’
b. * Jean a vu trois nuages
* John saw three clouds.
Proper nouns, except names of countries, cannot be specified by an article,

whereas common nouns can.
(11) a. * Le Pierre est arrivé hier

‘The Peter arrived yesterday.’
b. L’homme est arrivé hier
‘The man arrived yesterday.’
The impossibility of a construction such as (12b) is due to the verb laver ‘to
wash’ being able to subcategorise (take as its object) concrete nouns only.
(12) a. Elle a lavé sa voiture

‘She washed her car.’ 17
2 b. ! Elle a lavé la beauté
Nouns ‘She washed the beauty.’
Such ungrammatical and semantically ill-formed sentences in French can be

given an adequate description if we recognise these subcategories of noun
alongside the category noun.
2.2.2 Gender
Nouns in English, as was noted earlier, are generally not marked for gender. A
few are inherently masculine or feminine depending on their biological make-up
(e.g. boy/girl or man/woman). Some are overtly morphologically marked (e.g.
actor – actress, emperor – empress), and others are inherently categorised as
belonging to a particular gender (e.g. ship is feminine). Nouns in French, how-
ever, are regularly categorised in terms of their gender. The masculine versus
feminine gender distinction is overtly signalled by the determiner which accom-
panies the noun: la ‘the’, une ‘a/an’, cette ‘this/that’, ma ‘my’ if the noun is femi-
nine but le ‘the’, un ‘a/an’, ce(t) ‘this/that’, mon ‘my’ if the noun is masculine.
(13) a. la/une fille

‘the/a girl’
b. le/un garçon
‘the/a boy’
(14) a. cette dame

‘this/that lady’
b. ce monsieur
‘this/that gentleman’
c. cet homme
‘this/that man’
(15) a. ma voiture
‘my car’
b. mon vélo
‘my bicycle’
Notice that there is no semantically based reason for why voiture for example
is feminine whilst vélo is masculine. The choice of gender seems completely
arbitrary in this case. However, the gender of many French nouns can some-
times be identified by their endings. Thus nouns ending with -on are usually
masculine, while nouns ending with -tion, -aison, -(s)sion or -xion are femi-
nine. However, there are exceptions.
18
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(16) a. le/*la poisson/cochon/menton (cf. la/*le chanson) Nouns in
‘the fish/pig/chin’ ‘the song’ French
b. la/*le maison/possesion/natation/connexion (cf. le/*la bastion)
‘the house/possession/swimming/connection’ ‘the stronghold’
Nouns ending with -eur are generally masculine as are nouns ending in
-ment,-age, -ède, -ege, -ème, and -isme. Again there are exceptions, although
a noun ending with -isme is always masculine.
(17) a. l(e)/*la facteur/professeur/ordinateur (masculine)

‘the postman/teacher/computer’
b. la/*le chaleur/peur/couleur (feminine)
‘the heat/fear/colour’
(18) a. le/*la courage/montage/chomage (masculine)

‘the courage/framing/unemployment’
b. la/*le cage/plage/page (feminine)
‘the cage/beach/page’
(19) a. le/*la remède/cortège/système (masculine)

‘the remedy/procession/system’
b. la/*le crème (feminine)
‘the cream’
(20) le/*la marxisme/tourisme/romanticisme (masculine)

‘the marxism/tourism/romanticism’
Some nouns can, however, be both masculine and feminine.
(21) a. le victime/vedette (masculine)

‘the victim/star’
b. la victime/vedette (feminine)
‘the victim/star’
In general, however, whether a noun is masculine or feminine can also be

inferred from the kind of gender agreement which it obtains when it occurs
with a determiner or an adjective in a nominal phrase, as shown in (22a), or
when it agrees with a predicative adjective, as shown in (22b).
(22) a. une grande maison (cf. un grand batîment)

‘a big house’ ‘a big building’
b. cette maison est grande (cf. ce batîment est grand)
‘This house is big.’ ‘This building is big.’
19
2 The form of the attributive adjective in (22a) and the predicative adjective in
Nouns (22b) vary with the gender of the noun: maison is feminine while batîment
is masculine. Accordingly, we have grande with maison and grand with batî-
ment. The gender of the noun is therefore reflected in the gender marking
displayed on the adjective.
2.2.3 Number
Nouns in French, like those in English, can be count or non-count, and count
nouns are pluralised by adding the suffix -s, -x, or -aux, although there are
exceptions.
(23) a. fille filles

‘girl’ ‘girls’
b. table tables
‘table’ ‘tables’
(24) a. cheveu cheveux

‘hair’ ‘hair’
b. travail travaux
‘work’ ‘works’
Singular and plural nouns are therefore infl ectionally distinguished,

although in spoken French number marking is shown on the determiner,
usually not on the nouns: cf. la table ‘the table’ and les tables ‘the tables’.
The nouns table and tables are pronounced in the same way [tabl]. As we
will see below, number, like gender, is marked not only on nouns but also
on adjectives and determiners when these co-occur inside a nominal phrase.
One important difference between plural nouns in English and those in
French is that, in English, they can occur in any syntactic position inside and
outside the clause as bare nouns, unlike singular nouns.
(25) a. Books are expensive

b. * Book is expensive
(26) a. I like books

b. * I like book
(27) a. Books, I really like

b. * Book, I really like
In French, by contrast, neither plural nor singular nouns can occur alone in
a nominal phrase, whether they are in subject, object, or topic position.
20
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(28) a. * Livres sont chers Nouns in
‘Books are expensive.’ French
b. * Livre est cher
Book is expensive
(29) a. * J’aime livres

‘I like books.’
b. * J’aime livre
I like book
(30) a. * Livres, je les aime bien

‘Books, I like very much’
b. * Livre, je l’aime bien
Book, I like very much
It is clear from these examples that, in French, nouns, whether singular or

plural, require a determiner to be well-formed.
(31) a. Les/Ces livres sont chers

‘The/These books are expensive.’
b. Le/Ce livre est cher
‘The/This/That book is expensive.’
(32) a. J’aime bien les livres

‘I like books very much.’
b. J’aime bien ce livre
‘I like this/that book very much.’
(33) a. Ces livres, je les aime bien

‘These/Those books, I like (them) very much.’
b. Ce livre, je l’aime bien
‘This/That book, I like (it) very much.’
2.2.4 Agreement
Nouns in English do not display number or gender agreement with determin-

ers or adjectives inside the nominal phrase (the boy/girl, the boys/girls, the
tall boy/girl, the tall boys/girls), except for demonstratives which show num-
ber agreement (this cat/these cats; that dog/those dogs). By contrast, nouns
in French display number and gender agreement with all their dependents
(i.e. determiners and adjectives) inside the nominal phrase, although this is
not always obvious in speech. The inflections on the adjectives and determin-
ers are directly determined by the gender and number of the nouns.
21
2 (34) a. une belle fille
Nouns ‘a beautiful girl’
b. un beau garcon
‘a beautiful boy’
(35) a. de belles filles

‘beautiful girls’
b. de beaux garcons
‘beautiful boys’
(36) a. cette nouvelle voiture

‘this/that new car’
b. ce nouveau vélo
‘this/that new bicycle’
(37) a. ces nouvelles voitures

‘these new cars’
b. ces nouveaux vélos
‘these new bicycles’
As we saw earlier, number and gender agreement are also obligatory when
adjectives are predicative.
(38) a. Ta fille est très méchante/*méchant

‘Your daughter is very naughty.’
b. Ton fils est très méchant/*méchante
‘Your son is very naughty.’
(39) a. Tes filles sont très méchantes/*méchante

‘Your daughters are very naughty.’
b. Tes fils sont très méchants/*méchant
‘Your sons are very naughty.’
Here too the inflections on these predicative adjectives are determined by the
gender and number on the noun in subject position: méchante [meʃãt] feminine
singular and méchant [meʃã] masculine singular; méchantes feminine plural
and méchants masculine plural. As we have already seen, such agreement
marking is more visible in written French than in speech. For instance, the
adjective cher/chère is pronounced the same way with a masculine and a femi-
nine noun: mon cher ami ‘my dear friend’ and ma chère amie ‘my dear friend’.
Similarly, the adjectives bon and bons sound the same in speech: ce bon chien
‘that nice dog’ and ces bons chiens ‘these nice dogs’. With an adjective such as
joli ‘beautiful’, no difference is heard as far as both number and gender are
concerned: un joli village ‘a beautiful village’ and une jolie ville ‘a beautiful
22 town’ and de jolis villages ‘beautiful villages’, de jolies villes ‘beautiful towns’.
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2.2.5 Word order Nouns in the
French creoles
Nouns in French, as noted earlier, cannot occur on their own (i.e. bare) but
require determiners to accompany them. The position of a noun (the head) in
relation to the determiner (dependent) inside a nominal phrase is fixed. It fol-
lows the determiner la/cette/ta maison ‘the/this/that/your house’ and if an
adjective is present, it follows the adjective, which in turn follows the deter-
miner la/cette/ta belle maison ‘the/this/that/your beautiful house’. Not all adjec-
tives occur in front of the head noun inside a nominal phrase; there are some
(colour adjectives for instance) which only follow the noun un chapeau rouge
‘a red hat’ (lit. a hat red). Also placed in post-nominal position are complement
and adjunct prepositional phrases and relative clause modifiers: l’occupation
de la France ‘the occupation of France’, l’eau de la source ‘spring water’, la
maison à côté du jardin ‘the house next to the park’, le chien qui vous a mordu
‘the dog which bit you’ (lit. the dog which you have bite). The order determiner-
noun is clearly at odds with French being a head-first language (i.e. a lan-
guage in which the head of a phrase tends to occur first inside the phrase).
However, it has been suggested in Abney (1987) and in subsequent studies
on the subject that the head of a nominal expression is in fact not the noun
but the determiner, and the nominal expression is in fact not an NP but DP
(i.e. a determiner phrase). The position of the noun in relation to the deter-
miner is then what one would expect – i.e. determiner first and noun last.
2.3 Nouns in the French creoles
Most of the nouns in the French creoles inevitably come from French,
although many of these are now pronounced differently when compared with
corresponding nouns in French. Different phonological processes are respon-
sible for these changes (e.g. in the IOC the consonant /ʃ/ has changed to /s/
and the vowel /ə/ has changed to /i/ as in /ʃəmiz/ > /simiz/ ‘shirt’). However,
the most commented-on change in the French creoles is not a phonological
change but a morphological change. This change involves a process of agglu-
tination which, when it applies, results in the French articles, particularly the
definite le, la, les and partitive du, de la, de l’, becoming an integral part of
the root nouns which they precede. This is illustrated by the following from
the IOC, although comparable examples exist in all other French creoles:
latab (< Fr la table) ‘table’, leker (< Fr le coeur) ‘heart’, lezel (< Fr les ailes)
‘wing’, disab (< Fr du sable) ‘sand’, dilo (< Fr de l’eau) ‘water’, and so on.
Not all nouns display such agglutination: soleij (< Fr le soleil) ‘the sun’ (cf.
lalin (< Fr la lune) ‘the moon’), sez (< Fr la chaise) ‘chair’ (cf. latab (< Fr la
table) ‘table’). Thus, once agglutinated, the root noun corresponding to the
English lexeme table or French lexeme table in the French creoles (for instance 23
2 in the IOC) is no longer tab but latab. Agglutination effectively results in
Nouns re-drawing the word boundary which exists between articles and nouns in
French so that these are no longer two independent words in the French
creoles but a single word. Accordingly, an adjective can precede it gran latab
la ‘the big table’ (cf. French la grande table), and a determiner (indefinite,
possessive, or demonstrative) can occur with it: enn latab ‘a table’, mo latab
‘my table’, sa latab la ‘this/that table’, which suggests that, once agglutinated
and integrated into the noun stem, it no longer has any independent semantic
or grammatical existence. That is why it can occur with the indefinite article
without causing any semantic anomaly and with the possessive and demon-
strative without causing any ungrammaticality (cf. French *une la table, *ma
la table, or *cette la table).
Interestingly, such agglutination is not unknown in French. Rickard

(1974: 74), for instance, notes that a few nouns underwent a similar process
in Middle French: l’endemain ‘the next day’ became (le) lendemain, and
l’uette ‘uvula’ became (la) luette, and l’ierre ‘ivy’ became (le) lierre. Notice
that once agglutinated, the definite article l’ became an integral part of these
nouns, thus allowing another definite article to precede it, which is precisely
what happens in the French creoles. Rickard attributes these cases of agglu-
tination in Middle French to hesitation and uncertainty in the use of the defi-
nite article at a time when it was becoming increasingly common as a
grammatical marker of gender and number while still expressing definiteness.
It had also, by that time, lost its Old French case distinctions.
Agglutination of the French articles in the French creoles did not stem from
hesitation and uncertainty in their use. The facts concerning this phenome-
non in the creoles are somewhat more complicated because of the variations
in the number of agglutinated nouns they have retained. The IOC, according
to Baker (1984) and Grant (1995), have the largest number of agglutinated
nouns (646 in Seychelles Creole and 637 in Mauritian Creole) while the
creoles of the Atlantic and the Americas have comparatively smaller numbers
(for instance, 166 in Haitian, 322 in Martinican, 121 in St. Lucian, 81 in
Dominican, and 103 in Guyanese). Another pertinent fact here is that
Réunion Creole, also in the Indian Ocean, has the least number of aggluti-
nated articles of all the creoles, only 12, according to Grant (1995). Such
differences between the creoles are significant because they suggest that expo-
sure to French, in both amount and duration, may be a factor in explaining
why the agglutinated nouns are distributed as they are. Exposure to French,
in terms of both amount and duration, is known to have been the greatest
and the longest on Réunion Island (see Chaudenson 1995: 63–65, Corne
1999: 68–69), which explains why the creole spoken there is often seen as a
semi-creole (Holm 1988: 395), unlike the other creoles in the Indian Ocean
or the Atlantic. A hypothesis is that the longer the exposure and the greater
24 the amount of exposure to French, the smaller the number of agglutinated
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nouns in the French creoles. The smaller numbers of agglutinated nouns in Nouns in the
the Atlantic creoles, in comparison to the larger numbers in the IOC, may French creoles
well be a consequence of smaller and shorter exposure to the language and
the rate at which contact with French was gradually being lost or
withdrawn.
2.3.1 Subcategories of nouns
Nouns in the French creoles, like their antecedents in French, can be classified
on the basis of the same semantic distinctions, namely animate or inanimate,
count or non-count, proper or common, and concrete or abstract. The exam-
ples given in (40)–(47) are all from the IOC.
Animate Inanimate
(40) a. dimoun sez
‘people’ ‘chair’
b. seval bisiklet
‘horse’ ‘bicycle’
c. pret ros
‘priest’ ‘stone’
Count Non-Count
(41) a. lakaz disik
‘house’ ‘sugar’
b. zelev dilo
‘pupil’ ‘water’
c. kanet disab
‘marble’ ‘sand’
Proper Common
(42) a. Zak loto
‘Jack’ ‘car’
b. Pari pul
‘Paris’ ‘hen’
c. Lamerik profeser
‘America’ ‘teacher’
Concrete Abstract
(43) a. lefwa lafwa
‘liver’ ‘faith’
b. leker lamur
‘heart’ ‘love’ 25
2 c. lizin kontrol
Nouns ‘factory’ ‘control’
The need for these distinctions in the French creoles can also be justified
on the basis of certain linguistic observations. For instance, the animate-
inanimate distinction is needed to explain the difference between (44a) and
(44b). The verb bat ‘beat’ selects an animate rather than an inanimate
object.
(44) a. li bat so kamarad

3s beat 3s friend
‘He beats his friend.’
b. ! li bat so bisiklet
3s beat 3s bicycle
The count-non-count distinction explains why the indefinite article or

numeral enn ‘one’ can occur with a noun such as kanet ‘marble’ but not with
a noun like labu ‘mud’.
(45) a. li zue ek enn kanet

3s play with a/one marble
‘He plays with a marble.’
b. * li zue ek enn labu
3s play with a/one mud
Similarly the proper and common distinction is justified given the contrast
between (46a) and (46b). A common noun, but not a proper noun, can occur
with the definite marker la ‘the’, just like in English and French.
(46) a. * nu ti truv Marie la

1p PAST see Mary DEF
b. nu ti truv monper la
1p PAST see priest DEF
‘We saw the priest.’
Finally, the concrete and abstract distinction is also useful as it allows us to

explain the difference between (47a) and (47b).
(47) a. met/gard lefwa dan marmit

put/keep liver in skittle
‘Put the liver in the skittle!’
b. *met/gard lafwa dan bondie
put/keep faith in God
‘Trust God!’
26
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The verb gard ‘keep’ can take both the concrete noun lefwa ‘liver’ and the Nouns in the
abstract noun lafwa ‘faith’ as its object. By contrast, the verb met ‘put’ French creoles
appears to take only the concrete noun as its complement.
Assuming these examples are representative of nouns in other French creoles,

it is reasonable to suggest that the same range of subcategories of noun exists
in them, as they do in French or English, and these subcategories are needed
in order to account for certain linguistic restrictions, such as those discussed
earlier.
It is also interesting to note that French creoles retain not only French root
nouns but also morphologically complex nouns, e.g. compounds, even
when one of the elements in the compound is not a root word in the creole
lexicon, as shown in these examples from the IOC: port-mone (< Fr porte-
monnaie) ‘purse’, port-manteau (< Fr porte manteau) ‘coat hanger’, port-
feiy (< Fr porte-feuille) ‘wallet’; note that neither port (< Fr porter) ‘carry’
nor mone ‘money’ exists as a dictionary word in the IOC, although lamone
‘money’ does. Similarly, fam-sarz (< Fr sage-femme) ‘midwife’ combines
fam, which exists as a root noun, and sarz (< Fr sage), which has not been
retained. Notice also the change in word order in this last compound.
Beside compounds, French creole lexicons also list nouns which use certain
French derivational suffixes e.g. -ment: rannman (< Fr rendement) ‘output’,
dusman (< Fr doucement) ‘softly/slowly’, morselman (< Fr morcellement)
‘partition’; -ation: plantasion (< Fr plantation) ‘plantation’, akizasion (< Fr
accusation) ‘accusation’, modifikasion (< Fr modification) ‘modification’,
koreksion (< Fr correction) ‘correction’; -age: glanaz (< Fr glaner) ‘to
gather’, depayaz (< Fr de-pailler) ‘deleafing’, netwayaz (< Fr nettoyage)
‘cleaning’, sovtaz (< Fr sauvetage) ‘rescue’, maryaz (< Fr mariage) ‘mar-
riage’; and so on.
Similar noun compound examples are found in the other French creoles:
potplim (< Fr porte-plume) ‘pen holder’, (M; Bernabé 2003: 121); wobati-
man (< Fr haut batîment) ‘ship’, piébwa (< Fr pied bois) ‘trees’ (M; Bernabé
2003: 110), viékò (< Fr vieux corps) ‘old man’ (M; Bernabé 2003: 128);
popòt-marõ (< Fr popote marron) ‘slave’ (G; Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy 1972:
135), suval bodjé (< Fr cheval bon dieu) ‘ladybird/bug’ (G; Saint-Jacques-
Fauquenoy 1972: 135); plim-je (< Fr plume yeux) ‘eyelash’, trou-ne (< Fr trou
de nez) ‘nostril’ (H; Lafebvre 1998: 334); tximun (< Fr petit monde) ‘child’,
ghamun (< Fr grand monde) ‘old men/lady’, hosié (< Fr haut ciel) ‘heaven’
(K; Tobler 1983: 76–77). As to nouns with derivational suffixes, the follow-
ing examples from other creoles are illustrative: -ay (< Fr -age) fritay ‘fried
things’, kaponay ‘intimidation’, bwotay ‘moving’ (H; Lefebvre 1998: 306);
-té (< Fr -té) movezté ‘naughtiness’ (G; Saint Jacques-Fauquenoy 1972: 134),
and so on.
27
2 2.3.2 Gender
Nouns
Unlike nouns in French, nouns in the French creoles cannot be classified in
terms of gender. This is also true of pronouns (see chapter 4). However, there
are a few nouns whose referents can be determined as being masculine or
feminine by their biological properties. In this respect, French creoles are
more like languages such as English rather than French. However, there are
a few cases in most creoles where it is possible to infer the gender of a noun,
not by considering the biological make-up of its referent, but by its morpho-
logical ending, as shown in (48), or the morphological ending on a dependent
inside the nominal phrase, as shown in (49). But note that any such gender
marking is irrelevant to the choice of pronouns: mo vwazin ‘my neighbour
(masculine) and mo vwazinn (feminine). The following come from the IOC.
(48) a. akter (m) aktris (f)

‘actor’ ‘actress’
b. dokter (m) doktris/doktores (f)
‘doctor’ ‘doctor’
c. infermye (m) infermyer (f)
‘male nurse’ ‘female nurse’
d. maser (m) masez (f)
‘masseur’ ‘masseuse’
e. sinwa (m) sinwaz (f)
‘Chinese man’ ‘Chinese woman’
f. angle (m) anglez (f)
‘English man’ ‘English woman’
g. kuzin (m) kuzinn (f)
‘male cousin’ ‘female cousin’
h. vwazin (m) vwazinn (f)
‘neighbour’ ‘neighbour’
(49) a. enn zelev malin (m)

a pupil clever
‘a clever pupil’
b. enn zelev malinn (f)
a pupil clever
‘a clever pupil’
(50) a. enn ners intelizan (m)

a nurse intelligent
‘an intelligent nurse’
b. enn ners intelizant (f)
a nurse intelligent
28 ‘an intelligent nurse’
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The masculine form of the adjective does not however necessarily suggest that Nouns in the
the noun with which it occurs is masculine. It can actually be used where the French creoles
referent is feminine. But the feminine form is only used with feminine refer-
ents, in which case it is the marked form of the two. But it is worth noting
that there is no productive suffixation to mark gender on nouns in the French
creoles, but a few nouns do exist which display masculine and feminine forms.
It may be argued that the feminine forms are the result of a suffixation process,
although it could also be said that they were inherited from French in their
feminine and masculine forms.
Examples of nouns which display gender in other French creoles are given
next, although it should be noted again that gender marking is not a produc-
tive process in any of the creoles.
(51) a. dansè (m) dansèz (f) (H; Valdman 1978: 150)

‘dancer’ ‘dancer’
b. milat (m) milatrès (f) (H; Valdman 1978: 150)
‘mulatto’ ‘mulatto’
c. maléré (m) malérèz (f) (H; Valdman 1978: 150)
‘unfortunate’ ‘unfortunate’
d. kenbouazè (m) kenbouasèz (f) (M; Valdman 1978: 150)
‘sorcerer’ ‘sorceress’
e. koutirie (m) koutiriez (f) (M; Bernabé 2003: 171)
‘tailor’ ‘tailor’
f. kuzẽ (m) kuzin (f) (G; Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy
‘cousin’ ‘cousin’ 1972: 94)
g. gardyẽ (m) gardyèn (f) (G; Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy
‘warden’ ‘warden’ 1972: 94)
h. kouzen (m) kouzin (f) (L; Klingler 2003: 170)
‘cousin’ ‘cousin’
i. malere (m) malerez (f) (L; Neumann 1985: 158)
‘unfortunate’ ‘unfortunate’
j. met lekol (m) metres lekol (f) (L; Neumann 1985: 158)
‘headmaster’ ‘headmistress’
It should be noted that examples such as kenbouazè and kenbouasèz (51d)

are not of French origin, and yet they display French gender marking. We
may reasonably infer from such examples that derivational morphology is
an active process in the French creoles, although it seems to be of limited
productivity. Lefebvre (1998: 309) lists other examples which show a deri-
vational process being applied to nouns which did not originate from French:
alekout ‘attentive’ – alekoutman ‘attentively’, bosal ‘wild’ – bosalman
‘wildly’, bòzò ‘elegant’ – bòzòman ‘elegantly’, and so on. Interestingly,
DeGraff (2001) argues that the number of word-formation processes 29
2 (including derivation and compounding) in Haitian exceeds those listed in
Nouns Lefebvre (1998).
The absence of gender on nouns in the French creoles is also evident from the use
of a single form of the determiner (indefinite article and possessive) with both
masculine and feminine nouns. French, on the other hand, has separate masculine
and feminine forms to match the gender of the noun, as shown in (52) and (54).
(52) a. un garҫon (French)

a boy
‘a boy’
b. une fille (French)
a girl
‘a girl’
(53) a. enn garson (IOC)

a boy
‘a boy’
b. enn tifi (IOC)
a girl
‘a girl’
(54) a. mon cousin (French)

‘my cousin’
b. ma cousine (French)
‘my cousin’
(55) a. mo kuzin (masculine) (IOC)

1s cousin
‘my cousin’
b. mo kuzinn (feminine) (IOC)
1s cousin
‘my cousin’
The absence of gender is also evident from the invariant form that attributive
adjectives display regardless of the gender of the noun.
(56) a. un bon garçon (French)

‘a good boy’
b. une bonne fille (French)
‘a good girl’
(57) a. enn bon garson (IOC)

a good boy
30 ‘a good boy’
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b. enn bon/*bonn tifi (IOC) Nouns in the
a good girl French creoles
‘a good girl’
Thus, even where a noun can be classified as masculine or feminine (because

of real-world sex features), this gender distinction is not in any way expressed
either on the adjective or the determiner. Although some nouns (and adjec-
tives) appear to be marked for gender, the bulk of them is not. The loss of
gender in the French creoles represents a major difference between them and
their lexifier language.
2.3.3 Number
Like gender, number in the French creoles is not inflectionally marked on

nouns. In that respect, French creole nouns are just like English sheep e.g.
one sheep and two sheep or like nouns in languages such as Chinese and
Vietnamese, which also do not have inflectional nominal marking. Compare
the examples in (58) from the IOC with (59) from French.
(58) a. enn/trwa/buku seval

one/three/many horse
‘One horse/three horses/many horses’
b. enn/de/tu zurnal
one/two/all newspaper
‘One newspaper/two newspapers/all newspapers’
(59) a. un cheval trois/beaucoup de chevaux

‘one horse’ ‘three/many horses’
b. un journal deux journaux
‘one newspaper’ ‘two newspapers’
However, as noted earlier, number marking on a large number of nouns in

French, whilst present in written French, is not in speech. The plural -s affix
is probably never heard, as in these examples: une table ‘a table’ and des
tables ‘tables’, un chemin ‘a road’ and des chemins ‘roads’, une poule ‘a hen’
and des poules ‘hens’, and so on. That may explain why it was never acquired.
To express the grammatical category number, French creoles have developed
plural markers by recruiting certain lexical items (noun, demonstrative, and
pronoun) from French: the IOC, for instance, make use of bann (< Fr bande
‘a group/band’), a pure plural marker, which they place in a pre-nominal
position; Martinican, Guadeloupean, and St. Lucian Creole (i.e. the Antillean
creoles) on the other hand use sé (< Fr ces ‘these’), which they also place in
pre-nominal position, while all the others (Haitian, Guyanese, Karipuna, and 31
2 Louisiana Creole) make use of yo/ya/ye/yen (< Fr eux ‘they/them’), which
Nouns they place in post-nominal position.
(60) a. bann zanfan (IOC)

PLU child
‘children’
b. mo bann kamarad (IOC)
1s PLU friend
‘my friends’
(61) a. sé liv an mwen-la (Gu; Damoiseau 2012: 31)

PLU book DEF 1s-DEF
‘my books’
b. sé madanm-la-sa (Gu; Gadelii 1997: 130)
PLU woman-DEF-DEM
‘these women’
c. sé kakat-bwa a ka pété zorey-mwen (M; Bernabé 2003: 108)
PLU cricket DEF PRES hurt ear-1s
‘The crickets are hurting my ears.’
d. sé fanm-ou-a (M; Bernabé 2003: 115)
PLU woman-2s-DEF
‘your mistresses’
e. se gro ŝapo se vie dam la (St. L; Carrington 1984: 86)
PLU big hat PLU old lady DEF
‘these old ladies’ big hats.’
f. se ẑèn mun na (St. L; Carrington 1984: 76)
PLU young person DEF
‘the young folks’
(62) a. krab yo (H; Lefebvre 1998: 84)

crab PLU
‘crabs’
b. pitit-yo (H; Valdman 1978: 200)
child-PLU
‘the children’
c. tab-ya (G; Damoiseau 2003: 34)
table-PLU
‘the tables’
d. fam-ya (G; Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy 1972: 106)
woman-PLU
‘the women’
e. depech-ye mi (L; Klingler 2003: 174)
peach-PLU ripe
32 ‘The peaches are ripe.’
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f. ye loure bari-ye (L; Klingler 2003: 174) Nouns in the
3p roll barrel-PLU French creoles
‘They rolled the barrels.’
g. jenn mounn-yen (L; Klingler 2003: 174)
young people-PLU
‘the young people’
h. txig ye (K; Tobler 1983: 30)
jaguar PLU
‘the jaguars’
From these examples, it is clear that with regard to plural marking we can
separate the French creoles into two groups: those which place their plural
marker in pre-nominal position (the IOC and the Lesser Antillean Creoles –
i.e. Martinican, Guadeloupean, and St. Lucian) and those which place theirs
in post-nominal position (Haitian, Guyanese, Karipuna, and Louisiana).
However, Louisiana additionally has a pre-nominal plural marker le, which
means it belongs to both groups.
(63) a. n’ a plõte le pistas (L; Neumann 1985: 56)

1p FUT plant PLU peanut
‘We will plant peanuts.’
b. zordi le mun nwar lib (L; Neumann 1985: 112)
today PLU people black free
‘Today black people are free.’
c. le vje mun parle ẽ ta kreol (L; Neumann 1985: 112)
PLU old people speak a lot Creole
‘The old people speak Creole a lot.’
In terms of their position in relation to the other elements inside the nominal
phrase, the plural markers bann (IOC), sé (Lesser Antillean creoles), and le
(Louisiana) precede all pre-nominal adjectives.
(64) a. bann gros dibwa la (IOC)

PLU big wood DEF
‘the big pieces of wood’
b. sé menm moun-lan (M; Bernabé 2003: 119)
PLU same people-DEF
‘the same people’
c. le vje mun (L; Neumann 1985: 112)
PLU old people
‘the old people’
The plural markers yo (Haitian), ya (Guyanese), and ye (Louisiana), how-

ever, follow the noun. There is an interesting difference between Haitian
33
2 yo and Louisiana ye on the one hand and Guyanese ya on the other, par-
Nouns ticularly when we consider their position in relation to other post-nominal
modifiers such as the definite marker or the possessive: yo and ye follow
all of them as shown in (65) while ya precedes the determiner, as shown
in (66). Bernabé (2003: 30) suggests that ya in Guyanese combines the
plural marker ye and the definite marker a, with the elision of the vowel
‘e’ on ye.
(65) a. sé mésié-la-yo (H; Valdman 1978: 201)

DEM man-DEF-PLU
‘these men’
b. machin frè-m-yo (H; Valdman 1978: 200)
car brother-1s-PLU
‘my brother’s cars/my brothers’ car/my brothers’ cars’
c. moun lò kote ye (L; Klingler 2003: 174)
people other side PLU
‘foreigners’
(66) a. sa fam-y-a (G: Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy 1972: 107)

DEM woman-PLU-DEF
‘these women’
b. sa mãg-y-a (G; Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy 1972: 107)
DEM mango-PLU-DEF
‘these mangoes’
c. bitachon-yé-la (G; Valdman 1978: 200)
plantation-PLU-DEF
‘the plantations’
The French creoles have thus created new plural markers out of certain
lexical and grammatical items. The IOC for instance have recruited the
French noun bande ‘group/band’ as in une bande de voleurs ‘a band of
thieves’ and grammaticalised it into a free-standing plural morpheme bann,
while at the same time retaining its original class, as shown in de bann ‘two
groups/bands’. The Lesser Antillean creoles, however, derived their plural
marker from the French demonstrative ce(s) ‘this/that/these/those’, while
the other creoles derived theirs from the stressed form of the third person
plural pronoun eux ‘their’. A rather curious development in this area is
that Haitian uses the post-nominal word yo (< Fr eux) while all the other
Atlantic (Caribbean) creoles have selected the pre-nominal sé/se (< Fr ces).
Haitian therefore patterns with the creoles of the Americas (Guyanese,
Karipuna, and Louisiana Creole) when it comes to encoding number.
However, it behaves in a consistent manner by placing all its other gram-
matical markers inside the nominal phrase, indefinite article excepted, in
34 post-nominal position. The other creoles, with which it is usually grouped
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(i.e. the other Caribbean creoles), do not; as we have seen, they place their Nouns in the
plural marker pre-nominally while the definiteness/specificity, demonstra- French creoles
tive, and possessive are post-nominal. These differences apart, all the
French creoles appear to have derived their plural markers from lexical or
grammatical items of French origin. However, it remains unclear as to why
some creoles targeted the pre-nominal elements bann and ces while others
targeted the post-nominal element eux as markers of plurality. It would not
be unreasonable to suggest that the choice might have been influenced by
their African substrate languages, a case of different languages converging
on the same strategy.
2.3.4 Definiteness and specificity
With the loss of the French definite articles, the French creoles express defi-
niteness or specificity of a noun by using a post-nominal determiner in the
form of la, e.g. latab la ‘the table’(IOC), kabrit la ‘the goat’ (Haitian), bug la
‘the chap’ (St. Lucian), and so on. The phonological form of la varies in some
of the creoles, particularly the Atlantic creoles. For example, it can also be
pronounced as na, a, ja in St. Lucian and as a, an, nan in Haitian Creole. This
allormorphy is phonologically conditioned. In the IOC, however, this deter-
miner remains invariant in its form.
The marker of definiteness and specificity is discussed in detail in the next

chapter. In anticipation of this discussion, it is noted here that the deter-
miner derives historically from the post-nominal adverbial suffix -là, which
occurs in French with nouns which are specified by the demonstrative, e.g.
cet homme-là ‘this/that man’, cette fille-là ‘this/that girl’, ce train-là ‘this/
that train’. This suffix has developed into a free-standing morpheme and
become a marker of definiteness and specificity in all the French creoles.
Like other determiners, it specifies the noun and indicates that the referent
denoted by the noun is known to the hearer. In other words, it has the same
semantic role that we associate with the definite article in English when it
is used anaphorically. For more detail, see the discussion on determiners in
chapter 3.
2.3.5 Bare nouns
In English some nouns can occur determiner-less: these include mass nouns
Milk is expensive, proper nouns Mary is sleeping, and plural count nouns
Books are expensive. In French only proper nouns can be determiner-less
*Lait est cher ‘Milk is expensive’, Marie dort ‘Mary is sleeping’, and *Livres sont
chers ‘Books are expensive’. In the French creoles, however, all three types of
noun can surface without a determiner. Additionally, singular count nouns 35
2 can also be determiner-less. These possibilities are illustrated here, with
Nouns examples from the IOC.
(67) a. dile ser (mass noun)

milk expensive
‘Milk is expensive.’
b. Marie pe dormi (proper noun)
Mary PROG sleep
‘Mary is sleeping.’
c. liv kut ser (plural count noun)
book cost expensive
‘Books are expensive.’
d. lisyen pe dormi (singular count noun)
dog PROG sleep
‘The dog is sleeping.’
We can tabulate the differences between English, French, and the IOC with
respect to bare nouns as follows in Table 2.1:
Table 2.1 Determiner-less (bare) nouns in English, French, and the IOC
English French IOC
Mass noun yes no yes

Proper noun yes yes yes
Plural count noun yes no yes
Singular count noun no no yes
It is clear from this table that the IOC have more in common with English
in their use of bare nouns. Of the four bare nouns in subject position in (67),
the ones in (67b) and (67d) are dependent on context for their interpretation;
their referents have to be unique in the discourse context for the hearer to be
able to identify them.
Looking at the other French creoles, it seems that the same range of possibili-
ties exists for bare nouns as in the IOC. Mass nouns, proper nouns, plural
count nouns, and singular count nouns can all occur without a determiner,
although, as noted earlier, proper nouns and singular count nouns require
that the referent be known (visible or unique) to the hearer. The following
are from Haitian: moun in (68a) is indefinite plural, dlo in (68b) is mass,
wosiyòl in (68c) is indefinite and generic, and wosiyòl in (68d) is singular
36 definite in a context where wosiyòl is mentioned for a second time (see
DeGraff 2007: 117, Aboh and DeGraff 2014: 209).
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(68) a. moun te pè vote (H; DeGraff 2003: 116) Nouns in the
people PAST afraid vote French creoles
‘People were afraid of voting.’
b. mwen vle dlo (H; DeGraff 2003: 116)
1s want water
‘I want water.’
c. wosiyòl manje kowosòl (H; DeGraff 2007: 117)
nightingale eat soursop
‘Nightingales eat soursops.’
d. wosiyòl te renmen kowosòl (H; DeGraff 2007: 117)
nightingale PAST like soursop
‘The nightingale loved soursops.’
Examples of bare nouns in the other French creoles are given here. It is clear
that they all use bare or determiner-less nouns which, if used in French, would
result in ungrammatical sentences. In sentences corresponding to the following,
for instance, French would require a determiner: singular indefinite un(e) ‘a/an’,
plural des ‘some’, a definite article le/la/les ‘the’, or the partitive du/de la/de l’ ‘of’.
(69) a. ni moun adan kay-la (M; Bernabé 2003: 110)

have people inside house-DEF
‘There are people inside the house.’
b. mwen pa rété lajan (M; Bernabé 2003: 57)
1s NEG remain money
‘I don’t have any money left.’
c. Féfé vann vwati (M; Bernabé 1983: 644)
Fefe sell car
‘Fefe sold cars.’
d. chien pa ka fè chat (M; Damoiseau 2012: 32)
dog NEG PRES make cat
‘Dogs don’t have cats.’
(70) a. Pyè trape mèl (Gu; Bernabé 1983: 850)

Peter catch blackbird
‘Peter caught blackbirds.’
b. vwati pa pou vini la (Gu; Bernabé 1983: 775)
car NEG for come here
‘Cars shouldn’t come here.’
c. si an té ni lahan, an (Gu; Damoiseau 2012: 103)
if 1s PAST have money, I
té ké achté . . .
PAST FUT buy . . .
‘If I had money, I would have bought (that car).’
d. nonm pa ka rédé fanm (Gu; Bernabé 1983: 776)
man NEG PRES help woman 37
‘Men don’t help women.’
2 (71) a. brik mwẽ lu pase mòtie (St. L; Carrington 1984: 62)
Nouns brick less heavy than mortar
‘Bricks are less heavy than mortar.’
b. deẑa, jo ka plate kafe èk kako (St. L; Carrington
already 3p PRES plant coffee and cacao 1984: 61)
‘They are already planting coffee and cacao.’
c. ravèt pa ni dwa duvã pul (St. L; Carrington
cockroach NEG have rights infront of hen 1984: 68)
‘Cockroaches have no rights in front of hens.’
d. pwesõ a naẑe mõte lariviè (St. L; Carrington 1984: 108)
fish DEF swim climb river
‘The fish swam up the river.’
(72) a. lò bõdje fini fè wòm li prã . . . (G; Saint-Jacques-

when God finish make man he take . . . Fauquenoy
‘When God made man, he took . . .’ 1972: 124)
b. dló tõbé pa ka ramasé (G; Saint-Jacques-
water fall NEG PRES collect Fauquenoy 1972: 78)
‘Words, once spoken, can’t be taken back.’
c. goyav mwẽ swit ki bakóv (G; Saint-Jacques-
guava less sweet than banana Fauquenoy 1972: 103)
‘Guavas are less sweet than bananas.’
d. kõpè tig osi mešã ki makak (G; Saint-Jacques-
Mister tiger as naughty than monkey Fauquenoy
‘Mister Tiger was as naughty as the monkey.’ 1972: 103)
(73) a. txig te sa mun (K; Tobler 1983: 57)

jaguar PAST COM people
‘Jaguars were people.’
b. mux mode mo (K; Tobler 1983: 54)
wasp sting 1s
‘The wasp stung me.’
c. gã mãyók la batxi? (K; Tobler 1983: 10)
have manioc there field
‘Is there manioc in the field?’
d. kadjinal gã tét huj (K; Tobler 1983: 26)
cardinal (bird) have head red
‘The cardinal has a red head.’
(74) a. ye konm chyen e chat (L; Klingler 2003: 177)

3p like dog and cat
‘They are like cats and dogs.’
38
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b. voila pouquoi carencros choves (L; Klingler 2003: 176) Nouns in the
there why vulture bald French creoles
‘That’s why vultures are bald.’
c. diri bon pou lasanté (L; Klingler 2003: 177)
rice good for health
‘Rice is a healthy food.’
d. nou fou chval en ti kou-d-fwet (L; Klingler 2003: 177)
1p give horse a little whip
‘We gave the horse a whip.’
These examples make clear that nouns can occur without a determiner when
they are (a) indefinite and plural: moun (69a), vwati (69c), chien and chat
(69d), mèl (70a), vwati (70b), nonm and fanm (70d), brik (71a), ravèt and
pul (71c), wòm (72a) and goyav and bakóv (72c), txig and mun in (73a),
chyen and chat (74a), and carencros (74b); (b) non-count/mass: lajan (69b),
lahan (70c), mòtie (71a), kafe and kako (71b), dló (72b), mãyók (73c), and
diri (74c); and (c) definite singular: lariviè (71d), makak (72d), mux (73b),
and chval (74d). Note also that nouns can be bare whenever they have a
generic interpretation: chien and chat (69d), nonm and fanm (70d), goyav
and bakóv (72c), and kadjinal (73d).
It should also be clear from the examples in (67)–(74) that bare or determiner-
less nouns can occur not only in subject and object position in a clause but
also in a range of other syntactic positions: object of preposition (71c), pred-
icative position (73a), and object of comparison (71a), (72c, d), and (74a).
One could list other syntactic environments in which a bare noun can occur:
topic position as in (75a), in coordination (75b), apposition (75c), and so on,
as illustrated in the following from the IOC.
(75) a. bis, li pa ena, loto li ena (IOC)

bus 3s NEG have car 3s have
‘Buses/A bus, he doesn’t have, but cars/a car he does.’
b. karot ek lisu, sa fer bon salad (IOC)
carrot and cabbage that make good salad
‘Carrots and cabbages make a good salad.’
c. Marie, tifi to kamarad, finn al Sid Afrik (IOC)
Mary, daughter 2s friend PERF go South Africa
‘Mary, your friend’s daughter, has gone to South Africa.’
The interpretation of bare or determiner-less nouns in creole languages,

according to Bickerton (1981), is that they are non-specific, while nouns
which are specified by either the definite or indefinite determiner are specific.
39
2 Specific definite nouns are said to be presupposed (their reference is assumed
Nouns to be known by the hearer), while specific indefinite nouns are said to be
asserted (their reference is unknown to the hearer but known to the speaker).
As the following examples from the IOC show, specific nouns are marked by
post-nominal la ‘the’ if they are definite (76a) and by pre-nominal enn ‘a/an’
if they are indefinite (76b). Non-specific nouns, on the other hand, are
unmarked, i.e. bare or determiner-less, as in (76c, d), and they are said to
express indefinite plural meaning.
(76) a. mo finn aste liv la (IOC)

1s PERF buy book DEF
‘I bought the book.’
b. mo finn aste enn liv (IOC)
1s PERF buy a book
‘I bought a book.’
c. mo finn aste liv (IOC)
1s PERF buy book
‘I bought books.’
d. liv ser (IOC)
book expensive
‘Books are expensive.’
However, a careful examination of the bare nouns in (73b) or (74d) shows

that bare nouns occurring in both subject and object position can be not only
specific but also singular. Similar examples occur in the IOC.
(77) a. loto lor simen (IOC)

car on road
‘The car/Cars is/are on the road.’
b. mo finn anvway loto kot mekanisien (IOC)
1s PERF send car to mechanic
‘I sent the car/cars to the mechanic.’
c. zot pe rod loto pu amenn li lopital (IOC)
3p PROG look for car for take 3s hospital
‘They are looking for a car to take him to the hospital.’
As is clear from the translations of the examples in (77a, b), the bare noun
loto can have not only a non-specific plural reading, which is expected, but
also a specific singular reading. On the latter, the speaker presupposes that the
referent is known to the hearer, perhaps by virtue of its uniqueness or familiar-
ity. A possible context in which (77a) might occur is: loto lor simen; rant tuzur,
mo vini la (lit. car on road; get in, I’m coming) ‘The car is on the road; get in,
I won’t be long.’ In (77c), the bare noun loto is non-specific but it has a sin-
40 gular reading. Neither the specific reading of bare nouns nor their singular
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interpretation is predicted in Bickerton’s (1981) system. According to his sys- Nouns in the
tem, nouns with overt determiners are specific singular (their existence is pre- French creoles
supposed if the determiner is definite and asserted if indefinite), while those
without determiners (i.e. bare) are non-specific plural or generic. Bare nouns
in the French creoles, as we have seen, can be both specific and singular.
Bare nouns are also open to other interpretations: they can have a generic read-
ing as in (68c), (69d), and (70d), for instance; an existential reading as in (68a),
(69a), (73c), and so on; or a kind reading: (73a), (73d), and (74b). The generic
reading comes partly from the aspectual/temporal marking of the whole sen-
tence (e.g. habitual present tense), while the existential reading comes from the
episodic nature of the sentence (i.e. its reference to a particular event is sig-
nalled by an aspect or tense marker in the sentence). The kind reading, on the
other hand, obtains in the context of certain predicates which characterise a
kind or species as a whole: Sparrows are common or Squirrels are disappearing
in England. For detailed discussion of the interpretation of bare nouns in the
French creoles in terms of these semantic features, see Deprez (2007).
The possibility of bare or determiner-less nouns in the French creoles presents

an interesting difference when compared with French. It should be noted that
although bare nouns are generally impossible in French, except in some fro-
zen structures, e.g. proverbs such as Chat échaudé craint l’eau froide ‘Once
bitten, twice shy’ and in predicative constructions where the predicate is a
noun referring to a profession Il est professeur ‘He is a teacher’, they were
quite frequent in Middle French (Chaudenson 2007), not only in proverbs
Necessité fait gens mesprendre ‘Necessity misleads people’ but also in ordi-
nary language. The following example from Valli (1994: 90–92, cited in
Chaudenson 2007: 238) is instructive.
(78) De quelque manière que on combate gens

of whatever way that we fight people
‘in whatever way we fight people’
With the loss of the French definite articles, the French creoles have ended
up with a system where the semantic notion of specificity/definiteness is
expressed with a post-nominal marker, namely la, or without such a marker
but relying on contextual or pragmatic information, e.g. uniqueness or visi-
bility of the referent.
2.3.6 Noun-noun constructions
Without the grammatical preposition à and de, French creoles have a number
of nominal constructions in which two nouns are simply juxtaposed. The
following examples from the IOC are illustrative. 41
2 (79) a. lakaz Marie
Nouns house Mary
‘Mary’s house’
b. latet Marie
head Mary
‘Mary’s head’
c. lipie latab
leg table
‘the leg of the table’
(80) a. bis lekol

bus school
‘the school bus’
b. bis Saint Pierre
bus Saint Pierre
‘the bus going to Saint Pierre’
c. karo kann
field cane
‘sugar cane field’
(81) a. profeser matematik

teacher mathematics
‘teacher of Mathematics’
b. sofer bis
driver bus
‘bus driver’
(82) a. plantasion legim

plantation vegetables
‘plantation of vegetables’
b. netwayaz lakaz
cleaning house
‘housework’
These N-N structures are syntactically nominal since they can occur in sub-
ject and object position. They can also be specified by a determiner: bis lekol
la ‘that school bus’, sa ledikasion zanfan la ‘that education (aimed at) chil-
dren’, and so on, and they can be modified by an adjective: enn ti bis lekol ‘a
small school bus’, enn bon ledikasion zanfan ‘a good education for children’,
enn gran plantasion legim ‘a big plantation of vegetables’, and so on.
Another property of these N-N constructions is that different semantic rela-

tions obtain between them: possession in (79a) and (79b), alienable in the
former and inalienable in the latter, and part-whole in (79b) and (79c); modi-
42 fication in (80), where the head noun on the left is further specified by the noun
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on the right; complementation in (81) and (82), where the noun on the right is Nouns in the
the complement of the head noun on the left. The difference between (81) and French creoles
(82) lies in the nature of the head nouns: in (82), but not in (81), the head noun
plantasion and netwayaz are nouns derived from the verb plante ‘to plant’ and
netwaye ‘to clean’. Note also that the head nouns in (81) have an agent role.
Similar examples can also be found in the other creoles. The following are
from Louisiana Creole, Martinican, and Guyanese.
(83) a. la mesõ ẽ Blõ (L; Neumann 1985: 160)

the house a whiteman
‘the house of a white man’
b. la port sar – la (L; Neumann 1985: 160)
the door car- DEF
‘the door of the car’
c. le mun lwil (L; Neumann 1985: 159)
the man oil
‘the man who works on the oil rig’
d. le sak pakon (L; Neumann 1985: 161)
the bag pecan
‘the bag for pecans’
e. le garsõ lafayet (L; Neumann 1985: 162)
the boy Lafayet
‘the boy from Lafayet’
f. preparasjõ la sup (L; Neumann 1985: 159)
preparation the soup
‘the preparation of soup’
(84) a. liv Kanmi (M; Bernabé 2003: 115)

book Camille
‘Camille’s book’
b. latjé pwason-an (M; Bernabé 2003: 123)
tail fish-DEF
‘the tail of the fish’
c. dlo mineral Frans (M; Bernabé 2003: 112)
water mineral France
‘mineral water from France’
d. koukoun – lanmè (M; Bernabé 2003: 171)
anemone sea
‘sea anemone’
(85) a. chien vwazin a (G; Damoiseau 2003: 41)

dog neighbour DEF
‘the neighbour’s dog’
43
2 b. oun lasoup poson (G; Damoiseau 2003: 41)
Nouns a soup fish
‘a fish soup’
c. thip mutõ (K; Tobler 1983: 61)
innards sheep
‘the sheep’s innards’
The semantic relations expressed in these N-N structures are as follows:

possessed-possessor (possession) in (83a), (84a), and (85a); part-whole in
(83b) and (84b); agent-location in (83c); goal-object in (83d); object-source
in (83e), (84c, d), (85b), and (85c); and action-theme in (83f). Louisiana
Creole occasionally uses the preposition à and d(e), but the structures in
(83) without a preposition are the most common.
2.3.7 Nouns and derivational morphology in the

French creoles
A number of nouns in French can be decomposed in terms of their roots and

derivational suffixes: habit-ation ‘dwelling’, assist-ance ‘audience’, gouverne-
ment ‘government’, and so on. The suffix in each of these words is affixed to
a root which belongs to the category verb: habiter ‘to live’, assister ‘to assist’,
and gouverner ‘to govern’. Sometimes, however, the verb to which this suffix
is added is itself the result of a derivational process, as in the case of simpli-
fication ‘simplification’, which derives from the verb simpl-ifier ‘to simplify’
which in turn derives from the adjective simple ‘simple’. French has several
noun-forming affixes; some of these are listed in Table 2.2.
A number of nouns in the French creoles display endings similar to those in
this table. The following, from the IOC, are illustrative.
(86) a. prepar-asion
‘preparation’
b. devlop-man
‘development’
Table 2.2 Derivational morphology in French
Noun-forming suffixes
-ation prépar-ation ‘preparation’, import-ation ‘importation’

-ment change-ment ‘change’, dévéloppe-ment ‘development’
-eur chant-eur ‘singer’, travaill-eur ‘worker’
-cation vilifi-cation ‘vilification’
-age mix-age ‘mixing’, atterriss-age ‘landing’, mont-age ‘mounting’
-ant étudi-ant ‘student’, début-ant ‘beginner’
44
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c. sant-er Nouns in the
‘singer’ French creoles
d. mary-az
‘marriage’
e. etidi-an
‘student’
It is interesting to note here that the suffix -az in maryaz ‘marriage’ in (86d)
has been used with a few words which, in French, do not take this suffix:
depay-az ‘deleafing of sugar cane’, bit-az ‘to put soil round the root of a plant
(sugar cane)’, pik-az ‘to dig shallow holes in order to plant sticks of sugar
cane’, grataz ‘weeding’. The roots are of course of French origin: paille
‘straw’, butte ‘mound’, piquer ‘to dig’, and grater ‘to scratch’. It is also worth
noting here that the nouns in (86) have the following corresponding verbs in
the IOC: prepare ‘to prepare’, devlope ‘to develop’, sante ‘to sing’, modifie
‘to modify’, marye ‘to marry’, and etidje ‘to study’. It is not unreasonable to
suggest here that the deverbal nouns in (86) are the result of a derivational
process, particularly in view of the suffixation of -az to words which, in
French, do not occur with this suffix, as illustrated earlier. Similar processes
have been shown to exist in Haitian Creole, for instance (see Lefebvre 1998,
DeGraff 2001).
The following illustrate the suffixes listed in Table 2.2 on nouns in some of
the other creoles.
(87) a. amiz-man (H; Valdman 1978: 115)
‘enjoyment’
b. kad-man (H; Valdman 1978: 137)
‘frame’
c. vant-è (H; Lefebvre 1998: 305)
‘braggart’
d. avãs-mã (St. L; Carrington 1984: 49)
‘advance’
e. ẽvit-asiõ (St. L; Carrington 1984: 49)
‘invitation’
f. plat-è (St.L; Carrington 1984: 49)
‘planter’
g. alkrapon-ni (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 801)
‘cowardice’
h. lakanyan-ni (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 801)
‘apathy’
i. movez-té (G; Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy 1972: 134)
‘naughtiness’
j. prepar-asjõ (L; Neumann 1985: 159)
‘preparation’ 45
2 k. ẑu-er (L; Neumann 1985: 159)
Nouns ‘player’
l. larõẑ-mõ (L; Neumann 1985: 139)
‘arrangement’
2.4 Concluding remarks
This chapter has looked at nouns in the French creoles. Most of these have
come from French, although many of them, at least in some of these creoles,
show a slightly different surface form as a result of the French determiners
having been agglutinated to the French root nouns, e.g. lapolis ‘the police’,
lekor ‘body’, monper ‘priest’, and so on. Once agglutinated, these determin-
ers form part of the root nouns in these creoles and are listed as such in their
lexicons. All semantic and morpho-syntactic information that they encode in
French is consequently completely lost. To express number, the French creoles
have developed new markers by recruiting words such as the noun bande >
bann ‘band/group’, the (plural) demonstrative ces > sé ‘these’, and the strong
plural pronoun eux > ye/yo ‘them’ from French. The plural marker bann
occurs in the IOC, sé occurs in the Caribbean creoles (Haitian excepted), and
yo/ye in Haitian and the creoles of the Americas (i.e. Guyanese, Karipuna,
and Louisiana Creole), and bann and sé occur pre-nominally while ye/yo
post-nominally. To express specificity/definiteness, on the other hand, they
all make use of la, which stems from the adverbial suffix -là found with nouns
preceded by the demonstrative in French, e.g. cette vache-là ‘this/that cow’
(see chapter 3 for discussion of la). But specificity can also be expressed
without the determiner (i.e. with a bare noun) provided there is an appropri-
ate context. The occurrence of bare nouns is quite common in the French
creoles, and this represents an interesting contrast with their lexifier, in which
bare nouns are very rare. Also, contrary to what has often been claimed
(see Seuren and Wekker 1986: 66), French creoles are not devoid of morphol-
ogy; there are word-formation processes, such as derivation and compound-
ing, and these have produced a number of morphologically complex nouns
in some of them.
46
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Chapter 3
Determiners
3.0 Introduction
This chapter discusses the following members of the determiner class: the
indefinite determiner, the definiteness and specificity determiner, the demon-
strative determiner, and the possessive determiner. It begins with a brief out-
line of determiners in English and French and then discusses the determiners
in the different French creoles. The discussion focuses on the similarities and
differences between these creoles in their choice of words to express definite-
ness and specificity, deixis, and possession. This chapter also discusses the
loss of the French articles in the French creoles and the syntax and semantics
of their definiteness and specificity marker.
3.1 General
Bare count nouns are impossible in a language like English except when they
are in their plural form: She reads stories to children/*child, Children/*child like
stories. In the singular, count nouns have to be accompanied by a determiner,
either the indefinite article a(n) or the definite article the, or a demonstrative
this/that, or a possessive your, or a quantifier every: She is reading a story to a
child. This child likes her stories, Your child likes her stories, Every child likes
a good story. Without the determiner, a singular count noun is simply impos-
sible: *She is reading story to child, *Child likes her stories, *Child likes good
story. Such a restriction also applies to nouns in French – interestingly, not only
to singular nouns but also to plural ones. In the French creoles, this restriction
on singular nouns can sometimes be relaxed depending on context.
The determiners in English, as in French, occupy pre-nominal position, and

they can be separated from the noun they specify by one or more adjectives:
a/the/this/your/every big black dog. They are also mutually exclusive: *a/the 47
3 this book, *a/the my book, *an/the every book *that my book, *that every
Determiners book *my every book, *every my book. However, the definite article can
occur with the pre-determiner quantifier all: all the books, as can the demon-
strative and the possessive: all those books, all my books, but these have a
partitive reading: all of the/those/my books. As is clear, the determiners to
the right of the preposition are all inside the PP and therefore not quite occur-
ring alongside the determiner all.
Traditionally, in a phrase containing a noun and a determiner, the noun is
treated as the head of the phrase and the determiner as its specifier. This tradi-
tional view was also adopted in the generative literature until Abney’s (1987)
reanalysis of the determiner as the head of the phrase and the noun as its
complement (see also Hudson 1984). On this view, the determiner heads and
projects a functional projection DP (determiner phrase). The advantage of this
analysis is that it captures a number of syntactic and semantic facts concerning
the contribution that the determiner makes. For instance, the semantics of the
nominal expression (DP), whether indefinite or definite, can be traced back to
the semantics of its head, i.e. the determiner – a book is indefinite since its head
a is indefinite, while the book is definite because its head the is definite – and
not that of the noun. Treating the determiner as the head of the phrase is also
consistent with it being a word class element (i.e. not a phrasal element).
The semantic difference between the indefinite article a(n) and the definite
article the is well known. A concrete count noun preceded by the former
signals that the referent denoted by the noun is semantically new and indefi-
nite, that is to say, lacking in its defining or specificity information: Bring
me an apple! Ask Bill a question! And it is for this reason that the indefinite
article in such examples can be substituted by any: Bring me any apple! Ask
Bill any question! In using a(n), the speaker is clearly indicating that he/she
has no specific apple or question in mind, although there are instances where
the indefinite article can be assigned a specific interpretation: John wants to
buy a house near his school, which could mean that there is a specific house
that he wants to buy. The other interpretation is that John wants to buy any
house which is near his school. In contrast, the definite article the, like the
demonstrative this/that, has the semantic function of defining or specifying
one particular entity referred to by the noun, i.e. it picks out a particular
referent known to both speaker and hearer. The entity may be unique,
e.g. Queen or President Mary met the Queen/President, or familiar The train
is leaving. However, sometimes uniqueness has to be seen in relation to
context: Shut the door! John broke the clock. Here context makes it clear
to the hearer which door or which clock the speaker has in mind, hence the
use of the definite article is appropriate.
Unlike the, the demonstrative this and that are specified for number. Their plural
48 forms are respectively these and those, e.g. this book and these books; that book
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and those books. The article the, on the other hand, is unspecified for number – Determiners
the book and the books – and so, unlike the demonstratives, it is only specified in French
for definiteness and specificity. Like the, the possessive determiners my, your,
his, etc. are also not specified for number: my book and my books. Quantifiers,
on the other hand, can be specified for number: every is singular – every
book/*books – while all/most/several are plural all/most/several books/*book.
3.2 Determiners in French
Nouns in French, unlike those in English, occur very rarely without a deter-
miner, e.g. *Fille arrive ‘Girl arrives’, *Filles arrivent ‘Girls arrive’, Une/La
fille arrive ‘A/The girl arrives’, Les filles arrivent ‘The girls arrive’. Notice that
the determiner is needed in French even when the noun is plural, in sharp
contrast to English. The class of determiner in French, like that in English,
consists of articles, demonstratives, possessives, and quantifiers. The articles
are of different types, namely definite, indefinite, and partitive, and they dis-
play different forms depending on the number and gender of the noun with
which they occur. The definite article is le ‘the’ if the noun it specifies is mas-
culine singular, la ‘the’ if the noun it specifies is feminine singular, and les ‘the’
if the noun is plural. The indefinite article, however, is un ‘a(n)’ if the noun is
masculine singular, une ‘a(n)’ if the noun is feminine singular, and des ‘some’
if the noun is plural and du ‘of the’ if it is masculine partitive but de la ‘of the’
if feminine partitive. In this respect the definite article must be seen as having
the grammatical function of indicating the gender and number borne by the
noun beside its semantic function of specifying the referent of the noun.
3.2.1 The definite article
The definite article in French, like the definite article in English, has the
semantic function of ‘defining’ or ‘specifying’ an entity denoted by the noun.
In general, it instructs the hearer to locate an entity previously known to him/
her or an entity which is somehow unique.
(1) a. J’ai donné la lettre à Jean

‘I gave the letter to John.’
b. J’ai rencontré la reine d’Angleterre hier
‘I met the Queen of England yesterday.’
In uttering the sentence in (1a), the speaker assumes that his/her hearer
knows which letter he/she has in mind and, in uttering (1b), the speaker
assumes his/her hearer knows that England has a queen. In both cases, the
referent is unique in the mind of both the speaker and the hearer. 49
3 The definite article in French can also be used in a generic sense, referring to a
Determiners whole class or species, rather than an individual or specific entity of that class.
(2) a. Le chien est l’ ami de l’ homme

‘The dog is man’s friend.’
b. Le tigre est un animal féroce
‘The tiger is a ferocious animal.’
The noun phrase le chien ‘the dog’ is evidently not referring to any particu-
lar ‘dog’ but to the class ‘dog’, i.e. the class of animals which barks. In the
case of le tigre ‘the tiger’ in (2b), the reference is to the whole class of
tigers. In other words, what is being asserted is true of any member of that
class.
The French definite article has a number of other uses. It is used with place
names (countries, regions) La Russie ‘Russia’, Le Sud ‘the south’, with names
of seasons le printemps ‘spring’, with names of languages Le Chinois ‘Chi-
nese’, with names of body parts Va te laver les mains! ‘Go wash your hands!’,
and with superlative adjectives L’homme le plus fort ‘the strongest man’, and
it is also used to refer to regular or habitual occurrences Elle va au marché
le samedi ‘She goes to market on Saturdays’.
The development of the definite article in French was largely triggered by the
loss of gender and number marking suffixes on nouns in Old French. It is
interesting to note that other Romance languages (e.g. Spanish and Italian),
unlike French, still retain their gender and number marking suffixes on nouns
e.g. ragazza ‘girl’ and ragazzo ‘boy’ in Italian. With the loss of nominal gen-
der and number suffixes, the task of encoding gender and number informa-
tion fell to determiners, which were already available in pre-nominal position
in Old French (Harris 1978: 71). The general motivation behind the develop-
ment of the pre-nominal definite articles is said to be grammatical rather than
semantic. This is because these articles can be used with certain types of noun
whose meanings do not include specificity, e.g. abstract nouns l’amour ‘love’,
la haine ‘hate’, and so on, or indefinite nouns Marie aime les bijoux ‘Mary
loves jewellery’, Le vin est bon pour la santé ‘Wine is good for health’. Such
abstract and plural concrete nouns are bare in English, except when they are
modified by a relative clause. As we will see later, the French pre-nominal
definite articles have not survived in the French creoles as independent mark-
ers of specificity or grammatical markers of gender and number, which is
probably not surprising if the definite articles have come to have more of a
grammatical than a semantic role in French.
3.2.2 The indefinite article
50 The indefinite article in French is un (masculine singular), une (feminine

singular), and des (plural). Its semantic function is to introduce to the hearer
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an entity which is concrete and countable and, importantly, which constitutes Determiners
new information, i.e. has not been previously mentioned in the discourse. in French
(3) a. J’ai rencontré un homme/une femme au marché hier

‘I met a man/a woman at the market yesterday.’
b. Il a des enfants à nourrir
‘He has children to feed.’
The indefinite article, like the definite article, has the grammatical function
of encoding the gender and number of the noun with which it occurs.
Like the definite article, the indefinite article can also be used in a generic
sense, where it refers to the whole class of countable and concrete entities.
(4) a. Un politicien est d’habitude ambitieux

‘A politician is usually ambitious.’
b. Un chien a normalement quatre pattes
‘A dog normally has four legs.’
Notice that the generic sense of the indefinite article is not in any way affected
when the noun is in the plural, as shown in (5).
(5) a. Des politiciens sont d’habitude ambitieux

‘Politicians are usually ambitious.’
b. Des chiens ont normalement quatre pattes
‘Dogs normally have four legs.’
Looking at the distribution of the indefinite article, notice that although it

can occur with nouns which function as subject or object, it cannot occur
with those which have a predicative function in the sentence.
(6) a. Elle est avocate/*une avocate

‘She is a lawyer.’
b. Ils l’ont élu gouverneur/*un gouverneur de l’île.
‘He was elected governor of the island.’
There are other contexts in which indefinite nouns occur without the indefi-
nite article. For instance, where two or more nouns occur in a list: J’ai vendu
pommes, oranges, bananes et fraises ‘I sold apples, oranges, bananas, and
strawberries’, or when a noun occurs in apposition to a proper noun: Pierre,
ami de son fils, est médecin ‘Peter, a friend of his son, is a doctor’.
3.2.3 The partitive article
The partitive article takes the form of du (de le) in the masculine singular and 51
de la in the feminine singular and des (de les) in the plural, and it conveys the
3 meaning ‘part of’ or ‘some’ (unspecified quantity) of whatever the noun with
Determiners which it occurs denotes. The definite article in its combination with the prep-
osition de initially retained its semantic meaning, so that de le/la literally
meant ‘some of the N’ (Harris 1978: 78).
(7) a. Il boit du vin tous les jours

‘He drinks wine every day.’
b. Il boit de la bière chaque jour
‘He drinks beer every day.’
c. Il boit de l’eau après chaque repas
‘He drinks water after each meal.’
d. On mange des oranges tous les jours
‘We eat oranges everyday.’
There are instances where only the preposition de ‘of’ is allowed rather than
the collocation of preposition and definite article, e.g. in negation, as shown
in (8a), or after a quantifier such as beaucoup ‘many/much’ or trop ‘too
much’, as shown in (8b, c).
(8) a. Il ne boit pas de vin tous les jours

‘He doesn’t drink wine every day.’
b. Il boit beaucoup de vin
‘He drinks a lot of wine.’
c. On a bu trop de vin
‘We drank too much wine.’
Nouns in French, then, must occur with a determiner, which may be the
indefinite, definite, or partitive article, but, as we have seen, there are contexts
(e.g. as predicative nominals) in which these articles must be omitted. The
determiner can be said to signal the presence of the noun and, as we saw
earlier, it has a grammatical role, namely to mark the gender and number of
the noun. In other Romance languages (e.g. Spanish and Italian) these morpho-
syntactic properties (gender and number) are marked on the nouns them-
selves by nominal suffixes. The determiner additionally has a semantic
function. The indefinite article picks out one item from a set of similar items.
The definite article specifies the noun with which it occurs, while the partitive
article refers to some unspecified quantity of an entity denoted by the noun.
3.3 Determiners in the French creoles
Of the French determiners, the indefinite article and the demonstrative have
survived in one form or another in all the French creoles, while the possessive
52
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has survived in only a few of them. The definite and partitive articles, in Determiners
contrast, have disappeared from all of them, although, as will be seen, Loui- in the French
siana Creole occasionally makes use of the French definite article. creoles
3.3.1 Loss of French definite articles
Concrete and count nouns in the French creoles, unlike those in French, are
not accompanied by the pre-nominal definite le/la/les or partitive du/de la/
des. These articles have been lost, either through simple omission, so that
French concrete and count nouns occur article-less in the French creoles, e.g.
sat ‘cat’ (cf. le chat ‘the cat’ in French), or through agglutination to the nouns
which follow them, e.g. lisyen ‘dog’ (cf. le chien ‘the dog’ in French). As a
result, the articles and the nouns have become single lexemes or etymons.
The word boundary which exists between them in French has disappeared,
and the articles have no grammatical function to perform. That is, they no
longer encode gender, number, definiteness, or specificity. As expected, an
adjective cannot intervene between them. Any adjectival modification of the
noun is therefore only possible if the adjective is placed in front of the whole
fused noun e.g. gro lisyen la ‘the big dog’ (cf. Fr le gros chien ‘the big dog’).
It should be noted that some nouns have not incorporated the whole article
but only a segment of it. This is particularly the case with the articles ending
with the plural -s, e.g. les ‘the’ or des ‘some’, in the context of nouns begin-
ning with vowels, e.g. les/des oranges [orãz] ‘the/some oranges’. In speech
[orãz] ‘orange’ is pronounced [zorãz] due to the phenomenon of liaison. In
some of the creoles, e.g. the IOC, there is a single form for both ‘orange’
(singular) and ‘oranges’ (plural), namely zoranz.
The following lists nouns with agglutinated French articles in different French
creoles. Notice that, without these incorporated articles, the French root
nouns are just impossible, except perhaps in Louisiana Creole, where the
feminine definite la can sometimes be omitted so that both lakord ‘string/
rope’ and kord ‘string/rope’ are possible. The IOC, however, have only the
noun lakord in their lexicon. Examples (9)–(14) illustrate the agglutination
of the definite articles to the nouns which follow them.
(9) a. latab (Fr. la table) (IOC)

table
b. legliz (Fr. l’église) (IOC)
church
c. letan (Fr. le temps) (IOC)
weather
d. lezwa (Fr. les oies) (IOC)
goose
53
3 (10) a. lalin (Fr. la lune) (H; Valdman 1978: 180)
Determiners moon
b. lanmè (Fr. la mer) (H; Valdman 1978: 180)
sea
c. légliz (Fr. l’église) (H; Valdman 1978: 180)
church
d. zèb (Fr. les/des herbes) (H; Valdman 1978: 180)
weed
(11) a. lanmè (Fr. la mer) (M; Bernabé 2003: 108)

sea
b. lajan (Fr. l’argent) (M; Bernabé 2003: 109)
money
c. zorey (Fr. les/des oreilles) (M; Bernabé 2003: 108)
ear
(12) a. lapli (Fr. la pluie) (Gu; Damoiseau 2012: 10)

rain
b. lékol (Fr. l’école) (Gu; Damoiseau 2012: 71)
school
c. zeb (Fr. les/des herbes) (Gu; Damoiseau 2012: 57)
grass
(13) a. lapo (Fr. la peau) (St. L; Carrington 1984: 57)

skin
b. lekol (Fr. l’école) (St. L; Carrington 1984: 55)
school
c. zanimo (Fr. les/des animaux) (St. L; Carrington 1984: 87)
animal
(14) a. lariviè (Fr. la rivière) (G; Damoiseau 2003: 34)

river
b. lekòl (Fr. l’école) (G; Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy 1972: 116)
school
c. zorè (Fr. les/des oreilles) (G; Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy
ear 1972: 93)
d. zami (Fr. les/des amis) (G; Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy
friend 1972: 111)
(15) a. lapót (Fr. la porte) (K; Tobler 1983: 17)

door
b. lapli (Fr. la pluie) (K; Tobler 1983: 45)
rain
c. lóminét (Fr. l’omelette) (K; Tobler 1983: 31)
54 omelette
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d. zohãj (Fr. les/des oranges) (K; Tobler 1983: 63) Determiners
oranges in the French
creoles
(16) a. lapòt (Fr. la porte) (L; Klingler 2003: 162)
door
b. lekiri (Fr. l’écurie) (L; Klingler 2003: 160)
stable
c. zẽdjẽ (Fr. les/des indiens) (L; Neumann 1985: 154)
indian
d. lefey (Fr. les feuilles) (L; Klingler 2003: 165)
leaf
The examples in (17)–(23) show the French partitive articles du and de l’

agglutinated to French mass nouns. Like the definite articles, these have also
become an integral part of the nouns to which they are agglutinated.
(17) a. dilo (Fr. de l’eau) (IOC)

water
b. diber (Fr. du beurre) (IOC)
butter
c. disik (Fr. du sucre) (IOC)
sugar
(18) a. dilo (Fr. de l’eau) (H; Valdman 1978: 180)

water
b. difé (Fr. du feu) (H; Valdman 1978: 180)
fire
c. diri (Fr. du riz) (H; Valdman 1978: 180)
rice
(19) a. dlo (Fr. de l’eau) (M; Bernabé 2003: 112)

water
b. dlo (Fr. de l’eau) (Gu; Bernabé 1983: 645)
water
b. dite (Fr. du thé) (M/Gu; Bernabé 1983: 648)
tea (infusion)
(20) a. diri (Fr. du riz) (St. L; Carrington 1984: 68)

rice
b. dite (Fr. du thé) (St. L; Carrington 1984: 127)
tea
c. glo (Fr. de l’eau) (St. L; Carrington 1984: 91)
water
(21) a. dilo (Fr. de l’eau) (G: Damoiseau 2003: 44)

water 55
3 b. duri (Fr. du riz) (G; Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy
Determiners rice 1972: 133)
c. dipẽ (Fr. du pain) (G; Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy

bread 1972: 133)
(22) a. dile (Fr. du lait) (L; Klingler 2003: 166)

milk
b. disan (Fr. du sang) (L; Klingler 2003: 166)
blood
c. disel (Fr. du sel) (L; Neumann 1985: 150)
salt
(23) a. djife (Fr. du feu) (K; Tobler 1983: 28)

fire
b. djisã (Fr. du sang) (K; Tobler 1983: 64)
blood
Note that it is not only the definite and partitive articles which have been
agglutinated in this way. The indefinite article un/une ‘a(n)’ has also been agglu-
tinated to nouns, although there are very few cases of this across the French
creoles. With this article, it is the nasal consonant which gets agglutinated in
speech to a noun beginning with a vowel, e.g. un homme [ɔm] ‘a man’ >
[nɔm]. Notice that when the masculine indefinite article is uttered in isola-
tion, this consonant is silent. The same has happened to the -s in the plural
articles les ‘the’ and des ‘some’. It has been incorporated in speech to nouns
beginning with a vowel so that we have zwazo ‘bird(s)’ in the IOC from
French les oiseaux [lezwazo] ‘the birds’, but note lezwa ‘goose/geese’ in the
IOC from French les oies [lezwa] ‘the geese’. In this last example, the whole
plural article has been agglutinated. Examples (24) and (27) illustrate the
agglutination of the indefinite article.
(24) a. nam (Fr. une âme) (IOC)

spirit
b. nide (Fr. une idée) (IOC)
idea
(25) a. nonm (Fr. un homme) (H; Valdman 1978: 180)
man
b. nanm (Fr. une âme) (H; Valdman 1978: 180)
spirit
c. nonm (Fr. un homme) (M; Bernabé 2003: 110)
man
(26) a. nonm (Fr. un homme) (L; Klingler 2003: 161)
56 Man
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b. nechel (Fr. une échelle) (L; Klingler 2003: 161) Determiners
ladder in the French
c. nide (Fr. une idée) (L; Neumann 1985: 140) creoles
idea
d. nam (Fr. une ãme) (L; Neumann 1985: 152)
spirit
Neumann (1985: 153) lists other nouns with an agglutinated nasal consonant
beside those in (26) and points out that the list is by no means exhaustive. In
the light of this observation, we find an interesting difference between Loui-
siana Creole and the other creoles in terms of the number of nouns with the
agglutinated indefinite article. Louisiana Creole appears to have far more
nouns of this type than any of the other creoles. This is clear from Table 3.1.
It compares the same nouns in Louisiana Creole and the IOC, and the differ-
ence between them with respect to nasal agglutination is evident.
Louisiana Creole has agglutinated the indefinite article un(e) to nouns which
in the IOC show no agglutination at all, e.g. espes ‘species’ and anz ‘angel’,
or agglutination of the singular definite article l’ as in liver or the plural defi-
nite les or the indefinite des as in zepol, zepeng, zegwij, and zarb. It is also
worth noting that other members of the determiner class (e.g. possessive)
have also been agglutinated to root nouns. A few illustrative examples from
the IOC, mostly religious and kinship nouns, are: monper ‘(religious) father/
priest’ (< Fr mon père), maser ‘religious sister’ (< Fr ma soeur), matant ‘aun-
tie’ (< Fr ma tante), monami ‘my friend’ (< Fr mon ami). Haitian Creole has
mounonk ‘uncle’ (< Fr mon oncle) and matant ‘auntie’.
As was noted earlier, French articles have also been lost in the French
creoles through the simple process of omission. The following lists nouns
which have no agglutinated articles. There is therefore no difference in
form between these lexemes in French and those in the creoles, except
for the differences in pronunciation. They are all bare nouns.
Table 3.1 Agglutinated indefinite articles in Louisiana Creole and the IOC
Louisiana IOC French English
narb pie/zarb un arbre a tree

nespes espes un espèce a species
niver liver l’hiver winter
nõk tonton un oncle uncle
nãz anz un ange angel
negwij zegwij une aiguille a needle
nepol zepol les épaules shoulders
nepeng zepeng une épingle safety pin
57
3 (27) a. soleij (Fr. le soleil) (IOC)
Determiners sun
b. sulye (Fr. les chaussures) (IOC)
shoe
c. vas (Fr. la vache) (IOC)
cow
d. avion (Fr. l’avion) (IOC)
plane
e. riso (Fr. le ruisseau) (IOC)
stream
(28) a. chanm (Fr. la chambre) (H; Valdman 1978: 179)

room
b. chen (Fr. le chien) (H; Valdman 1978: 181)
dog
c. boutik (Fr. la boutique) (H; Valdman 1978: 189)
shop
d. tèr (Fr. la terre) (H; Valdman 1978: 202)
earth
(29) a. sak (Fr. le sac) (M; Bernabé 2003: 29)

bag
b. soley (Fr. le soleil) (M; Bernabé 2003: 34)
sun
c. chanm (Fr. la chambre) (M; Bernabé 2003: 39)
room
d. tan (Fr. le temps) (M; Bernabé 2003: 39)
weather
(30) a. tig (Fr. le tigre) (St. L; Carrington 1984: 126)

tiger
b. avoka (Fr. l’avocat) (St. L; Carrington 1984: 108)
lawyer
c. sèl (Fr. le sel) (St. L; Carrington 1984: 108)
salt
d. farin (Fr. la farine) (St. L; Carrington 1984: 107)
flour
e. twèl (Fr. la toile) (St. L; Carrington 1984: 103)
cloth
(31) a. poson (Fr. le poisson) (G; Damoiseau 2012: 124)

fish
b. vwazen (Fr. le voisin) (G; Damoiseau 2012: 123)
58 neighbour
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c. chanm (Fr. la chambre) (G; Damoiseau 2012: 163) Determiners
room in the French
d. chien (Fr. le chien) (G; Damoiseau 2012: 21) creoles
dog
(32) a. pul (Fr. la poule) (K; Tobler 1983: 94)

hen
b. soley (Fr. le soleil) (K; Tobler 1983: 94)
sun
c. žam (Fr. la jambe) (K; Tobler 1983: 94)
thigh
(33) a. sat (Fr. le chat/la chatte) (L; Neumann 1985: 158)

cat
b. pul (Fr. la poule) (L; Neumann 1985: 158)
hen
c. sapo (Fr. le chapeau) (L; Neumann 1985: 158)
hat
d. vilaz (Fr. le village) (L; Neumann 1985: 158)
village
It should be noted however that the same noun can sometimes appear in
different forms in different creoles. Haitian Creole, for instance, has the fol-
lowing nouns without an agglutinated article: chanm ‘room’, boutik ‘shop’,
tèr ‘earth’, and šẽ ‘dog’, while the same nouns in the IOC display agglutina-
tion of the feminine definite article lasam ‘room’, labutik ‘shop’, later ‘earth’,
and lisien ‘dog’. Likewise, while Karipuna and Martinican have mun/moun
‘people’, the IOC have dimunn, which shows the agglutinated French parti-
tive du ‘of’. A similar difference can be seen between Martinican, Guadelou-
pean, Guyanese, and Haitian on the one hand and the IOC on the other: the
former has soup for French la soupe ‘soup’ and chien/chen for French le chien
‘dog’, the latter has lasup and lisyen respectively. It is clearly the case that
there are more nouns with agglutinated articles in the IOC than in any of the
other French creoles. It is also the case that there are more nouns with agglu-
tinated French la (feminine definite article) than le(s) (the masculine singular/
plural definite article) and the indefinite articles (see Baker and Corne 1982,
Baker 1984, Grant 1995).
3.3.2 The indefinite article
All the French creoles have retained a form of the French indefinite article un/
une ‘a(n)’ although it is pronounced differently in different creoles enn, youn,
an, and so on. Its retention is perhaps not surprising because, unlike the 59
3 definite articles, it is also part of the numerical system inherited from French
Determiners un/une ‘one’, deux ‘two’, trois ‘three’, and so on. As part of the article/
determiner system, it has the semantic function of picking out one referent
denoted by the noun with which it occurs out of a range of possible referents:
A dog bit John or I saw a dog in a car. These translate into French as Un chien
a mordu Jean or J’ai vu un chien dans une voiture. The indefinite un/une ‘a(n)’
basically expresses an individualised but unspecific referent, although there
are contexts when it could be specific A student called this morning.
The following illustrate the indefinite marker in the different French creoles.
(34) a. ti ena enn liv lor latab (IOC)

PAST have a book on table
‘There was a book on the table.’
b. youn timoun sòti (H; Valdman 1978: 186)
a child leave
‘A child has left.’
c. ni an moun adan kay-la (M; Bernabé 2003: 109)
be a man in house-DEF
‘There is a man in the house.’
d. on gran gason (Gu; Damoiseau 2012: 36)
a big boy
‘a big boy’
e. Stéfàn achté oun loto (G; Damoiseau 2003: 34)
Stefan buy a car
‘Stefan bought a car.’
f. õ piti gasõ (St. L; Carrington 1984: 63)
a little boy
‘a little boy’
g. i bije gen en trou andan li (L; Klingler 2003: 309)
3s must have a hole inside 3s
‘It must have a hole in it.’
h. hete un bõ tã (K; Tobler 1983: 33)
stay a good time
‘It was much later/after a while.’
i. un pye-bwa (K; Tobler 1983: 63)
a tree
‘a tree’
The function of the indefinite article is to introduce a new item into the dis-
course which is countable and concrete. In addition to picking out an indi-
vidual item, e.g. enn liv ‘a book’ (IOC), enn poule ‘a hen’ (IOC), youn timoun
‘a child’ (Haitian), and so on, the indefinite article can also pick out a whole
class of items which are again countable and concrete: enn zwazo ena de lezel
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‘a bird has two wings’ (IOC), enn tig enn zoli zanimo ‘a tiger is a beautiful Determiners
animal’ (IOC). Notice that it can also be used with an abstract noun provided in the French
the noun is modified by an adjective or a relative clause: enn kondision serye creoles
‘a serious condition’ (IOC), enn bote ekstra ‘an amazing beauty’ (lit. a beauty
extraordinary) (IOC), enn gran maler ‘a big misfortune’ (IOC), enn kuraz ki
personn pena ‘a courage that no one has’ (IOC). The indefinite article is also
possible with mass (non-count) nouns provided these are modified: enn lafarinn
ki kwi bien ‘a flour that cooks well’ (IOC), enn dile ki bien gra ‘a milk which
is very fat’ (IOC), enn disel sinwa ‘a salt which comes from China’ (IOC).
The plural counterpart of the indefinite is a zero morpheme, i.e. a bare noun
which is interpreted as plural: li vann liv ‘he sells books’ (IOC), tig enn zanimo
danzere ‘tigers are dangerous animals’ (IOC), ena loto lor simen ‘there are
cars on the road’ (lit. have cars on road) (IOC). French, as was noted earlier,
uses des ‘some’ for the plural of the indefinite: il y a des voitures sur la route
‘there are cars on the road’). Another difference is that the indefinite singular
can occur with a predicative noun, which is impossible in French: li enn dokter
‘he is a doctor’ (IOC), Marie enn zurnalist ‘Mary is a journalist’ (IOC), Mari
youn doktè ‘Mary is a doctor’ (H). Sentences corresponding to these in French
have a determiner-less predicative noun, e.g. il est médecin ‘he is a doctor’,
Marie est journaliste ‘Mary is a journalist’ but not *il est un médecin ‘he is a
doctor’ or *Marie est une journaliste ‘Mary is a journalist’.
3.3.3 The definite determiner
Having lost the French definite articles either through agglutination or

omission, the French creoles recruited the French post-nominal adverbial
suffix -là ‘there’ to express the semantics of the French definite articles
(whatever little they had and still have). This suffix is used in French in
opposition to the suffix – ci ‘here’ when used with the demonstrative deter-
miner ce/cet/cette/ces or the demonstrative pronouns celui or celle: cet
homme-là ‘this man’ and cette femme-là ‘that woman’; celui-ci/celle-ci ‘this
one’ and celui-là/celle-là ‘that one’. Historically, these post-nominal suffixes
were used with the demonstratives in order to reinforce the proximity/distal
distinction which, in Old French, they (the demonstratives) expressed on
their own, e.g. cest ‘this’ and cel ‘that’. There is an interesting parallel here
with the development of pas ‘not’ as a marker of negation. It was also
recruited to reinforce a weakened negative ne, which in Old French had
expressed negation on its own (Price 1971: 252). The French creoles have
retained the combination of the demonstrative determiner and the post-
nominal adverbial suffix -là, but this suffix has also developed further into
an independent morpheme, which is used post-nominally to mark the noun
as being definite and specific: thus sa liv la ‘this/that book’ (IOC) or nòm
sa la ‘this/that man’ (St. Lucian), where la is neutral between proximity and 61
3 distal, and liv la ‘the book’ (IOC, Haitian, and Martinican), which refers
Determiners to a particular book known to both speaker and hearer. The change of -là
from a post-nominal suffix in French to an independent morpheme in the
French creoles represents an interesting and surprising development, which
clearly challenges the traditional grammaticalisation cline (Meillet 1912,
Hopper 1991, Hopper and Traugott 2003) and the unidirectionality
hypothesis, as it shows a suffix developing into an independent morpheme
instead of an independent morpheme becoming a suffix.
The following examples illustrate the use of the determiner la in different
French creoles.
(35) a. laport la (IOC)

door DEF
‘the door’
b. dilo la (IOC)
water DEF
‘the water’
c. pom la (IOC)
apple DEF
‘the apple’
(36) a. krab la (H; Lefebvre 1998: 85)

crab DEF
‘the crab’
b. timoun nan (H; Lefebvre 1998: 79)
child DEF
‘the child’
c. diri a (H; Lefebvre 1998: 81)
rice DEF
‘the rice’
(37) a. tab-la (M; Bernabé 2003: 108)

table-DEF
‘the table’
b. fanm-lan (M; Bernabé 2003: 108)
woman-DEF
‘the woman’
c. loto-a (M; Bernabé 2003: 108)
car-DEF
‘the car’
d. lajan-an (M; Bernabé 2003: 109)
money-DEF
62 ‘the money’
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(38) a. tablo-la (Gu; Damoiseau 2012: 28) Determiners
board-DEF in the French
‘the blackboard’ creoles
b. moun-la (Gu; Damoiseau 2012: 28)
person-DEF
‘the person’
c. pot-la (Gu; Damoiseau 2012: 29)
door-DEF
‘the door’
(39) a. savan na (St. L; Carrington 1984: 62)

field DEF
‘the field’
b. koŝõ a (St. L; Carrington 1984: 65)
pig DEF
‘the pig’
c. plãtè ja (St. L; Carrington 1984: 66)
planter DEF
‘the planter’
d. mamaj la (St. L; Carrington 1984: 66)
child DEF
‘the child’
(40) a. liv-a (G; Damoiseau 2003: 30)

book-DEF
‘the book’
b. tablo-a (G; Damoiseau 2003: 33)
blackboard-DEF
‘the blackboard’
c. pom-an (G; Damoiseau 2003: 33)
apple-DEF
‘the apple’
d. dipen-an (G; Damoiseau 2003: 33)
bread-DEF
‘the bread’
(41) a. lapen-la (L; Klingler 2003: 173)

rabbit-DEF
‘the rabbit’
b. dolo-a (L; Klingler 2003: 173)
water-DEF
‘the water’
c. moun-an (L; Klingler 2003: 173)
adult-DEF
‘the adult’ 63
3 d. lakrèm-nan (L; Klingler 2003: 173)
Determiners cream-DEF
‘the cream’
(42) a. txizozo la (K; Tobler 1983: 52)

songbird DEF
‘the bird’
b. xemiz blã la (K; Tobler 1983: 63)
shirt white DEF
‘the white shirt’
c. bóm la (K; Tobler 1983: 68)
tin DEF
‘the tin’
d. pye-bwa la (K; Tobler 1983: 70)
tree-wood DEF
‘the tree’
As these examples illustrate, the determiner la has an invariant form in three

of these creoles, namely the IOC, Guadeloupean, and Karipuna. In Louisiana
Creole, it has the form -la if the noun it follows ends with a vowel, although
occasionally it can also take the form -a or -lan. If the noun ends with a nasal
consonant, -la takes the form an or nan (see Klingler 2003: 173). In St. Lucian
Creole, the definite la has four different forms (Carrington 1984: 55–56): la
if the noun ends with a non-nasal consonant, e.g. bèf la ‘the cow’; na if it
ends with a nasal consonant, e.g. mun na ‘the person’; and ã if it ends with
a vowel e.g. ŝimẽ ã ‘the road’, although it can be replaced with ja if the final
vowel is /i/, /e/, /è/, or /ẽ/. In Haitian Creole, the definite article also has four
forms (Valdman 1978: 81): la if the noun ends with a consonant or a semi-
vowel, e.g. nuvεl la ‘the news’, kaj la ‘the house’; a if the noun ends with a
non-nasalised vowel, e.g. zuti a ‘the tool’; ã if it ends with a nasalised vowel,
e.g. põ ã ‘the bridge’; and nã if it ends with a nasalised consonant, e.g. lalin
nã ‘the moon’. In Martinican, the definite article has three forms (Bernabé
1983: 644–645), namely -la if the noun ends with a non-nasal consonant or
semi-vowel, e.g. tab-la ‘the table’ and bay-la ‘the tub’; -a if it ends with a
non-nasal vowel, e.g. tjè-a ‘the heart’; and -an/-yan if it ends with a nasal
vowel, e.g. jaden-an/-yan ‘the garden’. It is interesting that in Guadeloupean,
which is very closely related to Martinican, the definite marker has an invari-
ant form, namely -la. The existence of such allomorphy in some of these
creoles but not others clearly presents an interesting phenomenon.
Turning now to the syntax of the determiner la, it is evident from the exam-
ples presented so far that it follows the noun in the French creoles, whereas
the definite articles in French precede it, cf. liv la ‘the book’ as opposed to le
livre ‘the book’. Furthermore, when a post-nominal modifier is also present,
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then it cannot remain adjacent to the head noun (but see below). The modi- Determiners
fier is placed next to the noun, and it can be an adjectival phrase, a genitive in the French
noun phrase, a prepositional phrase, or a relative clause, as shown in these creoles
examples.
(43) a. sapo ruz la (IOC)

hat red DEF
‘the red hat’
b. sapo to papa la (IOC)
hat 2s father DEF
‘your father’s hat’
c. sapo lor sez la (IOC)
hat on chair DEF
‘the hat on the chair’
d. sapo (ki) to ti mete la (IOC)
hat REL 2s PAST put DEF
‘the hat which you wore’
(44) a. ròb ruz la (H; Lefebvre 1982b: 26)

dress red DEF
‘the red dress’
b. machin frè-m-an (H; Valdman 1978: 196)
car brother-my-DEF
‘my brother’s car’
c. fi ak ševø lõg nã (H; Lefebvre 1998: 105)
girl with hair long DEF
‘the girl with the long hair’
d. tab la mo te ašte a bel (H; Lefebvre 1998: 37)
table DEF 1s PAST buy DEF beautiful
‘The table which I bought is beautiful.’
(45) a. fanm kouyon an (M; Bernabé 1987: 58)

woman stupid DEF
‘the stupid woman’
b. boug bab blan an (M; Bernabé 2003: 206)
man beard white DEF
‘the man with white beard’
c. tet chien-an (M; Bernabé 2003: 247)
head dog DEF
‘the dog’s head’
d. man konnet frè-a ki ka travay Fodfrans la
1s know brother-DEF REL PRES work Fort-de-France DEF
‘I know the brother who works at Fort-de-France.’
(M; Bernabé 2003: 201)
65
3 (46) a. loto blan an (G; Damoiseau 2003: 39)
Determiners car white DEF
‘that car’
b. loto mo frè an (G; Damoiseau 2003: 39)
car my brother DEF
‘the car of my brother’
c. moun-an to konnet a pa vini (G; Damoiseau 2003: 42)
person-DEF 2s know DEF NEG come
‘The person you know hasn’t come.’
d. mò pa konèt wòm ki vini-a (G; Saint-Jacques-
1s NEG know man REL come-DEF Fauquenoy 1972: 113)
‘I don’t know the man who came.’
(47) a. fizaj lèd la (St. L; Carrington 1984: 76)

face ugly DEF
‘the ugly face’
b. kaj misie a (St. L; Carrington 1984: 86)
house man DEF
‘the man’s house’
c. prèmie bèt la sèpã kaj zwèn la . . . (St. L; Carrington
first animal DEF snake FUT meet DEF 1984: 79)
‘The first animal that Snake will meet . . .’
(48) a. madonm blan-la (L; Klingler 2003: 448 fn. 11)

lady white-DEF
‘the white lady’
b. madonm blan-la (L; Klingler 2003: 431)
wife whiteman-DEF
‘the wife of the white man’
c. lekòl drèt dan chmen nef la (L; Klingler 2003: 431)
school right in road new DEF
‘the school right there in New Roads’
d. mo frer ki muri la (L; Valdman and
my brother REL die DEF Klingler 1997: 117)
‘this brother of mine who is dead’
(49) a. bom la vid (K; Tobler 1983: 32)

tin DEF empty
‘The tin is empty.’
b. xemia blã la (K; Tobler 1983: 63)
shirt white DEF
‘that white shirt’
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c. mo wé sa fam ki te vini (K; Tobler 1983: 50) Determiners
1s see that woman who PAST come in the French
pase fét isi la creoles
pass holiday here DEF
‘I saw the woman who had come to spend her holiday here.’
Placing the determiner next to the noun when a post-nominal modifier is

present can change the interpretation of the string of words from being a
nominal phrase to being a clause. In other words, the modifier takes on a
predicative status and is predicated of the noun to which la is postposed.
However, if the modifier is a relative clause, we get a focused structure, e.g.
liv ki Zan ti pran la ‘the book that John took’ becomes liv la (ki) Zan ti pran
‘the book (that) John took’ in the (MC/IOC).
Another property of the determiner is that it can license a headless noun phrase
provided a modifier is present, whether in pre- or post-nominal position, e.g.
anba la (lit. below DEF) ‘the one which is at the bottom’ (IOC). This possibility
also exists in French, but only when the modifier is an adjective, in particular
a colour adjective: le rouge ‘the red (one)’, le marron ‘the brown (one)’, and so
on. In the French creoles, in contrast, this is common not only with colour
adjectives but also with other adjectives and modifying PPs and relative clauses,
as shown in the following from the IOC: ruz la ‘the red (one)’, ron la ‘the round
(one)’, bon la ‘the good (one)’, gro la ‘the big (one)’, vie la ‘the old (one)’, lor
sez la ‘the one on the chair’, seki to ti donn mwa la ‘the one that you gave me’.
Such phrases remain nominal even without a noun, and, as expected, they
occur in any nominal position (subject and object) in a clause, as shown in (50).
They also can be coordinated with headed noun phrases, as shown in (51).
(50) a. ron la zoli (IOC)

round DEF beautiful
‘The round one is beautiful.’
b. mo ti pran lor sez la (IOC)
1s PAST take on chair DEF
‘I took the one (which was) on the chair.’
c. li ti apre move la (IOC)
3s PAST chase naughty DEF
‘He chased the naughty one.’
(51) a. latab kare la ek ron la zoli (IOC)
table square DEF and round DEF beautiful
‘The square table and the round one are beautiful.’
b. liv lor latab la ek dan sak la pu Marie (IOC)
book on table DEF and in bag DEF for Mary
‘The book which is on the table and the one which is in
the bag are Mary’s.’
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3 Notice that a verb like pran ‘take’ or apre ‘chase’ selects a nominal comple-
Determiners ment, and we can conclude from the grammaticality of (50b, c) that what
follows them is indeed nominal. Similarly, assuming that likes co-ordinate, we
can conclude that the noun-less nominal phrases in (51) are indeed nominal.
It is interesting to point out in this connection that such headless phrases
provide further support for the argument (see Hudson 1984, Abney 1987)
that the determiner rather than the noun should be the head in a nominal
expression.
As far as the rightmost/peripheral position of the determiner in the nominal
phrase is concerned, it may be accounted for in either functional/discourse
terms or syntactic terms. On the first approach, the determiner simply
brackets off the nominal phrase, and this may have been a useful discourse
strategy in separating the subject or topic from the rest of a sentence in the
early stages of the French creoles. On the second, the peripheral position
of the determiner may follow from its status as the head of the phrase:
assuming that heads precede or follow their complements, the determiner,
as head, is expected to be in a peripheral position and not a medial position
(cf. garson malad la and *garson la malad ‘the sick boy’).
That said, in a few of these creoles (e.g. Haitian and Guyanese), it is possible
to find the determiner not only at the end of the nominal phrase but also next
to the head noun, especially when a relative clause is present (see (44d),
(45d), (46c), and (47c)). This means that definiteness or specificity is marked
twice, once immediately following the noun and again at the end of the
nominal phrase following any post-nominal modifier. The following exam-
ples also illustrate this possibility.
(52) a. li té pozé plim-la yo té prété li-a (H; Valdman

3s PAST place pen-DEF 3p PAST lend 3s DEF 1978: 199)
‘He returned the pen that they lent him.’
b. mun nã ki te vini ã (H; Koopman
man DEF REL PAST come DEF 1982a: 173)
te di nu sa
PAST tell us that
‘The man who came told us that.’
c. moun-an to konnet a pa vini (G; Damoiseau
man-DEF 2s know DEF NEG come 2003: 42)
‘The man you know hasn’t come.’
d. moun-an ki to té rélé a té la (G; Damoiseau
man-DEF REL 2s PAST call DEF PAST here 2003: 43)
‘The man whom you called was here.’
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e. man konnet frè-a ki ka (M; Bernabé 2003: 201) Determiners
1s know brother-DEF REL PRES in the French
travay Fodfrans lan creoles
work Fort-de-France DEF
f. man poko fini liv-la éti (M; Bernabé 2003: 262)
1s not-yet finish book-DEF REL
ou pwété mwen an
2s lend 1s DEF
‘I haven’t yet finished the book you lent me.’
Before looking at the semantics of the determiner la, let us first make a few
observations on its uses. The definite article in French, as we saw earlier, has
a number of uses. The question naturally arises as to whether the post-
nominal la in the French creoles has the same range of uses. As we have seen,
it shares with French definite articles the semantic function of delimiting,
defining, specifying, or identifying a referent. However, the French definite
articles have other uses which the post-nominal la in creoles simply does not
appear to have. First, French le/la/les can be used to express genericness (to
refer to a whole class or kind), but the post-nominal la is never used in this
way. In the French creoles only bare nouns and count nouns preceded by the
indefinite article seem compatible with genericness.
(53) a. Le tigre est un animal dangereux (French)

‘The tiger is a dangerous animal.’
b. * tig la enn zanimo danzere (IOC)
tiger DEF an animal dangerous
‘The tiger (in question) is a dangerous animal.’
c. (enn) tig enn zanimo danzere (IOC)
a tiger an animal dangerous
‘A tiger is a dangerous animal/Tigers are dangerous animals.’
d. * pen an bòn pou lasante (H; Lefebvre 1998: 80)
bread DEF good for health
‘Bread is good for health.’
e. pen bòn pou lasante (H; Lefebvre 1998: 80)
bread good for health
‘Bread is good for health.’
It is clear that the ill-formedness of (53b, d) stems from the incompatibility

of the specificity feature on the post-nominal determiner la and the generic
nature of the sentence due to the present tense of the verb and the nature of
69
3 the predicate (i.e. it is predicated of a whole class/kind). The well-formedness
Determiners of (53a), by contrast, seems to suggest that the specificity meaning expressed
by the French definite articles can be overridden in French in certain contexts
but not in the French creoles. This inevitably reinforces the assertion that le,
la, and les have more of a grammatical (encoding gender and number infor-
mation) than a semantic (defining/specifying/identifying) role.
The difference between French and French creoles in the use of the determiner
is also evident in sentences which express habitual action. The definite article
le which accompanies a temporal nominal (e.g. days of the week) is perfectly
compatible with such habitual action, as expressed in the following sentences.
The post-nominal la, by contrast, is not. A bare noun is the only possibility.
(54) a. Elle va au marché le dimanche (French)

‘She goes to the market on Sundays.’
b. li al bazaar dimans (IOC)
3s go market Sunday
‘She goes to the market on Sundays.’
c. * li al bazaar dimans la (IOC)
3s go market DEF Sunday
A bare noun is also used in many other contexts where French requires the
definite article, e.g. with nouns referring to languages (55), with the superla-
tive form of adjectives (56), and so on.
(55) a. Son ami apprend le Chinois. (French)

‘His friend is learning Chinese’
b. so kamarad pe aprann sinwa (IOC)
3s friend PROG learn Chinese
‘His friend is learning Chinese.’
c. * so kamarad pe aprann sinwa la (IOC)
3s friend PROG learn Chinese DEF
(56) a. Cette maison est la plus belle dans cette ville (French)
‘This house is the most beautiful in this town.’
b. sa lakaz la pli zoli dan sa lavil la (IOC)
DEM house DEF more beautiful in DEM town DEF
‘This house is the most beautiful in this town.’
c. * sa lakaz la pli zoli la (IOC)
DEM house DEF most beautiful DEF
dan sa lavil la
in DEM town DEF
Where the French definite article occurs with nouns which express quantity
70 (weight) or is used to express inalienable possession (referring to parts of the
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body), it is replaced in the IOC with the numeral enn ‘one’ in the former and Determiners
a possessive determiner in the latter. The determiner la in such cases is in the French
impossible. creoles
(57) a. Les oranges sont deux euros le kilo (French)

the oranges be two euro franc the kilo
‘Oranges are two euros a kilo.’
b. zoranz dis rupi (enn) kilo (IOC)
orange ten rupees a kilo
‘Oranges are ten rupees a kilo.’
c. * zoranz dis rupi kilo la (IOC)
orange ten fran kilo the
(58) a. On lui a cassé le bras (French)
3s him have break the arm
‘Someone has broken his arm.’
b. zot finn kas so lebra (IOC)
3p PERF break 3s arm
‘They have broken his arm.’
c. * zot finn kas (so) lebra la (IOC)
3p PERF break 3s arm DEF
Note that if weight is expressed in pounds rather than kilogrammes, then

either the indefinite enn liv or laliv is used but not the post-nominal la.
Returning now to the semantic function of the post-nominal la, it is clear

that, unlike the definite articles in French, it has no grammatical function
(gender and number marking) but only the ability to delimit, define, specify,
or identify an entity (among a set of similar entities) which the speaker
assumes is already known to his/her hearer. As such la has a substantive
rather than an expletive use (which the weakened definite article in French
seems to have). It expresses specificity or identifiability (i.e. an entity which
the hearer can identify in the context of an utterance), e.g. madam la ‘the
woman (in question)’, pom la ‘the apple (in question)’, seval la ‘the horse
(in question)’. Its use, in other words, is anaphoric and only appropriate
when the hearer has knowledge of, or is familiar with, the referent denoted
by the noun that precedes it. In the absence of such knowledge, the use of
this marker, as in the examples in (59), is deemed infelicitous.
(59) a. kot liv la?

where book DEF
‘Where is the book?’
b. pas mwa tunavis la ennku!
pass 1s screwdriver DEF a moment
‘Pass me the screwdriver, please!’ 71
3 However, there are contexts in which the post-nominal la is not necessary,
Determiners regardless of whether the speaker may or may not presuppose knowledge of,
or familiarity with, an entity on the part of the hearer, because the entity
referred to is thought unique in the context of the utterance. The following
utterances, for example, are thought felicitous as long as there is only one
bicycle, one television, one dog, and so on in the discourse. In other words,
bare nouns have a definite or specific interpretation as long as they are situ-
ationally (i.e. non-anaphorically) unique.
(60) a. kot bisiklet? (IOC)

where bicycle
‘Where is the bicycle?’
b. televizion pa pe zwe (IOC)
television NEG PROG play
‘The television isn’t working.’
c. li pe donn lisyen manze (IOC)
3s PROG give dog eat
‘He’s feeding the dog.’
d. li pe ekut radio (IOC)
3s PROG listen radio
‘He’s listening to the radio.’
However, the presence of la in such utterances is not entirely impossible, but

it does contribute some additional meaning, e.g. televizion la pa pe zue ‘the
television isn’t working’ expresses annoyance, comparable to emotional dis-
pleasure expressed when the demonstrative that is used with proper names
e.g. that John in English. The same seems to be true when la is postposed to
proper names in the IOC, e.g. Zan la ‘that John’ as in Zan la byen move (lit.
John the very naughty) ‘that John is very naughty’ or to frer la byen move
(lit. your brother the very naughty) ‘that brother of yours is very naughty’.
Unique entities, which require the presence of the definite article in French
and English, e.g. le soleil ‘the sun’, la lune ‘the moon’, le Président ‘the Presi-
dent’, and so on, can also occur without the post-nominal marker la in the
IOC, e.g. soley for zordi (lit. sun strong today) ‘it’s hot today’, prezidan finn
mor ‘The President is dead’. However, la can sometimes be used with such
inherently unique entities, but then they get assigned an anaphoric reading:
Langleter ena enn larenn me larenn la pena puvwar ‘England has a queen,
but the queen does not have any power’ (cf. larenn dan so sato ‘the queen is
in her castle’). When used with a unique object, ‘the sun’, for example, it
enables the speaker to emphasise a negative or positive feeling towards it:
soley la for/bon zordi (lit. that sun is too hot/nice today). In general, unique
entities (real world entities such as the sun, the moon, and so on) or situation-
ally unique entities, such as the car, the door, and so on, in the French creoles
72
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occur without the determiner, i.e. as bare nouns (for further discussion on Determiners
bare nouns in the French creoles, see chapter 2). In French and English, in the French
however, they have to be accompanied by the definite article. creoles
When we therefore ask what it is that the determiner la contributes to the

meaning of the noun or noun phrase it follows, the answer is far from straight-
forward. It could signal, as we have seen, that the hearer is aware, or has previ-
ous knowledge, of the entity referred to by the noun or noun phrase, as is the
case in (59a), or it could signal that he/she can identify the entity referred to
by the noun or noun phrase from the context in which the utterance is made,
as is the case in (59b), or he/she can infer from the association of two elements
in an utterance that the entity referred to exists, as in (61) from the IOC.
(61) a. li ti al dan enn restoran. barman la ti

3s PAST go in a restaurant barman DEF PAST
refiz servi li
refuse serve 3s
‘He went in a restaurant. The barman refused to serve him.’
b. zot ti al pran leson. profeser la pa ti lakaz
3p PAST go take tuition teacher DEF NEG PAST house
‘They went to have tuition. The teacher wasn’t at home.’
Following Lyons (1999), we could say that the determiner la is used in all
these contexts to express the idea of uniqueness (i.e. the idea of one entity),
although this on its own may not be sufficient to explain some of the other
uses of la as in soley la for zordi ‘it’s too hot today’ or televizion la pa pe zwe
‘That television is not working’ uttered in a context where there is only one
television set. Also note that in examples such as (61), the use of the post-
nominal la does not require familiarity with the barman on the part of the
hearer but it does require him/her to undertake a bridging exercise, that is to
say, to assume that restaurants may have bars.
In signalling uniqueness, la inevitably also implies number (i.e. singular).
French creoles, however, allow la and a plural marker to co-exist inside the
nominal phrase, as shown in the following.
(62) a. zanfan la pe dormi (IOC)

child DEF PROG sleep
‘The child is sleeping.’
b. bann zanfan la pe dormi (IOC)
PLU child DEF PROG sleep
‘The children are sleeping.’
(63) a. liv-ya (ye-a) (G; Damoiseau 2003: 30)

book-PLU-DEF
‘the books’ 73
3 b. krab la yo (H; Lefebvre 1998: 85)
Determiners crab DEF PLU
‘the crabs’
c. sé timoun-la (Gu; Damoiseau 2012: 165)
PLU child-DEF
‘the children’
In such cases the singular meaning expressed by la must be overridden by the

presence of the plural marker. Thus la signals specificity without singularity. It
is therefore more appropriate in such cases, following Lyons (1999: 11), to take
la to signal the idea of inclusiveness rather than uniqueness. This is also an
appropriate term to use to characterise la when it is postposed to mass nouns.
(64) a. lanez la finn fonn (IOC)

snow DEF PERF melt
‘The snow has melted.’
b. disab la byen fin (IOC)
sand DEF very fine
‘The sand is very fine.’
c. diri la pran letan pu kwi (IOC)
rice DEF take time to cook
‘The rice takes a long time to cook.’
In such examples the referent of the noun phrase with la is the total amount
(totality) of snow, sand, or rice in the context in which it is uttered. Interestingly,
one can use the quantifier tu ‘all’ in (65a–c) without any change in meaning.
(65) a. tu lanez la finn fonn

all snow DEF PERF melt
‘All the snow has melted.’
b. tu disab la byen fin
all sand DEF very fine
‘All the sand is fine.’
c. tu diri la pran letan pu kwi
all rice DEF take time to cook
‘All the rice (in question) takes a long time to cook.’
The idea of inclusiveness rather than uniqueness is, it would seem, more
appropriate in cases where la is postposed to non-count/mass nouns.
3.3.4 The demonstrative determiner
The French demonstrative determiner (also traditionally referred to as demon-

74 strative adjective) is ce ‘this/that’, and it displays different forms depending on
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the gender and number of the noun it specifies, e.g. ce livre (masculine singular) Determiners
‘this/that book’, cet homme (masculine singular) ‘this/that man’, cette fille in the French
(feminine singular) ‘this/that girl’, and ces enfants (plural) ‘these/those chil- creoles
dren’. As is clear from these examples and their translations, French has a
one-term system of marking the demonstrative, whereas English has two,
namely this (nearness) and that (distance). To express this difference, French
has recourse to the adverb suffix – ci ‘here’ (nearness) and – là ‘there’ (distance):
ce livre-ci ‘this book’ and ce livre-là ‘that book’. However, it is worth noting
that Old French had a two-term system in the form of cest ‘this’ and cel ‘that’
(Price 1971: 123), which gave way to the one-term system of Modern French.
The French creoles evidently derive their demonstrative determiner from the
French demonstrative determiner ce (or one of its variant forms) ‘this’. The
different forms that it takes in the French creoles are given in Table 3.2.
As this table shows, the French creoles, with the exception of Martinican,
have inherited the morpheme sa ‘this/that’, which is derived from the French
demonstrative adjective or determiner ce ‘this’, and have thus retained the
one-term system of demonstrative marking that exists in modern French.
Martinican, on the other hand, has tala/taa, which suggests that its demon-
strative determiner may have derived from cet(te) rather than ce. Alternatively,
it could be that the initial voiceless /s/ in sa has changed to a voiceless stop /t/
through a stopping rule. Note also that the demonstrative and the definiteness/
specificity marker form a compound unit, with the demonstrative placed first
and la next, as in sala/sila/tala or la placed first and then the demonstrative
sa, as in lasa. The compounding was probably possible since these two ele-
ments occur next to each other in one position (see the examples which fol-
low). Another difference to note is that the demonstrative sa always occurs
with the post-nominal la except in two of these creoles, where it can occur on
its own. This is the case in Seychelles Creole and Karipuna, although in the
latter it can also occur with the definiteness/specificity marker. A further dif-
ference is that some of these creoles place their demonstrative in pre-nominal
Table 3.2 The demonstrative determiners in the French creoles
IOC sa N (SC); sa N la (MC)
H N sa a; N sila a
M N-tala/taa
Gu N sala/lasa; N sila; N tala
St. L N sa la; N sa a
G sa N a
K sa N (la)
L N sa la
75
3 position, e.g. IOC, Guyanese, and Karipuna, while others place it in post-
Determiners nominal position, as shown in the following examples.
(66) a. donn mwa sa liv la (MC)

give 1s DEM book DET
‘Give me this/that book!’
b. me sa baro sa-em baro lerua (SC; Papen 1978: 306)
but that fence that-EMPH fence king
‘But that fence was the king’s fence.’
c. . . . mo dir pran sa piti anmenn ankor kot dokter
1s say take that child take again at doctor
‘. . . I told them to take that child to the doctor again.’
(SC; Corne 1999: 180)
(67) a. chat- sa- la (H; Valdman 1978: 203)

cat-DEM-DEF
‘this cat’
b. léti-tala (M; Damoiseau 2012: 46)
lettuce-DEM.DEF
‘this lettuce’
c. léti-lasa (Gu; Damoiseau 2012: 46)
lettuce-DEF.DEM
‘this lettuce’
d. kòd sa la (St. L; Carrington 1984: 87)
rope DEM DEF
‘that rope’
(68) a. sa fam-a (G; Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy 1972: 71)

DEM woman-DEF
‘this woman’
b. sa tab, li hot (K; Tobler 1983: 31)
DEM table 3s high
‘That table is high.’
c. a pu ki mun sa bét la u gã? (K; Tobler 1983: 43)
to for which person DEM thing DEF 2s have
‘For whom is that thing you have?’
d. nonm-sa-la (L; Klingler 2003: 182)
man-DEM-DEF
‘that man’
Note that only in the IOC, Guyanese, and Karipuna are the demonstrative
and the definiteness/specificity marker separated by the noun they specify.
The demonstrative is always to the left of the noun, while the definiteness/
76 specificity marker is to its right, as shown in (66a), (68a), and (68c). In the
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others, these two elements occur side by side after the noun. Why the demon- Determiners
strative sa has ended up in different positions within the nominal phrase in the French
inevitably raises an interesting question. One hypothesis (Lefebvre 1998) is creoles
that the post-nominal position that sa occupies may be attributable to the
influence of an African substrate, which, in the case of Haitian, is Fongbe.
The other piece of evidence in support of substrate influence comes from the
distribution of the possessive determiner. In Haitian, Lefebvre observes, the
possessive and the demonstrative can co-occur, and she argues that there is
a strong structural parallel here between Haitian and Fongbe, as illustrated
in the following:
(69) a. bag mwen sa/sila a yo (H; Lefebvre 1998: 185)

ring POSS DEM DEF PLU
‘these/those rings of mine’
b. àlɔkɛ če élɔ/énɛ ɔ lɛ (Fongbe; Lefebvre 1998: 194)
ring POSS DEM DET PLU
‘these/those rings of mine’
In both languages, the possessive occurs immediately after the noun and is
immediately followed by the demonstrative. This, in turn, is followed by the
definiteness marker, which is then followed by the plural morpheme. It is
interesting to note here that the possessive also occurred with the indefinite
article and the demonstrative in Old French and sometimes in literary Modern
French, but only in its stressed/strong form: un mien ami ‘a friend of mine’
and ce mien ami ‘this/that friend of mine’ (Price 1971: 131). This also seems
to be the case in creoles with post-nominal determiners, e.g. Haitian. The
possessive in (69a) derives from the strong first person singular form moi ‘me’
in French: le livre à moi (lit. the book to me) ‘my book’ > liv mwen ‘my book’.
The post-nominal possessive in Haitian can therefore be said to have a French
source. The same might be argued in the case of sila/sala, whose source might
have been the French demonstrative pronoun celui-là ‘this/that one’ in a post-
nominal position: le livre à celui-là/celle-là (lit. the book to this/that one) ‘the
book of this/that person’ > liv sila/sala ‘this/that book’. If so, the position of
the demonstrative and the possessive inside a noun phrase in creoles with
post-nominal determiners could be said to have been modelled on French
post-nominal periphrastic possessives and demonstratives rather than on
those of their substrates, contra Lefebvre (1998). However, the co-occurrence
of the possessive and the demonstrative in post-nominal position, as shown
in (69a), can be said to provide support for a substrate source, as argued by
Lefebvre, although this combination is not completely foreign to French, as
the Old French example ce mien ami (lit. this/that my friend) shows.
In creoles with pre-nominal determiners, the possessive and demonstrative

cannot both be present inside a noun phrase. The examples in (70) are 77
3 impossible, while those in (71) are possible. This is because the possessives
Determiners derive from the French unstressed possessive adjectives or determiners: mon
‘my’, ton ‘your’, son/sa ‘his/her’, and they therefore belong to the same class
as the demonstrative sa.
(70) a. * sa mo bann bag la (MC)

DEM 1s PLU ring DEF
‘these rings of mine’
b. * mo sa bann bag la
1s DEM PLU ring DEF
(71) a. sa bann bag la (MC)

DEM PLU ring DEF
‘these/those rings’
b. mo bann bag
1s PLU ring
‘my rings’
The co-occurrence of possessives and demonstratives in post-nominal position

in languages like Haitian (see (69a)) may be attributed to the fact that they derive
from strong possessive and demonstrative pronouns, e.g. moi ‘me’, lui ‘him’,
celui/celle-là ‘this/that’ rather than from unstressed determiners (traditionally, i.e.
possessive and demonstrative adjectives). Alternatively, this combination may be
said to stem from an African source, as suggested in Lefebvre (1998).
3.3.5 The possessive determiner
The possessive appears in two forms in French: a stressed form mien(s)/

mienne(s) ‘mine’, tien(s)/tienne(s) ‘yours’, sien(s)/sienne(s) ‘his/hers’, and so
on, and an unstressed form: mon/ma/mes ‘my’, ton/ta/tes ‘your’, son/sa/ses
‘his/hers’, and so on.
The former behave like pronouns, tu as pris le mien ‘you took mine’, and
occur in argument (subject and object) position, the latter as attributive deter-
miners (adjectives) inside a nominal phrase, mon ami ‘my friend’. Table 3.3
summarises the possessive determiners in French.
This table shows that the forms that the possessive determiners display vary
with the gender and number, not of the speaker, but of the noun that they
specify or modify, just like the articles and demonstratives we saw earlier.
That is to say, the possessive has the feminine singular form if the noun it
specifies is feminine singular and masculine singular if the noun is masculine
singular, e.g. ma mère ‘my mother’ and mon père ‘my father’, and if the noun
78 is plural then the possessive has the plural form, e.g. mes soeurs/frères ‘my
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Table 3.3 French attributive possessive determiner Determiners
in the French
Masculine Feminine creoles
Singular
1 mon/mes ma/mes
2 ton/tes ta/tes
3 son/ses sa/ses
Plural
1 notre/nos notre/nos
2 votre/vos votre/vos
3 leur/leurs leur/leurs
Table 3.4 The possessive determiner in the French creoles
IOC H M Gu St. L G K L
pre-N post-N post-N post-N post-N pre-N pre-N pre-N
1s mo mwen mouen mouen mwẽ mo mo mo(n)

mouen
2s to/u ou ou ou u to u to/vou/vo
3s so li i i li so so so
1p nu nou nou nou nu nou nu no(u)/nouzòt
2p zot nou zot zot zot zot zót vouzòt/ouzo/
zo
3p zot yo yo yo jo yé ye ye
sisters/brothers’. There is thus an agreement relation between the possessive

and the noun which follows it in French. They share the same person, gender,
and number features. This kind of agreement does not exist in English, as is
clear from the translations of the French noun phrases.
The possessive can also be expressed in French in an analytical manner, par-
ticularly in popular French, so that the phrase ta mère à toi (lit. your mother
to you) ‘your mother’ is used instead of ta mère ‘your mother’.
Looking at the possessive in the French creoles, it is clear that some of them,
e.g. the IOC, Guyanese, Karipuna, and Louisiana Creole, have adopted the
pre-nominal possessive forms, while others, e.g. Haitian, Martinican, Gua-
deloupean, and St. Lucian, have adopted the post-nominal forms which
derive from the French analytic possessive expressions. Table 3.4 illustrates
the different forms of the possessive in the French creoles.
It is clear from this table that the creoles in the Atlantic, particularly the
Caribbean creoles, e.g. Haitian, Martinican, Guadeloupean, and St. Lucian,
use post-nominal possessive, while those of the Americas, e.g. Guyanese,
Karipuna, and Louisiana, and the IOC use pre-nominal possessive. The latter 79
3 share all their pronouns except for the third person plural. The IOC have zot
Determiners ‘they’, whereas Guyanese, Karipuna, and Louisiana have ye, a form they
share with the yo of the Atlantic creoles. The Atlantic creoles are also distinc-
tive by virtue of having i/li for the third person singular post-nominal pos-
sessive, clearly derived from the stressed French possessive pronoun lui ‘his’.
Their use of mwen/mouen/mwẽ ‘my’, derived from the stressed French pro-
noun moi ‘me’, also separates them from the other creoles. Finally, Haitian
is unique among these creoles to use the same form, nou, for both first and
second person plural, whereas all the others have nu/nou for ‘we’ and zot/
vouzot/ouzo/zo for ‘you’ (plural). Note also that the possessive determiners
in all these creoles have an invariant form, since there is no gender or number
marking. Thus French unstressed mon, ma, mes ‘my’ are reduced to a single
form mo/mon ‘my’, while the stressed moi becomes mouen/mwẽ.
The following examples illustrate the use of possessive determiners in the
French creoles under consideration.
(72) a. mo lekol (IOC)

1s school
‘my school’
b. to lekol (IOC)
2s school
‘your school’
c. so lekol (IOC)
3s school
‘his/her school’
d. nu lekol (IOC)
1p school
‘our school’
e. zot lekol (IOC)
2p school
‘your school’
f. zot lekol (IOC)
3p school
‘their school’
(73) a. liv mwen/m a (H; Damoiseau 2005: 40)

book 1s DEF
‘my book’
b. liv u a (H; Damoiseau 2005: 40)
book 2s DEF
‘your book’
c. liv li a (H; Damoiseau 2005: 40)
book 3s DEF
80 ‘his/her book’
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d. liv nou a (H; Damoiseau 2005: 40) Determiners
book 1p DEF in the French
‘our book’ creoles
e. liv nou a (H; Damoiseau 2005: 40)
book 2p DEF
‘your book’
f. liv yo a (H; Damoiseau 2005: 40)
book 3p DEF
‘their book’
(74) a. liv-mwen (M: Bernabé 2003: 113–114)

book-1s
‘my book’
b. liv-ou (M: Bernabé 2003: 113–114)
book-2s
‘your book’
c. liv-li (M: Bernabé 2003: 113–114)
book-3s
‘his/her book’
d. liv-nu (M: Bernabé 2003: 113–114)
book-1p
‘our book’
e. liv-zot (M: Bernabé 2003: 113–114)
book-2p
‘your book’
f. liv-yo (M: Bernabé 2003: 113–114)
book-3p
‘their book’
(75) a. kaz an-mwen (Gu/M; Gadelii 1997: 138)

house to-1s
‘my house’
b. kaz a-w/vou (Gu/M; Gadelii 1997: 138)
house to-2s
‘your house’
c. kaz a-y (Gu/M; Gadelii 1997: 138)
house to-3s
‘his house’
d. kaz an-nou (Gu/M; Gadelii 1997: 138)
house to-1p
‘our house’
e. kaz a-zòt (Gu/M; Gadelii 1997: 138)
house to-2p
‘your house’ 81
3 f. kaz a-yo (Gu/M; Gadelii 1997: 138)
Determiners house to-3p
‘their house’
(76) a. had mwẽ (St. L; Carrington 1984: 92)

clothes 1s
‘my clothes’
b. tŝè u (St. L; Carrington 1984: 92)
heart 2s
‘your heart’
c. disiziõ i (St. L; Carrington 1984: 92)
decision 3s
‘his/her decision’
d. papa nu (St. L; Carrington 1984: 92)
father 1p
‘our father’
e. zafè zot (St. L; Carrington 1984: 92)
business 2p
‘your business’
f. ŝat jo (St. L; Carrington 1984: 92)
cat 3p
‘their cat’
(77) a. mó mama (G; Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy 1972: 97)

1s mother
‘my mother’
b. to zong (G; Damoiseau 2003: 85)
2s nail
‘your nails’
c. só mama (G; Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy 1972: 92)
3s mother
‘his/her mother’
d. zot lanmen (G; Damoiseau 2003: 85)
2p hand
‘your hands’
e. yé kò (G; Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy 1972: 101)
3p body
‘their bodies’
(78) a. mo mãmã (K; Tobler 1983: 36)

1s mother
‘my mother’
b. u kõt (K; Tobler 1983: 36)
2s account
82 ‘your account’
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c. so jam (K; Tobler 1983: 32) Determiners
3s leg in the French
‘his/her leg’ creoles
d. nu kamahad (K; Tobler 1983: 36)
1p friend
‘our friend’
e. zót tximun (K; Tobler 1983: 31)
2p child
‘your children’
f. ye fwé (K; Tobler 1983: 50)
3p brother
‘their brother’
(79) a. mo famij (L; Neumann 1985: 127)

1s family
‘my family’
b. to pje (L; Neumann 1985: 127)
2s foot
‘your foot’
c. so lamen (L; Klingler 2003: 186)
3s hand
‘his/her hand’
d. no papa (L; Klingler 2003: 186)
1p father
‘our father’
e. zot mama (L; Neumann 1985: 127)
2p mother
‘your mother’
f. ye zye (L; Klingler 2003: 186)
3p eye
‘their eyes’
The French creoles can therefore be separated into two groups as far as the
possessive determiners are concerned: those which place their possessive deter-
miners in pre-nominal position, namely the IOC and the creoles of the Ameri-
cas (Guyanese, Karipuna, and Louisiana Creole) and those which place theirs
in post-nominal position, namely the Atlantic (Caribbean) creoles (Haitian,
Martinican, Guadeloupean, and St. Lucian Creole). But notice that the creoles
of the Americas share with the neighbouring Caribbean creoles their third
person plural form even though they have it in pre-nominal position. The way
in which these determiners are distributed across the different creoles suggests
some substratal influence on the Atlantic (Caribbean) creoles in comparison to
the other creoles, which may have had more of a superstratal influence. In the
case of Louisiana Creole, the influence of Cajun French is evident. 83
3 3.4 Concluding remarks
Determiners
All the French creoles have determiners to express definiteness/specificity,

deixis, and possession. With the loss of the French definite articles and some
of the indefinite articles, e.g. de la ‘of the’, du ‘of the’, and des ‘some’, they
recruited the post-nominal locational adverb suffix -là ‘there’ from French
and developed it into an independent morpheme to encode definiteness and
specificity. Such a development is unexpected because the direction of change,
according to the grammaticalisation cline (Meillet 1912, Hopper and Trau-
gott 2003, among others), is supposed to be the complete opposite of what
we find in the development of the marker of definiteness and specificity in the
French creoles. As for the demonstrative, some of the creoles, e.g. the IOC,
Karipuna, and Guyanese, recruited the French demonstrative determiner/
adjective ce ‘this/that’ > sa, while the others, namely the Caribbean creoles
and Louisiana Creole, recruited the demonstrative pronoun celui/celle-là ‘this
one’ > si/sa/ta la ‘this/that’. The surprising fact here is that when it comes to
the demonstrative, Louisiana Creole patterns with the Caribbean creoles and
not with the other creoles of the Americas, e.g. Karipuna and Guyanese, or
indeed the IOC. However, when it comes to the possessive determiners, as
we saw earlier, Louisiana Creole patterns with Karipuna, Guyanese, and the
IOC. They all place their possessives, which they inherited from the French
unstressed possessive determiners/adjectives, in front of the noun. By con-
trast, Haitian, Martinican, Guadeloupean, and St. Lucian place theirs after
the noun, largely because they recruited their possessive determiners from the
strong pronouns in such French analytic possessive expressions as le/son livre
à lui ‘his book’ or la maison à eux ‘their house’. Louisiana Creole is unique
in having a mixed system of determiners: pre-nominal possessive but post-
nominal demonstrative. All the other creoles have both (i.e. possessive and
demonstrative) either in pre-nominal or post-nominal position. Looking at
the determiner system in the French creoles (particularly, the demonstrative
and possessive determiners), we can reasonably put the creoles into two
groups: the Atlantic (Caribbean) creoles on the one hand and the creoles of
the Americas and Indian Ocean on the other. We could also identify a sub-
group within the latter, since they also have a Saxon-type possessive, e.g. Zan
so mama (lit. John 3s mother) ‘John’s mother’ in the IOC and Pyé so gu (lit.
Peter 3s taste) ‘Peter’s taste’ in Karipuna (Tobler 1983: 35). For discussion
on the development of this type of genitive, see Syea (1994, 1995, 2013c).
But, as far as the definiteness/specificity marker is concerned, they all use the
same morpheme, namely la, and they all place it in post-nominal position.
84
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Chapter 4
Pronouns
4.0 Introduction
This chapter examines the pronoun systems in the different French creoles.
These are the personal pronouns, the demonstrative pronouns, the posses-
sive pronouns, the reflexive pronouns, and the impersonal or expletive pro-
nouns. As we will see, the different systems have much in common, and, in
comparison with the French pronoun system, they are numerically smaller.
This is largely a consequence of the loss of gender and number marking in
the French creoles.
4.1 General
Traditionally pronouns are said to be elements which stand in the place of

nouns. Such a definition, as has often been noted, is somewhat misleading.
This is because pronouns can replace not only nouns but also whole nominal
expressions, as shown in the following, where a noun, a noun phrase and a
pronoun are in a paradigmatic relation Boys/Those boys/They are naughty,
and sometimes only a subpart of a nominal expression: John prefers this
short story to that one, where one has as its antecedent not the whole noun
phrase this short story but the nominal substring short story. Another reason
why it is misleading is that it incorrectly leads us to expect a string such as
*the they are naughty where they is in a paradigmatic relation to the noun
boys in the boys. A third reason why this traditional definition may be unsat-
isfactory is that elements other than nouns or nominal expressions can be
replaced in the same manner as nouns or nominal expressions: Mary sat by
the door and Bill sat there too, Bill smokes cigars and so does Tony, Mary is
very clever, as is Tom, John will be here on Friday but Bill will be away then.
In the first and last example there and then stand in the place of a PP, in the 85
4 second so stands in the place of a VP while as in the third sentence stands in
Pronouns the place of an AP. The words there, so, as, and then have the same functional
role as do pronouns such as they, it, and the like, and it is for these reasons
that the term pro-form (i.e. pro-NP, pro-PP, pro-VP, and pro-AP) is said to
be more appropriate than the general term ‘pronoun’. Nevertheless, in the
discussion that follows, the label ‘pronoun’ will continue to be used.
Although pronouns can substitute for nominal, adjectival, and verbal expres-
sions, they are not like lexical items (nouns, adjectives, verbs, and so on) but
more like functional elements. They do not have, for instance, physical or
mental referents, unlike nouns, e.g. chair, or verbs, e.g. talk or dream. Rather,
they are parasitic on some antecedent, which may be linguistic – John does
not know whether he will go to the party, where he is anaphoric and takes
John as its antecedent – or contextual – He will go to the party, where the
antecedent of he is some previously mentioned male person. Pronouns are
essentially deictic elements; I (first person singular), refers to the speaker and
you (second person singular or plural) to the addressee(s), while he/she/they,
(third person singular and plural) to neither speaker nor addressee but to
some identifiable third party, and we (first person plural) to a group including
the speaker. These are personal pronouns, but the class of pronouns also
includes possessive pronouns: mine, yours, his, hers, and so on; demonstra-
tive pronouns: this and that and their plural these and those; reflexive pro-
nouns: myself, yourself, himself, and so on; indefinite pronouns such as
everyone, someone, no one; and relative and interrogative pronouns such as who,
which, and the like. Some pronouns such as it and there can also be used in
a non-anaphoric and non-referential manner, i.e. impersonal: it seems it’s
going to rain and there is someone on the phone.
4.2 Pronouns in French
Like English, French has a class of pronouns which includes personal, demon-
strative, possessive, reflexive, and impersonal pronouns.
4.2.1 Personal pronouns
Personal pronouns are identified in terms of the person, number, gender, and
case (i.e. nominative, accusative, oblique) which they display. Table 4.1 sum-
marises the French personal pronoun system.
As shown in Table 4.1, personal pronouns display different morphological

forms depending on their distribution in a clause: they have the nominative
form when they occur as the subject of a finite clause, the accusative (weak/
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Table 4.1 French personal pronoun system Pronouns in
French
Number Person Gender Nominative Accusative Oblique
Sing 1 je me moi
2 tu (familiar) te toi
3 Masc il le, lui lui
Fem elle la, lui elle
Plu 1 nous nous nous
2 vous (polite) vous vous
3 Masc ils les, leur eux
Fem elles les, leur elles
unstressed/conjunctive) form when they are the object (direct and indirect) of a
verb, and the oblique (strong/stressed/disjunctive) form when they occur as the
object of a preposition or imperative verb, and when they occur in conjunction
with a noun or pronoun. They also have this form when they occur in isolation
or as a dislocated or topic element. The following illustrate how the form of the
first person singular pronoun, for instance, varies with its distribution.
(1) a. Je/*me/*moi cherche un chien

‘I’m looking for a dog.’
b. Tu me/*je/*moi donnes un morceau de gâteau?
‘Can you give me a piece of cake?’
c. Il parle à moi/*je/*me
‘He is speaking to me.’
d. Écris-moi/*je/*me une lettre
‘Write me a letter!’
e. Jean et moi/*je/*me sommes ici
‘John and I are here.’
f. Qui a donné ce livre à Pierre? Moi/*je/*me
‘Who gave that book to Peter? Me.’
g. Moi/*je/*me, j’adore la campagne
‘Me, I like the countryside.’
The accusative (unstressed/weak) object pronouns in French occur in front

of the tense-bearing verbal element, whether it is a verb or auxiliary. This is
the case with both direct and indirect object pronouns.
(2) a. Je la vois
1s her see
‘I see her.’
b. Je l’ ai vue
1s her have see
‘I saw her.’
87
4 c. *Je vois la/*J’ai vu la/*J’ai la vue
Pronouns 1s see 3s
(3) a. Je lui donne le livre

1s 3s give the book
‘I give him the book.’
b. Je lui ai donné le livre
1s 3s have give the book
‘I have given him the book.’
(4) a. Je le lui donne

1s 3s 3s give
‘I give him it.’
b. Je le lui ai donné
1s 3s 3s have give
‘I have given him it.’
Where two or more weak/unstressed object pronouns occur pre-verbally,

as in (4), they are linearly ordered in such a way that the object pronoun
le/la/les follows all the other object pronouns except the third person
lui/leur.
(5) a. Tu me le donnes/ * Tu le me donnes

2s 1s 3s give
‘You give me it.’
b. Tu le lui donnes/ * Tu lui le donnes
2s 3s 3s give
‘You give him it.’
However, in imperative constructions, object pronouns follow the verb if they

are positive and precede them if they are negative. Here too object pronouns
are linearly ordered if there is more than one, with le/la/les remaining adja-
cent to the verb.
(6) a. Donne-le-moi/*donne-moi-le
give 3s 1s
‘Give me it!’
b. Passez-la-lui/*passez-lui-la
pass 3s 3s
‘Pass it to him!’
(7) a. Ne me le donne pas/*Ne le me donne pas

ne 1s 3s give NEG
88 ‘Don’t give it to me!’
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b. Ne lui la passez pas/* Ne la lui passez pas Pronouns in
ne 3s 3s give NEG French
‘Don’t pass it to him!’
In addition to the different forms listed in Table 4.1, French pronouns also
have a reflexive form, which is identical to the accusative form, except in the
case of the third person. In this latter case the reflexive form is se, which is
sometimes reinforced with the reciprocal l’un et l’autre ‘each other’. Like the
weak/unstressed accusative forms, the reflexive is fixed in a pre-verbal or
pre-auxiliary position when one is present.
(8) a. Je me lave
‘I wash myself.’
b. Elle se lave
‘She washes herself.’
(9) a. Jean et Pierre s’ admirent

‘John and Peter admire each other.’
b. Les deux acteurs se détestent
‘The two actors hate each other’
(10) a. Jean et Pierre s’admirent l’un et l’autre

‘John and Peter admire each other’
b. Les deux acteurs se détestent l’un et l’autre
‘The two actors hate each other.’
In positive imperatives, however, the reflexive follows the verb but has the strong
form. In negative imperatives, meanwhile, the reflexive remains pre-verbal and, as
expected, it has the weak form, just as it does in the declarative sentences in (8).
(11) a. Lave-toi/*te!
‘Wash yourself!’
b. Ne te/*toi lave pas!
‘Don’t wash yourself!’
It must also be noted that French has an impersonal pronoun on ‘one/you/

we/they’ which is only used as subject, and it has a generic, indefinite, or
indeterminate meaning akin to ‘someone’ or ‘people’. The use of on for the
first person plural nous ‘we’ is very frequent in informal spoken French
(Hawkins and Towell 1996: 45).
(12) a. On m’a volé ma voiture.

‘They have stolen my car.’
b. Demandez si on est en retard
‘Ask if we are late.’ 89
4 c. On n’en boit plus chez Pascal
Pronouns ‘We no longer drink at Pascal’s place.’
Beside the impersonal pronoun on, French has expletive pronouns such as il
‘it’ and ce/ҫa ‘it’. The use of ça is however restricted to speech and informal
styles.
(13) a. Il pleut/neige/fait chaud

‘It is raining/snowing/hot.’
b. C’est dommage qu’il ne soit pas là
‘It’s a pity that he isn’t here.’
c. Ça pleut/neige
‘It is raining/snowing.’
4.2.2 Demonstrative pronouns
The demonstrative pronouns in French are celui (masculine singular), celle

(feminine singular), ceux (masculine plural), and celles (feminine plural) ‘the
one/the ones’. These incorporate the strong/stressed forms of the personal
pronouns ce-lui, c-elle(s), and c-eux (Harris 1978: 84) and are often accom-
panied by the post-nominal adverbs -ci ‘here’ and -là ‘there’: celui-ci ‘this
one’/celui-là ‘that one’ and ceux-ci ‘these ones’/ceux-là ‘those ones’. The
adverb -ci is proximal, while -là is distal: Prends celui-ci et donne moi celui-là
‘Take this one and give me that one.’ These pronouns can also be used ana-
phorically: cette voiture est rouge et celle-ci est blanche ‘That car is red and
this one is white’ and ces voitures sont rouges et celles-ci sont blanches ‘Those
cars are red and these are white’. Notice that the forms that they take display
gender and number agreement with the antecedent noun phrases. On their
own, the demonstrative pronouns can be used as heads of relative clauses,
e.g. ceux qui sont méchants n’auront pas de bonbons ‘Those who are naughty
will not get any sweets’. Additionally, French has ce ‘this/that’, ceci ‘this’, cela
‘that’, and ça ‘this/that’, all of which have more of an impersonal use.
4.2.3 Possessive pronouns
French has both attributive possessive pronouns, traditionally treated as pos-

sessive adjectives but here as determiners (see chapter 3), as well as absolute
possessive pronouns. Absolute possessive pronouns, like their attributive
analogues, vary in their form depending on the person, gender, and number
of the nouns to which they refer, as shown in Table 4.2.
(14) a. le mien/la mienne/les mien(ne)s

90 ‘mine’
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Table 4.2 French absolute possessive pronouns Pronouns in
French
Masculine Feminine Plural Plural
(masculine) (feminine)
1 le mien la mienne les miens les miennes

2 le tien la tienne les tiens les tiennes
3 le sien la sienne les siens les siennes
1 le nôtre la nôtre les nôtres les nôtres
2 le vôtre la vôtre les vôtres les vôtres
3 le leur la leur les leurs les leurs
b. le tien/la tienne/les tien(ne)s

‘yours’
c. le sien/la sienne/les sien(ne)s
‘his/hers’
d. le nôtre/la nôtre/les nôtres
‘ours’
e. le vôtre/la vôtre/les vôtres
‘yours’
f. le leur/la leur/les leurs
‘theirs’
Like the demonstrative pronouns, the absolute possessive pronouns display

agreement with the nominal expressions to which they are anaphorically
related in a sentence or discourse.
(15) a. Ma voiture est en panne. Je peux prendre la tienne?

‘My car has broken down. Can I take yours?’
b. Votre chien dort pendant la nuit. Le mien dort pendant la
journée
‘Your dog sleeps during the night. Mine sleeps during the day.’
Note that the first, second, and third person singular possessive pronouns
can be decomposed into a possessive adjective/determiner mon/ma ‘my’, ton/
ta ‘your’, son/sa ‘his/her’ and a suffix -ien(ne) so that mien(ne) can be said to
consist of m-ien(ne), tien(ne) of t-ien(ne), and sien(ne) of s-ien(ne), and the
same with their plural counterparts.
4.2.4 Reflexive pronouns
French, as noted earlier, can use some of its unstressed/conjunctive pronouns,

namely the first and second person singular me ‘me’ and te ‘you’ and their
plural counterparts nous ‘us’ and vous ‘you’, not only as direct object clitic 91
4 pronouns but also as reflexive pronouns. However, French does not use its
Pronouns third person singular and plural object pronouns le ‘him’, la ‘her’, les ‘them’,
lui ‘him/her’, or leur(s) ‘them’ to form its third person reflexive pronoun.
Instead it uses the pronoun se ‘himself/herself/themselves’, without any num-
ber distinction.
(16) a. Je me lave
‘I am washing myself.’
b. Tu te laves
‘You are washing yourself.’
c. Il/Elle se lave
‘He/She is washing himself/herself.’
d. Nous nous lavons
‘We are washing ourselves.’
e. Vous vous lavez
‘You are washing yourselves.’
f. Ils/Elles se lavent
‘They are washing themselves.’
In each of these, the pronoun takes its reference from the subject i.e. they are
co-referential, which makes the pronoun reflexive. If the pronoun and the
subject are not co-referential, as in Elle te lave ‘She is washing you’, then the
pronoun is clearly not reflexive.
Although the reflexive pronouns in these examples are all direct objects, they
can also be used as indirect objects, for instance with a verb such as nous nous
parlons ‘We are talking to ourselves’, but note that this could also mean ‘We are
talking to each other’, in which case the pronoun is being used reciprocally.
The third person se also occurs with certain verbs such as s’en aller ‘to go’,
as in elle s’en va ‘She is going’; s’envoler ‘to fly off’, as in l’oiseau s’est envolé
‘The bird flew away’; and so on. In such examples the pronoun is reflexive
in syntactic terms. This is evident from the fact that the verb displays agree-
ment with the subject when se is its direct object, e.g. Elle s’est souvenue
d’une amie ‘She remembered a friend’, which is reminiscent of such regular
agreement when the verb is preceded by a clitic direct object il l’a vue au
marché ‘He saw her at the market’ but not when se is its indirect object: Elle
s’est rappelé une amie ‘She remembered a friend’.
4.2.5 Impersonal/expletive pronouns
French has a number of verbs, so-called impersonal verbs, which take as their
subject the expletive or impersonal pronoun il ‘it’, e.g. il pleut ‘it is raining’,
il fait chaud (lit. it makes hot) ‘it’s hot’, il faut que tu ailles (lit. it must that
92
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you go) ‘you should go’, il s’agit de convaincre votre tante ‘it’s a matter of Pronouns in
convincing your aunt’, il est arrivé ce matin quelque chose d’inexplicable (lit. the French
it has occurred this morning something inexplicable) ‘something inexplicable creoles
happened this morning’, il y a des étudiants qui veulent vous voir ‘there are
students who want to see you.’ This impersonal pronoun is semantically
meaningless and can sometimes be replaced with the impersonal ce or ça ‘it’
(Harris 1978: 121, Hawkins and Towell 1996: 49–50): Ce doit être le facteur
‘It must be the postman’, Ҫa nous étonne qu’il n’ait rien lu ‘It amazes us that
he hasn’t read anything’. As we will see, such impersonal pronouns are gener-
ally not present with impersonal verbs or predicates in the French creoles.
4.3 Pronouns in the French creoles
As we will see in what follows, the inventories of pronouns in the different

French creoles are, in comparison to the French inventory, much smaller. This is
to be expected since pronouns, just like nouns and other categories, in the French
creoles have been stripped of all the inflections which, in French, differentiate
pronouns from one another in terms of their gender, number, and case.
4.3.1 Personal pronouns in the French creoles
4.3.1.1 Personal pronouns in the IOC

Table 4.3 summarises the personal pronoun system in the IOC.
As is clear from this table, with the exception of the first and second person
singular, personal pronouns have a morphologically invariant form regard-
less of their distribution, i.e. whether they occur as the subject of a finite
clause or the object of verb and preposition. The first and second person
singular pronouns, by contrast, display different forms when they are the
Table 4.3 IOC personal pronoun system
Number Person Nominative Accusative Oblique
Sing 1 mo ‘I’ mwa ‘me’ mwa ‘me’

2 to ‘you’ twa ‘you’ twa ‘you’
u ‘you’ (polite) u ‘you’ (polite) u ‘you’ (polite)
3 li ‘he/she/it’ li ‘him/her/it’ li ‘him/her/it’
Plu 1 nu ‘we’ nu ‘us’ nu ‘us’
2 zot ‘you’ zot ‘you’ zot ‘you’
3 zot ‘they’ zot ‘them’ zot ‘them’
93
4 subject of a finite clause, when they are the object of verb and preposition,
Pronouns and when they are the subject of a non-finite clause, i.e. mo (subject of finite
clause), mwa (object/subject of non-finite clause) and to (subject of finite
clause) and twa (object/subject of non-finite clause).
(17) a. to ti apre mwa/*mo

2s PAST chase 1s
‘You chased me.’
b. mo/*mwa ti apre twa/*to
1s PAST chase 2s
‘I chased you.’
c. to/*twa ti les mwa/*mo ale
2s PAST let 1s go
‘You let me leave.’
What is also very clear is that there is only one pronoun, li, for both the mas-
culine and feminine third person singular, compared to French il ‘he’ and elle
‘she’, and only one pronoun, zot (< Fr eux autres lit. them others), for second
person plural ‘you’ and third person plural ‘they’. The reason for the second
and third person plural having the form zot is because it could have derived
from both French vous autres ‘you others’ (second person plural) and eux
autres ‘them others’ (third person plural) or possibly les autres ‘the others’.
Note that eux autres occurs as subject in certain varieties of French, for
instance Cajun French: . . . eux-autes serait contents . . . (Papen and Rottet
1997: 84). The pronoun zot can perhaps be characterised as [-speaker +plu-
ral]. Note also that there is another third person plural pronoun, bann la
‘they’, in the IOC, which has a nominal source (< Fr bande ‘band/group’): apel
bann la ‘call them’. The development of this noun into a personal pronoun is
arguably an internal grammatical innovation (see Chaudenson 1995: 45).
We should note, however, that there are two minor differences between two
of the creoles of the IOC: (a) the third person singular in Seychelles Creole
has a reduced form, i, in addition to the full form, li; (b) the second person
singular in Seychelles Creole has only one form, u, whereas Mauritian Creole
has to (which marks familiarity with the addressee) and the polite pronoun
u (which shows respect, politeness for the addressee, or social distance from
the addressee). This is of course similar to the distinction between tu (famil-
iarity) and vous (politeness/respect) in French.
The absence of weak/conjunctive French pronouns such as nominative je ‘I’,

tu ‘you’, and the like and accusative me ‘me’, te ‘you’, and so on suggests that
the IOC built their personal pronoun systems by recruiting the strong or dis-
junctive (more perceptible) forms of French pronouns such as moi ‘me’, toi
‘you’, lui ‘him’, and so on rather than their weak/unstressed counterparts and
94 used them as the default forms. Indeed, old texts on Mauritian Creole show
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subject and object of independent clauses in the same strong/disjunctive form Pronouns in
e.g. Qui toi vouler faire moi, Battre si toi oser ‘What do you want to do to the French
me, hit me if you dare’ (1777; Chaudenson 1981: 78). As we will see, this is creoles
in fact true of the personal pronoun systems of all the other French creoles.
The different forms that the first and second person pronoun in the IOC dis-
play are new and have clearly developed from their corresponding strong/
disjunctive forms: mwa > mo and twa > to. Interestingly, the only other French
creole to show distinct subject and object forms for the first and second person
singular pronouns is Tayo: ma ‘I’ and mwa ‘me’, ta ‘you’ and twa ‘you’.
(18) a. ma ule (T; Ehrhart 1993: 136)

1s want
‘I want.’
b. a ko ekute mwa! (T; Ehrhart 1993: 139)
heh listen 1s
‘Heh, listen to me!’
c. mena ta kone nu (T; Ehrhart 1993: 139)
now 2s know 1p
‘Now you know us.’
d. se ki le tape twa lot fur? (T; Ehrhart 1993: 176)
who hit 2s other day
‘Who hit you the other day?’
The other pertinent observation here is that object pronouns in non-

imperatives are always placed post-verbally, in contrast to French, again a
consequence of their strong/disjunctive forms as well as the general trend for
heads in SVO languages to be first – in this case the verb must precede its
object: nu ti truv twa ‘We saw you’ and not *nu twa ti truve (lit. we you past
see) or *nu ti twa truve (lit. we past you see).
The system of personal pronouns in the IOC is evidently numerically smaller

and much simplified in comparison to the French personal pronoun system.
The loss of gender distinction, for instance, has led to only one pronoun li
being used for both male and female, whereas French has different forms for
masculine il ‘he’ and feminine elle ‘she’. The loss of weak/conjunctive object
pronouns me ‘me’, te ‘you’, le ‘him’, la ‘her’, and so on means that object
pronouns have one rather than two forms (weak and strong). Alternatively,
the restructured pronoun system can be the result of non-Europeans, during
the early contact period, targeting the perceptually more visible strong/
disjunctive French pronoun forms for use: moi ‘me’, toi ‘you’, lui ‘him/her’,
nous ‘us’, vous ‘you’, eux ‘them’.
It is interesting to note that the personal pronoun system in Réunion Creole,

as shown in Table 4.4 from Papen (1978: 325), shows a system which is not 95
4 Table 4.4 Réunion Creole personal pronoun system
Pronouns
Sing 1 muê/mua/mȏ/m muê muê

2 tue/to tue tue
u/v (polite) u (polite) u (polite)
3 li/I (he/she/it) li li
Plural 1 nu/n nu nu
2 zot zot zot
3 zot zot zot
all that different from the system in either Mauritian Creole or Seychelles
Creole (the IOC).
Notice that the same form of the pronoun can be used in different syntactic
positions, e.g. subject of finite clauses and object of verb or preposition,
although first and second person singular pronouns have a reduced/weak form
mô/m ‘I’ and to ‘you’ which is restricted to subject position, just like mo and
to in Seychelles Creole and Mauritian Creole. Réunion Creole also has two
forms for the second person singular, one familiar and the other polite. The
following examples illustrate the use of the first person singular pronoun.
The subject form alternates between the strong full form muê [mwẽ] and the
weak reduced form m/mõ.
(19) a. muê la fin sãte (R; Papen 1978: 324)

1s have finish sing
‘I’ve finished singing.’
b. m a sãte (R; Papen 1978: 324)
1s have sing
‘I have sung.’
c. li la don a-muê (R; Papen 1978: 326)
3s have give to-1s
‘He gave me it/them.’
d. li la fe sa pur muê (R; Papen 1978: 326)
3s have do that for 1s
‘He did it for me.’
4.3.1.2 Personal pronouns in Haitian

Like the IOC, Haitian has an inventory of personal pronouns drawn exclu-
sively from the French personal pronoun system, as shown in Table 4.5.
Compared to the IOC personal pronoun system, the Haitian system has fewer
96 personal pronouns as a result of not differentiating between first person
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Table 4.5 Haitian personal pronoun system Pronouns in
the French
Number Person Nominative Accusative Oblique creoles
Sing 1 mouen/m mouen/m mouen/m

2 ou/w ou/w ou/w
3 li/l li/l li/l
Plural 1 nou/n nou/n nou/n
2 nou/n nou/n nou/n
3 yo/y yo/y yo/y
singular nominative mo and accusative/oblique mwa as well as not differen-

tiating between a second person singular formal/polite form u and an informal/
familiar form to. However, note that each pronoun has a corresponding pho-
netically reduced form. The other difference between these two systems lies
in the use of plural pronouns: the IOC use the same pronoun for the second
person and the third person zot, relying on context to disambiguate; by con-
trast, Haitian uses the same pronoun for first and second person plural,
namely nou, although it has been noted that this is not the case in the north
of Haiti, where the second person plural is zot (Valdman 1978: 205), just as
it is in the IOC. The use of nou to refer to addressees (i.e. excluding the
speaker) can be characterised as [+addressee, +plural] and represents an inter-
esting departure not only from French but also from the other French creoles.
Finally the third person plural yo (< Fr eux autres) does not occur in the IOC
but is commonly found in the other French creoles. Instead we find zot, which
has the same historical source, eux autres (Goodman 1964: 44–45). The fol-
lowing examples illustrate the Haitian personal pronoun system.
(20) a. Mouen pralé jété li (H; Valdman 1978: 222)

1s FUT throw 3s
‘I will throw it out.’
b. Ou souké kò-u (H; Valdman 1978: 246)
2s shake body-2s
‘Move/Hurry up!’
c. li ba m youn zé (H; Valdman 1978: 248)
3s give 1s one egg
‘He gave me one egg.’
d. ban nou bagay-sa-a (H; Valdman 1978: 205)
give 1p thing-that-DEF
‘Give us that!’
e. koté nou alé? (H; Valdman 1978: 205)
where 2p go
‘Where are you going?’ 97
4 f. yo rélé li Mari (H; Valdman 1978: 247)
Pronouns 3p call 3s Mary
‘They call her Mary.’
4.3.1.3 Personal pronouns in Lesser Antillean creoles

Turning next to the personal pronoun system in the Lesser Antillean creoles
(Martinican, Guadeloupean) and St. Lucian, as shown in Table 4.6, note that
it bears a strong similarity to the personal pronoun system in Haitian.
Note that, like Haitian, the Lesser Antillean creoles do not differentiate between
a formal and informal second person singular, and they do not differentiate
between nominative and accusative/oblique first and second person singular.
They are also similar to Haitian in having yo rather than zot as the third person
plural pronoun. But they are different from both Haitian and the IOC in that
they have a different form for each person. The IOC, as we saw, use the same
pronoun zot for second and third person plural, and Haitian has the same pro-
noun nou for the first and second person plural. The Lesser Antillean creoles
have separate pronouns for first and second person plural, nou and zòt respec-
tively, and for second and third person plural, zòt and yo respectively. The
following examples illustrate the use of personal pronouns in these creoles.
(21) a. man wè pap-ou (M; Bernabé 2003: 114)

1s see father-2s
‘I saw your father.’
b. mwen ka menné kabwa-la (Gu; Bernabé 1983: 900)
1s PRES drive cart-DEF
‘I drive the cart.’
c. mwẽ ale (St. L; Carrington 1984: 69)
1s go
‘I went.’
d. es ou lé an mòso pen? (M; Bernabé 2003: 146)
Q 2s want a piece bread
‘Do you want a piece of bread?’
Table 4.6 Lesser Antillean personal pronoun system
Sing 1 mouen/man/an mouen mouen

2 ou ou ou
3 i/li i/li i/li
Plural 1 nou nou nou
2 zòt zòt zòt
3 yo yo yo
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e. ou ké ri mwen (M/GU; Bernabé 1983: 902) Pronouns in
2s FUT laugh 1s the French
‘You will laugh at me.’ creoles
f. u las (St. L; Carrington 1984: 69)
2s tired
‘You are tired.’
g. i manjé prason (M; Bernabé 2003: 112)
3s eat fish
‘He has eaten fish.’
h. i pa menm vwè mwen (Gu; Bernabé 1983: 901)
3s NEG even see 1s
‘He didn’t even see me.’
i. i pale (St. L; Carrington 1984: 69)
3s speak
‘He spoke.’
j. nou pòkò pati (M; Bernabé 2003: 146)
1p NEG=yet leave
‘We haven’t left yet.’
k. nou ka pati (M/Gu; Bernabé 1983: 902)
1p PRES go
‘We are going.’
l. nu kaj vini (St. L; Carrington 1984: 69)
1p FUT come
‘We will come.’
m. zot, zot ka pale twop (M; Bernabé 2003: 176)
2p 2p PRES speak much
‘You, you speak too much.’
n. zò la é zò pa ka di hak (Gu; Bernabé 1983: 904)
2p here and 2p NEG PRES say nothing
‘You are here and you don’t say anything.’
o. zot ni tròp tsé (St. L; Carrington 1984: 70)
2p have too bold
‘You are too bold.’
p. yo poko manjé (M; Bernabé 2003: 138)
3p NEG=yet eat
‘They haven’t eaten yet.’
q. yo volé tout lajan an mwen (Gu; Damoiseau 2012: 44)
3p steal all money DEF 1s
‘They stole all my money.’
r. jo made mwẽ (St. L; Carrington 1984: 70)
3p ask 1s
‘They asked me.’
99
4 Note that some of these pronouns have a weak form as well: mwen ‘I’ can
Pronouns interchange with man (Martinican) or an (Guadeloupean), particularly in
subject position, and zot ‘you’ can interchange with its corresponding weak
form zò in Guadeloupean.
4.3.1.4 Personal pronouns in Guyanese

The personal pronoun system in Guyanese appears to share some of its fea-
tures with the personal pronoun system of the IOC. Table 4.7 tabulates the
different forms which are available in this creole.
A brief examination of this table shows that Guyanese uses the same form for
the first and second person singular pronoun, as do the IOC, and both are
different in this respect to the Lesser Antillean creoles and Haitian. However,
Guyanese is different from the IOC in using the same form for subject and
object pronouns. In this respect it is more like the Lesser Antillean creoles and
Haitian. It is also more like these creoles than the IOC in using yé (phonetically
close to yo) rather than zot as the third person plural pronoun. Another way
in which the Guyanese system is more like the Lesser Antillean and Haitian
system than the IOC’s is that it has both a strong and weak form for the third
person singular. It should be pointed out, however, that the third person sin-
gular has two forms, li and i, in Seychelles Creole; the former occurs in object
position, Mõ vwa li ‘I saw him/her’, and the latter in subject position I dir mwa
sa ‘He told me that’ (Bollée 1977: 48). This means that the difference is more
with Mauritian Creole than the whole IOC. Note, however, that Guyanese has
a formal (polite) and informal (familiar) form of the second person singular,
just like the IOC, but unlike the Lesser Antillean creoles and Haitian.
(22) a. mó ké di tó sa ki rivé (G; Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy

1s FUT tell 2s that which happen 1972: 108)
‘I will tell you what happened.’
Table 4.7 Guyanese personal pronoun system
Sing 1 mó mó mó
2 tó tó tó
u (polite) u (polite) u (polite)
3 li /i/-l (he/she/it) li/i/-l li/i/-l
Plural 1 nu nu nu
2 zòt zòt zòt
3 yé yé yé
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b. to konnet réparé loto (G; Damoiseau 2012: 78) Pronouns in
2s know repair car the French
‘You know how to repair cars.’ creoles
c. i pa vlé travay (G; Damoiseau 2012: 76)
3s NEG want work
‘He does not want to work.’
d. nou pa palé di sa (G; Damoiseau 2012: 77)
1p NEG talk of that
‘We didn’t talk about that.’
e. pasè zot rété dibout konsa a, asi! (G; Damoiseau 2012: 151)
instead 2p stay stand like that, sit
‘Instead of standing up like that, why don’t you sit down.’
f. yé ka vandé tout sort poson (G; Damoiseau 2012: 78)
3p PRES sell all kind fish
‘They sell all kinds of fish.’
4.3.1.5 Personal pronouns in Karipuna

The personal pronoun system in Karipuna is similar to the pronoun systems
in the other creoles of the Atlantic, as seen in Table 4.8. It is similar to the
Lesser Antillean creole and Haitian system except that it uses mo rather than
mouen/man/an as its first person singular pronoun and ye rather than yo as
its third person plural pronoun. It is also similar to the Guyanese system,
except that the latter differentiates between a polite second person singular
form and a familiar second person singular form just like the IOC.
The following examples illustrate the personal pronouns in subject position.
(23) a. mo gã kat tximun (K; Tobler 1983: 26)

1s have four child
‘I have four children.’
b. kõbyã u gã? (K; Tobler 1983: 42)
how much 2s have
‘How much do you have?’
Table 4.8 Karipuna personal pronouns
Sing 1 mo mo mo
2 u u u
3 li li/l li/l
Plural 1 nu nu nu
2 zót zót zót
3 ye ye ye
101
4 c. kõkyã ane li gã? (K; Tobler 1983: 42)
Pronouns how many year 3s have
‘How old is he?’
d. nu tut k- ale ofõ (K; Tobler 1983: 27)
1p all PROG go there
‘We are all going over there.’
e. zot ale! (K; Tobler 1983: 45)
2p go
‘Go, all of you!’
f. ye hive ayé wakhé (K; Tobler 1983: 41)
3p arrive yesterday apparently
‘They arrived yesterday apparently.’
The Karipuna system appears overall the simplest, with six different pro-
nouns and each (third person singular pronoun excepted) surfacing in an
invariant form regardless of its distribution in the clause.
4.3.1.6 Personal pronouns in Louisiana Creole

Table 4.9 displays the personal pronouns in Louisiana Creole.
The personal pronoun system of this creole bears strong similarity to the
personal pronoun system in the IOC. Both differentiate between a nomina-
tive mo and to and a non-nominative form mwa/mwen and twa for the first
and second person singular, respectively, although Louisiana Creole has one
other form, mon, which can appear in both subject and object position. They
are also similar in differentiating between an informal (familiar) second per-
son singular to and a formal/polite one, which can be pronounced as vou/vo/
ou. One last point on which they are also similar is in their use of zòt as a
second person plural pronoun, although Louisiana also has vouzòt (< Fr vous
autres ‘you’ (lit. you others)), which can surface in its full or reduced form.
Note, however, that it is unlike the IOC in having ye/ye sa as the third person
plural, a form which it shares with the other French creoles of the Atlantic.
Table 4.9 Louisiana Creole personal pronoun system
Sing 1 mo/mon/m mo/mon/mwa/mwen mo/mon/mwa/mwen

2 to twa twa
vou/vo/ou (polite) vou/vo/ou (polite) tou/vo/ou (polite)
3 li (he/she/it) li li
Plural 1 nou/nouzòt nouzò(t) nouzò(t)
2 (vou)zò(t)/zòt/ouzò (v)ouzòt (v)ouzòt
3 ye (sa) ye (sa) ye (sa)
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Uniquely, it uses the suffix -zòt (< Fr autres) in order to differentiate between Pronouns in
the plural second person vouzòt (< Fr vous autres) and the singular second the French
creoles
person vou/ou ‘you’. The following examples illustrate the use of personal
pronouns in this creole.
(24) a. mo prete twa li (L; Klingler 2003: 211)

1s loan 2s 3s
‘I loaned it to you.’
b. to vide l andan bari-la (L; Klingler 2003: 210)
2s empty 3s in barrel-DEF
‘You empty it into the barrel.’
c. vou kase l (L; Klingler 2003: 210)
2s break 3s
‘You broke it.’
d. li vann li kote li (L; Klingler 2003: 211)
3s sell 3s to 3s
‘He sold it to him.’
e. nou te kònen vole wiski nou papa (L; Klingler 2003: 207)
1p PAST know steal whisky 1p father
‘We used to steal our father’s whisky.’
f. zot gen lemou? (L; Klingler 2003: 207)
3p have (cow) lungs
‘Do you have (eat) cow’s lungs?’
g. ye te priye an kreyòl (L; Klingler 2003: 208)
3p PAST pray in creole
‘They prayed in Creole.’
It is clear from the survey of the different personal pronoun systems in the
French creoles that they are modelled on the French system. Each personal
pronoun in the French creoles can be traced back to a personal pronoun or
a form of a personal pronoun in French. In most cases, the sources appear to
have been the phonetically more perceptible (i.e. the strong/disjunctive)
forms. Thus the first person singular pronoun, particularly in the Atlantic
creoles (Martinican, Guadeloupean, and St. Lucian), derives from the strong
oblique form moi ‘me’ rather than the weak subject form je ‘I’ or the weak
object form me ‘me’. The IOC, Guyanese, Karipuna, and Louisiana Creole,
however, appear to have selected the French genitive form mon ‘my’ and use
it in a denasalised form as the subject of finite clauses (IOC) and as both
subject and object (Guyanese, Karipuna, and Louisiana). The IOC use the
oblique form mwa (< Fr moi ‘me’) instead in object position. The Atlantic
creoles and Karipuna have recruited the polite form of the French second
person singular vous ‘you’ for their second person singular, and as a result
have lost the distinction between polite (formal) and familiar (informal) sec-
ond person singular. The other creoles have retained that distinction, as they 103
4 have acquired both the polite form vou/u (< Fr vous) and the familiar form
Pronouns to (< Fr toi or ton). All the French creoles have derived their third person
singular li/i from the strong/disjunctive French form lui ‘him’ and their first
person plural nu/nou from French nous ‘us’ or nous autres (lit. us others). It
is the second and third person plural that show an interesting departure from
the French personal pronoun system, although perhaps not from the personal
pronoun system in popular French. With the exception of Haitian, which
uses the same form, nou, for first and second person plural, the French creoles
appear to have derived their second person plural zot ‘you’ from the French
vous autres (lit. you others). As for their third person plural, there is an
interesting difference between the IOC and the other creoles. The former use
zot ‘they/them’ from the French eux autres (lit. them others) (see Goodman
1964: 43), while the latter use yo, y, or yé, which derived from the French
disjunctive third person plural form eux ‘them’. This form is clearly restricted
to the French creoles of the Atlantic. There is no evidence from these creoles
that they recruited their personal pronouns from sources other than French.
Overall, they display a much simplified system of personal pronouns in com-
parison to the French system, with a single form appearing in all syntactic
positions, although not quite so with the first and second person singular
pronoun in the IOC and Louisiana Creole, and no gender distinction.
4.3.2 Demonstrative pronouns in the French creoles
4.3.2.1 Demonstrative pronouns in the IOC

As was noted earlier, the demonstrative pronouns in French are: celui ‘this/
that’, celle ‘this/that’, ceux ‘these/those’, and celles ‘these/those’. These con-
tain the strong or disjunctive personal pronouns ce-lui, ce-elle(s), and ce-eux,
and they are often accompanied with the suffixes -ci ‘proximate’ and -là
‘distal’. Thus celle-ci means ‘this one’ and celle-là ‘that one’. These suffixes
were used to reinforce the meaning of the demonstrative ce in the fourteenth
century in the case of -ci and in the fifteenth century in the case of -là (Price
1971: 126).
In the IOC, these different forms of the demonstrative end up as sa ‘this/that’,

which can occur on its own as a pronoun (pro-NP), sharing the distribution
of noun phrases, or with a noun, sharing the distribution of determiners (see
chapter 3). An alternative source of the demonstrative sa might be the dis-
junctive pronoun ça as it occurs in c’est intéressant, ça ‘it’s interesting, that’.
(25) a. donn mwa sa! (IOC)

give 1s DEM
‘Give me this/that!’
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b. sa pa to zafer (IOC) Pronouns in
DEM NEG 2s business the French
‘This/That is none of your business.’ creoles
In addition to sa, the IOC also have two other demonstrative pronouns,
sann-la/senn-la (< Fr celui-là or celle-là ‘this/that one’) and sa-ki, in which sa
combines with the complementiser or relative pronoun ki and is used as the
head of a relative clause just like French celui/celle(s)/ceux, e.g. celui qui est
dans la voiture est mon ami ‘He who is in the car is my friend’.
(26) a. donn mwa sann-la/senn-la (IOC)

give 1s DEM
‘Give me this one!’
b. sann-la/senn-la pa konn naryen (IOC)
DEM NEG know nothing
‘This one knows nothing.’
(27) a. li ti pran sa- ki ti lor latab (IOC)

3s PAST take DEM that PAST on table
‘He took that which was on the table.’
b. sa- ki vinn tar bizen atann isi (IOC)
DEM that come late must wait here
‘Those who are late must wait here.’
4.3.2.2 Demonstrative pronouns in Haitian

As in the IOC, the demonstrative pronoun in Haitian is also sa ‘this/that’,
and here also it can function as a pronoun (pro-NP), as in (28a, b), or a post-
nominal determiner, as in (28c).
(28) a. sa sé youn fig (H; Valdman 1978: 207)

DEM be a banana
‘This/That is a banana.’
b. mwen t a renmen sa (H; DeGraff 2007: 117)
1s PAST FUT like DEM
‘I would like that.’
c. moun sa yo renmen kandida sa a (H; DeGraff
person DEM PLU like candidate DEM DEF 2007: 117)
‘These people love this candidate.’
Haitian has another demonstrative pronoun sila (< Fr celui/celle(s)-là

‘that one/those ones’) which, like sa, can also occur on its own as a pro-
NP, as illustrated in (29a, b) or as a post-nominal determiner, as shown
in (29c).
105
4 (29) a. m t a vlé sila-a (H; Valdman 1978: 208)
Pronouns 1s PAST FUT want DEM DEF
‘I would like that one.’
b. m wè sila (H; Lefebvre 1998: 90)
1s see DEM
‘I saw that.’
c. mwen pa konnen moun sila a (H; Damoiseau 2012: 29)
1s NEG know person DEM DEF
‘I don’t know that person.’
As these examples make clear, sila has the same distribution as sa. It can
occur independently and head a nominal phrase, as in (29a, b), or as a deter-
miner specifying the noun which it follows, as in (29c). There is, however, an
important difference between them: sa is neutral between proximal and dis-
tal, sila is not; it is distal (Lefebvre 1998: 90). The former can be translated
as this or that, as in (30a), whereas the latter as that only, as in (30b). Note
that they can stand on their own, as arguments of verbs, for instance, as in
(29a, b), or as heads of relative clauses, as in the following.
(30) a. sa ki vini an (H; Lefebvre 1998: 90)

DEM that come DET
‘This/that one who came.’
b. sila ki vini an (H; Lefebvre 1998: 90)
DEM that come DET
‘That one who came.’
4.3.2.3 Demonstrative pronouns in Lesser Antillean creoles

The Lesser Antillean creoles (Martinican, Guadeloupean, and St. Lucian), like
Haitian and the IOC, also use sa ‘this/that’ as their demonstrative pronoun,
and they combine this pronoun with the definite marker la to form another
demonstrative. Martinican thus has tala/taa in addition to sa, the word-initial
fricative in sala having changed to a stop, resulting in tala, and the initial con-
sonant in la having dropped, resulting in taa. Guadeloupean has sila/sala. The
pronoun sila presumably derived from sala after the low vowel in sa changed
to the high vowel in si, resulting in sila. St. Lucian sa a also derived from sala
after the consonant in la dropped. The following examples are illustrative.
(31) a. pran sa (M; Damoiseau 2012: 47)

take DEM
‘Take that!’
b. pran sa (Gu; Damoiseau 2012: 47)
take DEM
106 ‘Take that!’
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c. mwẽ sav sa (St. L; Carrington 1984: 101) Pronouns in
1s know DEM the French
‘I know that.’ creoles
(32) a. tala rivé (M; Bernabé 1983: 743)

DEM arrive
‘That one has arrived.’
b. an pa vlé léti-lasa. Ban mwen sala (Gu; Damoiseau
1s NEG want lettuce-DEM give 1s DEM 2012: 46)
‘I don’t want this lettuce. Give me that one.’
c. sèn li a gro pase sa la (St. L; Carrington 1984: 70)
chain 3s DEF big pass DEM
‘His chain is thicker than that one.’
The pronoun tala/sala/sila, like Haitian sa/sila, can also function as a deter-
miner inside a noun phrase, as in the following examples.
(33) a. moun-lasa/tala (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 743)

person-DEM
‘That person’
b. kòd sa la (St. L; Carrington 1984: 87)
rope DEM
‘That rope’
The pronoun sa, on the other hand, just like the sa in the IOC and Haitian,
can function as the head of the relative clause.
(34) a. sa ki pa dakò, sòti! (Gu/M; Damoiseau 2012: 47)

DEM that NEG agree leave
‘Those who don’t agree, leave!’
b. jo te ka batze i pà sa u (St. L;
3p PAST PROG ship it in DEM you Carrington 1984: 71)
krie ‘buko’
call ‘hogsheads’.
‘They used to ship it in what you call ‘hogsheads’.’
4.3.2.4 Demonstrative pronouns in Guyanese and Karipuna

Guyanese shares with Guadeloupean the same form of the demonstrative
pronouns, namely sa and sa-la, but which can also surface as sa-a. The fol-
lowing examples are illustrative.
(35) a. mo bézwen sa (G; Damoiseau 2003: 54)

1s need DEM
‘I need that.’ 107
4 b. mo pa lé léti-a. Ba mo sa-la (G; Damoiseau
Pronouns 1s NEG want lettuce-DEF give 1s DEM 2012: 46)
‘I don’t like that lettuce. Give me this one.’
Like the Lesser Antillean creoles, Guyanese also uses the demonstrative pro-
noun as the head of a relative clause, as in (36a), and as a determiner, as in
(36b). Note that, unlike the Lesser Antillean creoles but like the IOC, Guya-
nese has its demonstrative determiner in pre-nominal position (for more
detail on determiners, see chapter 3).
(36) a. sa ki pa dakò, lévé! (G; Damoiseau 2003: 58)

DEM REL NEG agree stand up
‘He who doesn’t agree, please stand up!’
b. mo pa konnet sa moun-an (G; Damoiseau 2003: 35)
1s NEG know DEM person-DEF
Unlike the other creoles in the Atlantic, Karipuna has only one demonstrative
pronoun, namely sa ‘this/that’. It can occur on its own in the place of a noun,
as in (37a), and as the head of a relative clause, as in (37b). Not surprisingly,
it can also be used as a determiner, as shown in (37c).
(37) a. fodha u fe sa djime (K; Tobler 1983: 52)

must 2s do DEM tomorrow
‘Tomorrow you have to do that.’
b. utxi sa ki mo te bay pu u? (K; Tobler 1983: 36)
where DEM REL 1s PAST give for 2s
‘Where is that which I gave you?’
c. sa khapo la gã let la so do (K; Tobler 1983: 47)
DEM frog DEF have letter there 3s back
‘That (type of) frog has a letter on its back.’
4.3.2.5 Demonstrative pronouns in Louisiana Creole

Louisiana Creole also uses the same demonstrative pronoun sa-la/sila that
we find in Guadeloupean, Guyanese, and Haitian. It also has sa ‘this/that’,
and it occurs either on its own or combined with the relative or complemen-
tiser ki/k, as in sa-ki. The pronoun sa-la has a singular meaning, and it
changes to sa-ye when it refers back to a plural antecedent.
(38) a. mo gen jis sa-la (L; Klingler 2003: 217)

1s have just DEM
108 ‘I just have this one.’
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b. ye pa gen traka e sa-ye non plu (L; Klingler 2003: 217) Pronouns in
3p NEG have trouble with DEM either the French
‘They don’t have trouble with those (children) either.’ creoles
c. eskè vou gen ki-chòw kant sa? (L; Klingler 2003: 218)
Q 2p have something against DEM
‘Do you have anything against that?’
d. sa-k ole bat, GO AHEAD bat (L; Klingler 2003: 218)
DEM that want fight, go ahead fight
‘Those who want to fight, (let them) go ahead and fight.’
As (38d) shows, the demonstrative sa can be used as the head of a relative

clause, just as it does in some of the other French creoles, e.g. the IOC. Not
surprisingly, sa-la and its plural sa-ye can also be used as determiners, and
here sa can occur independently of la, as shown in (39c).
(39) a. nonm-sa-la (L; Klingler 2003: 182)

man-DEM
‘that man’
b. gato-sa-a myè pase sa-la (L; Klingler 2003: 182)
cake-DEM better pass DEM
‘This cake is better than that one.’
c. tan te di dan ton-sa (L; Klingler 2003: 182)
time PAST hard in time-DEM
‘Times were hard back then.’
Table 4.10 summarises the different demonstrative pronouns in the French

creoles under consideration.
This table shows that all the French creoles have the demonstrative pronoun
sa ‘this/that’. The most likely source of this pronoun is the French pronoun
ce or the disjunctive ça. With the exception of Karipuna, they also have an
alternative demonstrative pronoun, which combines the pronoun sa and the
Table 4.10 Demonstrative pronouns in the French creoles
IOC sa sannla/sennla saki
H sa sila/sa a saki
M sa tala/taa sa ki
Gu sa sala/sila/tala sa ki
St. L sa sa la sa
G sa sa-la sa ki
K sa sa ki
L sa sa-la/a sak(i)
109
4 specificity/definiteness marker la/a. They can also all use the demonstrative
Pronouns pronoun sa to head a relative clause, and it is accompanied by the relative
pronoun or complementiser ki, except, it seems, in St. Lucian Creole. Accord-
ing to Neumann (1985: 137), Louisiana also allows sila, but it is very rare.
4.3.3 Possessive pronouns in the French creoles
As we saw earlier, French has an inventory of absolute possessive pronouns.

Each of these can surface in a different form depending on the person, gender,
and number of the referent to which the pronoun refers. The first person
singular, for instance, has the following four forms: le mien (masculine sin-
gular), la mienne (feminine singular), les miens (masculine plural), and les
miennes (feminine plural). Looking at this type of pronoun in the French
creoles, it is very clear that none of them has acquired these pronouns.
Instead, they all use different compound forms in which the personal pro-
nouns are combined with either the preposition pu/pou ‘for’, as in the IOC
and Tayo, or the noun pa(n) (< Fr part ‘share’), as in Haitian, Guyanese, and
Karipuna, or the demonstrative sa/ta, as in the Antillean Creoles, or the suffix
in the French absolute personal pronoun i.e. -ien(ne), as in Louisiana.
4.3.3.1 Possessive pronouns in the IOC

The IOC combine the strong/disjunctive form of the pronouns with the goal
preposition pu to express their possessive pronouns. Table 4.11 illustrates
the possessive pronoun system in the IOC.
The following examples illustrate their use.
(40) a. sa pa pu Zan, li pu mwa/twa/u/li (IOC)

DEM NEG for John 3s for 1s/2s/2s/3s
‘That isn’t John’s, it’s mine/yours/yours/hers (his).’
Table 4.11 Possessive pronouns in the IOC
Number Person Possessive pronouns
Singular 1 pu mwa ‘for me’ (mine)

2 pu twa ‘for you’ (yours)
pu u ‘for you’ (polite form) (yours)
3 pu li ‘for him/her’ (his/hers)
Plural 1 pu nu ‘for us’ (ours)
2 pu zot ‘for you’ (yours)
3 pu zot ‘for them’ (theirs)
110
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b. lakaz la pa pu nu, li pu zot (IOC) Pronouns in
house DEF NEG for 1p, 3s for 3p the French
‘That house isn’t ours, it’s yours/theirs.’ creoles
c. pu mwa ar Zan, pu twa ar Mari (IOC)
for 1s with John for 2s with Mary
‘Mine is with John, yours with Mary.’
d. mo ti pran pu mwa pa pu twa (IOC)
1s PAST take for 1s NEG for 2s
‘I took mine, not yours.’
The translation of (40d) in French makes use of the absolute possessive pro-
nouns mien ‘mine’ and tien ‘yours’: J’ai pris le mien pas le tien (lit. I have
taken the mine not the yours) ‘I took mine, not yours’.
The only other creole which uses such prepositional phrases for its absolute pos-
sessive pronouns is Tayo: pur mwa ‘for me’, pur twa ‘for you’, pur lia/lya ‘for
him/her’, pu nu ‘for us’, pu usot/ousòt (< Fr vous autres) ‘for your’, and pu sola/
lesot (< Fr ceux-là/les autres) ‘for them’ (see Ehrhart 1993, Klingler 2003: 216).
(41) sa, se pu mwa (T; Ehrhart 1993: 140)

that it for 1s
‘That’s mine’ or ‘Those are mine.’
4.3.3.2 Possessive pronouns in the Atlantic French creoles

In contrast to the IOC and Tayo, the Atlantic creoles do not have their pos-
sessive pronouns inside a prepositional phrase. Instead they combine these
pronouns with different elements: in Haitian they are combined with pa
(< Fr part (lit. share/belong to)): pa m/mwen ‘mine’, pa twè ‘yours’, pa l/li
‘his/hers’, pa n/nou ‘ours’, pa ou/zòt ‘yours’, pa yo ‘theirs’.
(42) a. li vlé pa-l (H; Valdman 1978: 208)

3s want 3s
‘He wants hers.’
b. sa sé pan-m (H; Valdman 1978: 208)
DEM be 1s
‘It’s mine.’
The other Atlantic creole which also uses pa to form its possessive pronouns
is Guyanese. The difference between them lies in: (a) word order and (b) the
element with which pa is combined. In Guyanese pa follows a possessive
determiner, whilst in Haitian it precedes a personal pronoun, as illustrated
in (42). The Guyanese possessive pronouns are: mo pa ‘mine’, to/u pa ‘yours’,
so pa ‘his/hers’, nu pa ‘ours’, zot pa ‘yours’, yé pa ‘theirs’ (Damoiseau 2003:
59, Klingler 2003: 216). 111
4 In Martinican and Guadeloupean, personal pronouns combine with ta (< Fr
Pronouns c’est à) to form the absolute possessive pronouns: ta mwen ‘mine’, ta-ou/w
‘your’, ta ‘y ‘his/hers’, tan nou ‘ours’, ta zot ‘yours’, ta yo ‘theirs’ (Klingler
2003: 216, Damoiseau 2012: 48). Note that Guadeloupean sometimes also
uses sa instead of ta. The following examples are illustrative.
(43) a. kay-mwen pli bel ki ta-ou-la (M; Bernabé

house-1s more beautiful than 2s-DEF 2003: 261)
‘My house is more beautiful than yours.’
b. mi ta-ou, mi ta-mwen (M; Bernabé 2003: 263)
here 2s here 1s
‘Here’s yours, here’s mine.’
c. nou pwan ta’w la (Gu; Bernabé 1983: 890)
1p take 2s DEF
‘We took yours.’
d. ranmasé ta’w la (Gu: Bernabé 1983: 914)
pick up 2s DEF
‘Pick yours up.’
e. ranmasé sa’w la (Gu; Bernabé 1983: 914)
pick up 2s DEF
‘Pick yours up.’
St. Lucian shares with Guadeloupean the combination of sa and personal

pronouns to express the possessive pronouns: sa (a) mwẽ ‘mine’, sa (a) u
‘yours’, sa li ‘his/hers’, sa (a) nu ‘ours’, sa (a) zot ‘yours’, and sa (a) jo ‘theirs’.
The following illustrates this combination.
(44) a. bwa pẽ mwẽ pli bèl (St. L; Carrington 1984: 72)

wood bread 1s more pretty
pase sa a u
than DEM to 2s
‘My fruitbread is lovelier than yours.’
b. kite i, se pa sa a zot (St. L; Carrington 1984: 73)
leave it 3s NEG DEM to 2p
‘Leave it, it is not yours.’
c. vil la se sa nu tu, se (St. L; Carrington 1984: 73)
town DEF 3s DEM 1p all 3s
pa sa kòwnsèl la
NEG DEM council DEF
‘The town is ours, not the council’s.’
4.3.3.3 Possessive pronouns in Karipuna and Lousiana Creole

Karipuna is like Guyanese in combining possessive determiners with pa (< Fr.
112 part) to form possessive pronouns: mo-pa ‘mine’, u-pa ‘yours’, so-pa ‘his/
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hers’, nu-pa ‘ours’, zót-pa ‘yours’, and ye-pa ‘theirs’ (Tobler 1983: 74). The Pronouns in
following examples are illustrative. the French
creoles
(45) a. a mo-pa (K; Tobler 1983: 60)
Eq 1s
‘It’s mine.’
b. mo tximun pi hot pase u-pa (K; Tobler 1983: 71)
1s child more tall than 2s
‘My child is taller than yours.’
Louisiana Creole, however, is unique in combining possessive adjectives/

determiners with a suffix in the form of -kèn/tchèn (< Fr m-ien(ne)/t-ien(ne)/
s-ien(ne)). As we saw earlier, the French personal pronouns themselves, at
least the first, second, and third person singular ones, can be decomposed
into a possessive adjective/determiner and a suffix -ien(ne). It could be said
then that Louisiana possessive pronouns are closely patterned on the French
possessive pronouns, essentially combining its possessive adjectives/determiners
with a suffix derived from French -ien(ne). Thus we have: mokèn ‘mine’,
token ‘yours’, sokèn ‘his/hers’, noukèn ‘ours’, zòkèn ‘yours’, yèkèn ‘theirs’. The
alternative forms are: motchèn ‘mine’, totchèn ‘yours’, sotchèn ‘his/hers’,
noutchèn ‘ours’, zòtchèn ‘yours’, yetchèn ‘theirs’. The following examples
from Klingler (2003) illustrate the use of these possessive pronouns.
(46) a. mokenn kouri laba la pou (L; Klingler 2003: 213)

1s go there DEF for
èt ave sokenn
be with 3s
‘Mine (my mother) went there to be with hers (her mother).’
b. sokenn mile te pa ka ale . . . (L; Klingler 2003: 214)
3s mule PAST NEG can go
sokenn te ka ale
3s PAST can go
‘His mule couldn’t pull (the wagon). His could pull (it).’
Looking at possessive pronouns in all the French creoles, it is clear that they
have not all used the same strategy for acquiring the French possessive pro-
nouns. The IOC and Tayo use a periphrastic expression comprising of a goal
preposition pou/pu and a personal pronoun. The Caribbean creoles (Hai-
tian, Martinican, and Guadeloupean), on the other hand, use ta(n) and
combine it with different personal pronouns. St. Lucian, however, combines
sa (a) with these pronouns to form its possessive pronouns. Guyanese and
Karipuna use yet another expression in which they combine possessive
adjectives/determiners and the noun pa (< Fr part ‘share/belong to’). Loui-
siana Creole, like Guyanese and Karipuna, uses possessive adjectives/ 113
4 determiners and combines them with the suffix -kèn/tchèn, most likely
Pronouns derived from French -ien(ne), to form its possessive pronouns. These differ-
ent ways of expressing the possessive pronouns in these creoles stem directly
from French: c’est pour moi ‘It’s mine’, which gives us the IOC and Tayo
possessive pronouns, c’est à moi ‘It’s mine’, which gives us the Caribbean
French possessive pronouns, c’est ma part ‘It’s mine (lit. it’s my part/it
belongs to me), which gives us the Guyanese and Karipuna possessive pro-
nouns, and c’est le mien/lamienne ‘it’s mine’, which gives us the Louisiana
possessive pronouns.
It may be noted here that Réunion Creole appears to be the only one to have
retained the full form of the French absolute possessive pronouns, although
only in an invariant form resulting from the loss of gender and number mark-
ing (see Table 4.12). Note, however, that it does not have the French third
person plural absolute leur(s) ‘theirs’; instead it uses zot just like the IOC.
But, as we can see, it also has the corresponding periphrastic possessive pro-
noun forms sa de muê/u/li/nu/zot (< Fr celui/celle/ça de moi/vous/etc.).
It is not surprising that the only two creoles to show remnants of the French
absolute possessive pronouns are Réunion Creole and Louisiana Creole,
since these are the two creoles which have been influenced the most by
French, from both a diachronic and a synchronic point of view. In the case
of Louisiana Creole, its closeness to Cajun French is also noteworthy. Cajun
French, for instance, uses miẽn ‘mine’, tiẽn ‘your’, and siẽn ‘his/hers’. These,
Papen and Rottet (1997: 87) note, have lost their feminine and plural French
forms, which have been replaced with mləmiẽn (mon+le+miẽn) ‘mine’ (mas-
culine singular), mlamiẽn (mon+la+miẽn) ‘mine’ (feminine singular), mlemiẽn
(mon+les+miẽn) ‘mine’, which correspond to French le mien, la mienne, and
les miens/miennes. It is also possible that the -tchèn and -kèn in motchèn/
mokèn in Louisiana Creole might have come from Cajun French, as it also
has a possessive pronoun in the form of eusse tien ‘yours’.
Table 4.13 summarises the possessive pronouns in the different French cre-
oles under consideration.
Table 4.12 Absolute possessive pronouns in Réunion Creole
Number Person Possessive pronouns
Singular 1 le/la mien or sa de muê (lit. that of mine)

2 le/la tien or sa de u (lit. that of yours)
3 le/la sien or sa de li (lit. that of his/hers)
Plural 1 le/la not or sa de nu (lit. that of ours)
2 le/la vot or sa de zot (lit. that which is yours)
3 sa de zot (lit. that of theirs)
114
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Table 4.13 Possessive pronouns in the French creoles Pronouns in
the French
1s 2s 3s 1p 2p 3p creoles
IOC pu mwa pu twa pu li pu nu pu zot pu zot

H pa mwen pa twè pa li pa nou pa ou/zot pa yo
M ta mwen ta ou/w ta ‘y ta nou ta zot ta yo
Gu ta/sa mwen ta/sa ou/w ta/sa ‘y ta/sa nou ta/sa zot ta/sa yo
St. L sa (a) mwẽ sa (a) u sa (a) li sa (a) nu sa (a) zot sa (a) jo
G mo pa to/u pa so pa nu pa zot pa ye pa
K mo-pa u-pa so-pa nu-pa zot-pa ye-pa
L mokèn token sokèn noukèn zokèn yekèn
motchèn totchèn sotchèn noutchèn zotchèn yetchèn
T pur mwa pur twa pur lia/lya pu nu pu usot pu sola/lesot
4.3.4 Reflexive pronouns in the French creoles
French expresses reflexivity with the clitic pronoun me ‘myself’, te ‘yourself’,

se ‘himself/herself’, nous ‘ourselves’, vous ‘yourselves’, and se ‘themselves’.
The paradigm in (16) is repeated here for ease of presentation.
(47) Je me lave Nous nous lavons

‘I wash myself.’ ‘We wash ourselves.’
Tu te laves Vous vous lavez
‘You wash yourself.’ ‘You wash yourselves.’
Il/Elle se lave Ils/Elles se lavent
‘He/She washes himself/herself.’ ‘They wash themselves.’
The loss of French weak/conjunctive pronouns in the French creoles led them
to express reflexivity in other ways: by using body part expressions, particularly
lekor/kor (< Fr corps ‘body’) or latet/tet (< Fr la tête ‘head’), but the creoles do
vary in the extent to which they exploit such expressions. Another option is to
use complex forms consisting of a personal pronoun and the adverb -même
‘self’: mo-mem ‘myself’, li-mem ‘himself’/‘herself’, zot-mem ‘themselves’, and
so on, but mostly when contrastive stress is required. In fact, when combined
with this adverb, these pronouns can occur in any position, inside and outside
the clause: mo-mem ti fer sa ‘myself did it’, mo-mem mo ti fer sa ‘myself I did
it’, mo ti fer sa mo-mem ‘I did it myself’, gato la pu to-mem ‘the cake is for you’,
and so on. A further option is to use a bare personal pronoun and infer its
reflexivity from its relation to some antecedent within the clause.
4.3.4.1 Reflexive pronouns in the IOC

As we will see from the examples here, the strong/disjunctive object pronoun
in each of the following sentences can be interpreted reflexively. That is to 115
4 say, it can be interpreted as being anaphorically related to, or co-referential
Pronouns with, the subject pronoun.
(48) a. mo ti kuver mwa ek enn multon

1s PAST cover 1s with a blanket
‘I covered myself with a blanket.’
b. to ti pik twa ar sa zegwij la?
2s PAST prick 2s with DEM needle DEF
‘Did you prick yourself with that needle?’
c. u pa pe fatig u ar sa?
2s NEG PROG tire 2s with that
‘Aren’t you getting tired doing that?’
d. li pa’ nn truv li dan sa foto la
3s NEG PERF see 3s in DEM photograph DEF
‘He hasn’t seen himself in that photograph’
e. les nu amiz nu zordi!
let 1p enjoy 1p today
‘Let’s enjoy ourselves today!’
f. zot finn met zot dan enn problem
3p PERF put 3p in a problem
‘They got themselves into some difficulty.’
It should be noted that where the pronouns are third person, whether singu-
lar or plural, their interpretation is ambiguous in that they can be interpreted
as being either co-referential with the subject or disjoint in reference. Thus
(48d, f) can also be translated as ‘he hasn’t seen him (someone else) in that
photograph’ and ‘they got them (some other people) into some difficulty’,
respectively, where the object refers to someone other than the subject. Note
also that the reflexive interpretation of the object pronoun in (48a, c, e) is
perhaps not surprising since the verb can be said to be inherently reflexive,
and, interestingly, the object pronouns can be left out without altering the
meaning of these sentences: mo ti kuver ek enn multon ‘I covered myself with
a blanket’. Other verbs which are inherently reflexive and can therefore occur
without an object pronoun are alonze ‘to lie down/to rest’, repoze ‘to rest’,
benyen ‘to bathe’, asize ‘to sit down’, dibute ‘to stand up’, and so on. Note
that the verb displays its short form (i.e. without the final vowel) when the
object pronoun is present.
(49) a. mo pe alonz(e) (mwa)

1s PROG lay 1s
‘I’m having a lie down.’
b. li pe repoz(e) (li) la
3s PROG rest 3s now
116 ‘He’s having a rest right now.’
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c. to finn beny(e) (twa)? Pronouns in
2s PERF shower 2s the French
‘Have you showered?’ creoles
Non-reflexive verbs by contrast cannot express reflexivity without their

object. In fact, sentences such as (48b, d, f) are judged ill-formed without an
object, as shown in (50).
(50) a. * to ti pike ar sa zegwij la?

2s PAST with DEM needle DEF
‘Did you prick yourself with that needle?’ (intended meaning)
b. * li pa’ nn truve dan sa foto la
3s NEG PERF see in DEM photograph DEF
‘He hasn’t seen himself in that photograph.’ (intended
meaning)
c. * li met dan enn problem
3s put in a problem
‘He’s got himself into some difficulty.’ (intended meaning)
The reflexive interpretation of personal pronouns can also be arrived at in

the context of a non-finite small clause, as shown in (51).
(51) a. li pran li pu enn gran dimunn

3s take 3s for a big person
‘He takes himself for an important person.’ (=He thinks
himself important)
b. li konsider li sef
3s consider 3s chief
‘He considers himself the chief.’
c. li fer li sufer
3s make 3s suffer
‘He makes himself suffer.’
In these, the subject of the lower predicate is anaphorically related to the

subject of the main clause. It is also in this same lower subject position that
the bare personal pronoun in (51) can alternate with a complex reflexive
pronoun used non-emphatically.
(52) a. li pran li-mem pu enn gran dimunn

3s take 3s for a big person
‘He takes himself for an important person.’ (=He thinks
himself important)
b. li konsider li-mem sef
3s consider 3s chief
‘He considers himself the chief.’ 117
4 c. li fer li-mem sufer
Pronouns 3s make 3s suffer
‘He makes himself suffer.’
In other contexts such complex pronouns can also be interpreted reflexively

but emphatically. Thus (48a) with -mem: mo ti kuver mo-mem ar sa multon
la ‘I covered myself with that blanket’ emphasises that it was me that I cov-
ered with a blanket, not someone else. Notice that such alternation between
bare reflexive pronouns and complex reflexive pronouns is impossible with
inherently reflexive verbs in imperative constructions.
(53) a. asiz twa/*to-mem laba

sit 2s/ 2s-self there
‘Sit there!’
b. pa fatig twa/*to-mem ar sa
NEG tire 2s / 2s-self with that
‘Don’t tire/worry yourself with that!’
c. alonz zot/*zot-mem isi
lay 2p/ 2p-self here
‘Lay down here!’
Alongside bare personal pronouns and complex pronouns, the IOC, like
other creoles, also use a body-part expression reflexively. However, this is
only possible with a handful of verbs (verbs which denote actions adversely
affecting the speaker): zete ‘to throw’, pini ‘to punish’, fatige ‘to tire/to
worry’, and kase ‘to break’.
(54) a. li finn al zet so lekor/*li/*li-mem dan larivier

3s PERF go throw 3s body/3s/3s-self in river
‘He’s gone to drown himself.’
b. ki-fer zot pe pini zot lekor/?zot/?zot-mem kumsa?
why 3p PROG punish 3p body/3p/3p-self like this
‘Why are they making themselves suffer like this?’
c. pa fer zot lekor/??zot/?zot-mem mizer!
NEG make 2p body/2p/2p-self suffer
‘Don’t make yourselves suffer!’
(55) a. li pe fatig so latet/li/?li-mem ar sa

3s PROG tire 3s head/3s/3s-self with that
‘He’s worrying unnecessarily.’
b. pa kas u latet/*u/*u-mem ar sa!
NEG break 2s head/2s/2s-self with that
‘Don’t trouble yourself with that!’
Of the different ways of expressing reflexivity in the IOC, e.g. using a bare
118
pronoun, zero pronoun, a compound pronoun, or nouns referring to body
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parts lekor ‘body’ and latet ‘head’, bare pronoun is probably the most com- Pronouns in
mon. They are not, however, in free variation: mo pe lave and mo pe lav mwa the French
have different interpretations: the former ‘I’m washing (clothes)’, the latter creoles
‘I’m having a wash’. The pronoun mwa is also not interchangeable with body
part lekor, although it may not be completely impossible.
4.3.4.2 Reflexive pronouns in Haitian

Like the IOC, Haitian also uses bare personal pronouns to express reflexivity.
Additionally, and like the IOC, it uses expressions containing a noun denot-
ing a body part, although the order of the personal pronoun and the body
part noun is different. In Haitian, the pronoun follows the body part noun,
in the IOC it precedes it. Consider first the use of bare pronouns.
(56) a. mwen wè mwen nan glas la (H; Lefebvre 1998: 159)

1s see 1s in mirror DEF
‘I saw myself in the mirror.’
b. m ap repoze m (H; DeGraff 2007: 120)
1s PROG rest 1s
‘I’m resting (myself).’
c. yo antann yo byen (H; DeGraff 2007: 120)
3p get-along 3p well
‘They get along well with each other.’
d. li twonpe li (H; Damoiseau 2012: 45)
3s mistaken 3s
‘He is mistaken.’
In (56) the object pronoun is interpreted reflexively, and, as expected, an ambiguous

interpretation becomes available when the object is the third person, either singular
or plural, as shown in (57). As we saw earlier, the same is the case in the IOC.
(57) a. li we li (H; Lefebvre 1998: 161)

3s see 3s
‘He/She saw himself/herself.’
b. li we li
3s see 3s
‘He/She saw him/her.’
On one reading the object and the subject are co-referential, while on the
other they are disjoint in reference, referring to different individuals.
Turning now to the second way of expressing reflexivity, the following illus-
trates the use of a body part noun combined with a personal pronoun.
(58) a. m ap tuye tèt-mwen (H; Lefebvre 1998: 159)

1s FUT kill head-1s
119
‘I will kill myself.’
4 b. li blese kò-li (H; Lefebvre 1998: 159)
Pronouns 3s hurt body-3s
‘He hurt himself.’
c. li rale tèt-li nan goumen an (H; DeGraff 2007: 120)
3s pull head-3s in fight DEF
‘He pulled himself out of the fight.’
d. li touye tèt-li (H; Damoiseau 2012: 45)
3s kill head-3s
‘He killed himself.’
As in the IOC, the nouns recruited to express reflexivity in this way are kò
‘body’ and tèt ‘head’. Why these two nouns are used and not other nouns
denoting other parts of the body remains unclear, but the fact that the action
denoted by the verb is seen as (adversely) affecting the physical and mental
state of the speaker or addressee may provide some understanding behind
the selection of these nouns.
It is important to note that although both Haitian and the IOC make use of
these body part expressions, they are more commonly used in the former than
in the latter.
The equivalents of (58a–c), for instance, may be expressed in the IOC with-
out resorting to such body part expressions: In fact, the use of lekor in
(59b, c) in the IOC results in sentences which are unacceptable.
(59) a. mo pu al pran mo lavi

1s FUT go take 1s life
‘I’m going to take my own life.’
b. li’ nn bles li/? li-mem/*so lekor
3s PERF hurt 3s/3s-self/3s-body
‘He’s hurt himself.’
c. li’ nn retir li/?? li-mem/?? so lekor depi dan
sa lager la
3s PERF remove 3s/ 3s-self/ 3s-body from in
DEM fight DEF
‘He’s pulled himself out of that fight.’
Although Haitian also has the morpheme -mèm, it is not used in the same
reflexive manner as reflexive pronouns such as himself or myself are used in
English or indeed in the way they are used in the IOC. According to both
DeGraff (1992) and Lefebvre (1998), the combination of a pronoun and
-mèm does not result in a reflexive pronoun in Haitian. Rather, -mèm func-
tions as an emphasiser, as shown in the following.
(60) a. mwen wè m, mwen-mèm (H; Lefebvre 1998: 166)

120 1s see 1s 1s-self
‘I saw myself (emphatic).’
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b. Jan wè li, li-mèm (H; Lefebvre 1998: 166) Pronouns in
John see 3s 3s-self the French
‘John saw himself (emphatic).’ creoles
The emphatic use of this complex pronoun is clear from its position; it is
placed in a dislocated position. The same can be said of this complex pronoun
in the IOC, although there it can sometimes be used as a reflexive pronoun.
(61) a. li’ nn fer li-mem manze

3s PERF make 3s-self eat
‘He fed himself.’
b. mo finn anvway mo-mem enn mesaz
1s PERF send 1s-self a message
‘I sent myself a message.’
4.3.4.3 Reflexive pronouns in Lesser Antillean creoles

In the Lesser Antillean creoles, reflexivity is generally conveyed in two different
ways. Martinican and St. Lucian use a reflexive expression containing kò
‘body’ followed by a personal pronoun which matches the subject pronoun in
person and number: kò mwen ‘myself’, kò ou ‘yourself’, kò i ‘himself/herself’,
kò nou ‘ourselves’, kò zot ‘yourselves’, and kò yo ‘themselves’. Guadeloupean,
however, uses a bare personal pronoun and, in this respect, is also like Haitian
and the IOC. The following examples are illustrative, but note that a preposi-
tion is not always needed between kò and the personal pronoun.
(62) a. man gadé kò-mwen andan glas-la (M; Bernabé 2003: 174)
1s look body-1s in mirror-DEF
‘I look at myself in the mirror.’
b. mwẽ kup kò mwẽ (St. L; Carrington 1984: 74)
1s cut body 1s
‘I cut myself.’
c. tire kò ou! (M; Bernabé 2003: 176)
move body 2s
‘Move yourself!’
d. amize kò u (St. L; Carrington 1984: 170)
enjoy body 2s
‘Enjoy yourself!’
e. Pòl té kwè Jak té ka (Gu/M;
Paul PAST believe Jack PAST PROG Gadelii 1997: 226)
lavé kò a-y
wash body to-3s
‘Paul believed that Jacques washed himself.’
f. misie a kupe kò i (St. L; Carrington 1984: 74)
man DEF cut body 3s 121
‘The man cut himself.’
4 (63) a. an ka gadé mwen adan glas-la (Gu; Bernabé 1983: 919)
Pronouns 1s PRES look 1s in mirror-DEF
‘I am looking at myself in the mirror.’
b. mwen blésé mwen (Gu; Damoiseau 2003: 45)
1s hurt 1s
‘I hurt myself.’
c. i ka gadé-y (Gu/M; Gadelii 1997: 225)
3s PROG look-3s
‘He’s looking at himself.’
With some verbs, usually intransitive, a body part phrase is optional: beyen
‘to bathe’, poze ‘to rest’, lave ‘to wash’, and so on.
(64) a. sé timanmay-la ka benyen kò (M; Bernabé 2003: 95)

DEM child-DEF PRES bathe body
yo adan lariviè-a
3p in river-DEF
‘The children are bathing in the river.’
b. sé timanmay-la ka benyen adan lariviè-a (M; Bernabé
DEM child-DEF PRES bathe in river-DEF 2003: 95)
‘The children are bathing in the river.’
It is clear from these examples that the use of a body part phrase to express
reflexivity is much more productive in these creoles than it is in the IOC.
When translated into the IOC, the examples in (63) and (64) have a bare
object pronoun rather than the compound ‘kor’ combined with a pronoun.
(65) a. mo ti get mwa/*mo lekor dan laglas (IOC)

1s PAST look 1s 1s body in mirror
‘I looked at myself in the mirror.’
b. ban zanfan la pe beyn zot/*zot lekor dan larivier (IOC)
PLU child DEF PROG bathe 3p 3p body in river
‘The children are having a wash in the river.’
Martinican, like Haitian Creole, then, generally uses the body part reflexive
phrases to express reflexivity. Guadeloupean, on the other hand, only uses
bare pronouns, which is rather surprising given how close these two dialects
(creoles) are to each other.
4.3.4.4 Reflexive pronouns in Guyanese and Karipuna

Guyanese and Karipuna, just like Haitian and Martinican, also use body part
phrases to express reflexivity. The only difference here is that these two cre-
oles place the body part noun after the possessive determiner. This is consis-
122 tent with the way they use their possessive determiners.
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(66) a. mó veyé mó kò (G; Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy 1972: 101) Pronouns in
1s watch 1s body the French
‘I watch myself.’ creoles
b. li levé só kò (G; Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy 1972: 101)
3s raise 3s body
‘He is getting up.’
(67) a. mo bat mo kó (K; Tobler 1983: 54)

1s hit 1s body
‘I hit myself.’
b. li ka lave so kó (K; Tobler 1983: 54)
1s PROG wash 3s body
‘He is washing himself.’
Interestingly, both languages can also combine a personal pronoun with the
reflexive suffix -mem ‘self’ to express a reflexive/anaphoric relation between
object and subject, although this suffix may also have an emphasising role,
as shown in (68b).
(68) a. mó ka tué mó mem (G; Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy

1s PRES kill 1s self 1972: 101)
‘I am going to kill myself.’
b. mó ké fè sa mó mem (G; Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy
1s PRES do that 1s self 1972: 101)
‘I’ll do that myself.’
Karipuna also has an emphatic (reflexive) pronoun in the form of personal

pronoun followed by -mém, as in the following.
(69) mo axte-l pu mo mém (K; Tobler 1983: 54)

1s buy 3s for 1s self
‘I bought it for myself.’
4.3.4.5 Reflexive pronouns in Louisiana Creole

Unlike all the other creoles, Louisiana Creole does not use either bare pro-
nouns or the reflexive body part phrase with kó/kor ‘body’ in order to express
reflexivity, although it may have had such a construction at an earlier point.
Neumann (1985: 260) gives an example from Mercier (1880: 16, 19): fo mo
grouyé mo cor ‘I must remove myself’. Reflexivity is expressed instead by
combining mèm ‘-self’ with personal pronouns: mo-mèm ‘myself’, to-mèm
‘yourself’, li-mèm ‘himself/herself/itself’, nou-mèm ‘ourselves’, zo-mèm
‘yourselves’, and ye-mèm ‘themselves’. These are strikingly similar to the
reflexive pronouns in the IOC, except that the third person plural reflexive 123
4 is zot-mem and not ye-mem. The pronoun ye (or its phonetic variants) is
Pronouns restricted to the French creoles of the Atlantic and the Americas. Here are a
few examples from Klingler (2003).
(70) a. Men moun te ENJOY ye-menm . . . (L; Klingler

but people PAST enjoy 3p-self 2003: 476)
‘But the people enjoyed themselves . . .’
b. ouzo benyen zo-menm (L; Klingler 2003: 304)
2p bathe 2p-self
‘You wash yourselves.’
c. li tchouwe li-mèm (L; Klingler 2003: 304)
3s kill 3s-self
(71) a. li fe li-mem fres pu kapab galope pli vit (L; Neumann

3s make 3s-self fresh to able run more quick 1985: 260)
‘He freshens himself so that he can run faster.’
b. Torti bẽje li-mem bjẽ (L; Neumann 1985: 260)
Tortoise wash 3s-self well
‘The tortoise washed himself well.’
c. mo pa kone komõ esplike mo-mem (L; Neumann
1s NEG know how explain 1s-self 1985: 261)
‘I don’t know how to explain myself.’
In this respect, Louisiana Creole seems similar to the IOC, which also uses
the combination of personal pronoun and reflexive -mem ‘self’, as we saw
earlier. It is also worth noting that Louisiana Creole, like the IOC, also makes
use of bare object pronouns to express reflexivity.
(72) a. li sõ pa li/li-mem bjẽ (L; Neumann 1985: 261)

3s feel NEG 3s/3s-self well
‘He doesn’t feel well.’
b. de k to te kupe twa move, . . . (L; Neumann 1985: 261)
since 2s PAST cut 2s badly
‘Since you cut yourself badly, . . .’
4.3.4.6 Reflexive pronouns in Tayo

Tayo, finally, uses mostly bare pronouns as reflexive pronouns, although zero
pronouns and reflexives which combine pronoun and the suffix -mem also
occur, but rarely (Ehrhart 1993: 170).
(73) a. kom sa nu va ale prepare nu (T; Ehrhart 1993: 170)

thus 1p go go prepare 1p
124 ‘Thus we are going to prepare ourselves.’
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b. ma defan selma (T; Ehrhart 1993: 170) Pronouns in
1s defend only the French
‘I only defend myself.’ creoles
c. la di a lja-mem (T; Ehrhart 1993: 170)
3s say to 3s-self
‘She said to herself.’
The reflexive pronoun system in Tayo looks quite close to that of the IOC,
except that it does not use body part reflexives.
Table 4.14 summarises the different types of reflexive pronouns in the French
creoles.
It is clear from the data presented in this table that most of the creoles use
one or two different ways of encoding reflexivity. The IOC appears excep-
tional in having four different ways to express this relation, although their
use of body part reflexives seems very limited in comparison to the other
creoles which use them.
Our survey of reflexive pronouns in the French creoles shows that there are
several ways in which a reflexive/anaphoric relation between two argu-
ments (subject and object) can be expressed: by using (a) a body part phrase
which contains a noun, either kor/kò/lekor ‘body’ or latet/tèt ‘head’, and a
personal pronoun or a possessive adjective/determiner which matches the
subject antecedent in person and number, (b) a bare personal pronoun, (c) a
compound element containing a personal pronoun matching the antecedent
in person and number and the reflexive suffix -mem ‘self’, and (d) a null
object pronoun, as is the case with inherently reflexive verbs. With the
exception of Louisiana, Guadeloupean, and Tayo, all the other French cre-
oles make use of a body part phrase, although here a clear difference exists
Table 4.14 Reflexive pronouns in the French creoles
Body part Bare pronoun Pronoun + mem Zero pronoun
IOC yes yes yes yes

H yes yes no no
M yes no no yes
Gua no yes no no
St. L yes no no no
G yes yes no no
K yes no no no
L no yes yes no
T no yes yes (rare) yes
125
4 between the IOC on the one hand and Haitian, Martinican, St. Lucian,
Pronouns Guyanese, and Karipuna on the other. The body part phrase is more common/
frequent in the latter than the former. In the Atlantic French creoles (Gua-
deloupean excepted), the body part reflexive phrase is the most common
way of expressing reflexivity. In the IOC, on the other hand, such a phrase
is available but it is used with only a few verbs. It seems overall that Loui-
siana, Guadeloupean, and Tayo may form a subgroup, while the other
creoles, with their frequent use of body part reflexives, form another sub-
group. Since French does not use body parts to express reflexivity, it seems
reasonable to assume that such reflexive forms in the French creoles stem
from their African substrates or, in the case of the IOC, from Malagasy (see
Carden 1993).
4.3.5 Impersonal/expletive pronouns in the French creoles
Let us finally turn to impersonal or expletive pronouns. These are so-called

because they lack meaning, i.e. they are semantically meaningless or non-
referential. Nevertheless, they have to be present in a clause because finite
clauses in some languages require an overt subject. In French the imper-
sonal pronoun is third person singular il ‘it’, and it occurs with impersonal
verbs, which include weather verbs faire chaud/froid (lit. make hot/cold),
the modal verb falloir ‘need/ought to’, the existential verb avoir ‘have’, and
so on.
4.3.5.1 Impersonal/expletive pronouns in the IOC

French creoles also have a third person singular pronoun li, which, like
French il, can be used both referentially and non-referentially. However,
when used as an expletive, the pronoun is always optional with some verbs
(e.g. weather verbs, raising verbs, and adjectives) but obligatorily absent with
others (e.g. existential verbs, time-indicating verbs). The following examples
illustrate these pronouns in the IOC.
(74) a. (li) pe fer byen so zordi

3s PROG make very hot today
‘It’s very hot today.’
b. (li) pu fer soley dimen
3s FUT make sun tomorrow
‘It will be sunny tomorrow.’
(75) a. (li) posib zot pa lakaz

3s possible 3p NEG home
‘It’s possible they are not at home.’
126
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b. (li) kapav zot pe dormi Pronouns in
3s able 3s PROG sleep the French
‘It’s possible they are in bed.’ creoles
c. (li) paret Zan bye ris
3s appear John very rich
‘It appears that John is very rich.’
d. fode/fale pa zot tus sa
must NEG 3p touch that
‘It is necessary that you do not touch that.’ (‘You mustn’t
touch that.’)
(76) a. ena enn zelev ki pe atann so profeser

have one student REL PROG wait 3s teacher
‘There’s one student who is waiting for his teacher.’
b. p’ ena personn pu ed li
NEG have nobody to help 3s
‘There is no one to help him.’
c. (li) p’ ankor siz er
3s NEG yet six hour
‘It’s not six o’clock yet.’
Placing li in the subject position of the main clause in (76a) results in a dif-
ferent construction altogether because the subject pronoun gets a referential
interpretation ‘he/she’ and the verb gets a possessional reading. In other
words, it ceases to have an existential reading with an expletive subject pro-
noun. This is also the case with (76b) if the pronoun li is placed in subject
position. The pronoun gets a referential interpretation and the verb ceases to
be existential and becomes possessional, meaning ‘he/she doesn’t have any-
one to help him/here’. It seems that to retain their existential reading, the
verbs in (76a) and (76b) have to remain subject-less.
4.3.5.2 Impersonal/expletive pronouns in Haitian

Haitian Creole also makes use of the impersonal or expletive pronoun li ‘it’
in similar contexts, e.g. with modal verb fòk/ifo/fò ‘necessary’, existential
verb gen ‘have’, raising verb sanble ‘seem’, manke ‘lack’, and adjectives such
as posib ‘possible’ and bon ‘good’. This pronoun is optional in some of these
contexts but obligatory in others, and, in this, it is somewhat different to the
distribution of the expletive li in the IOC. The following illustrates the use
of this pronoun in Haitian.
(77) a. fòk ou rété (H; Valdman 1978: 226)

must 2p stay
‘You must stay.’ 127
4 b. gen youn poul nan lakou-a (H; Valdman 1978: 198)
Pronouns have one hen in yard-DEF
‘There is one hen in the yard.’
c. (li) sanble Jan te malad (H; Lefebvre 1998: 259)
it seem John PERF sick
‘It seems John has been sick.’
d. li manke sèl nan soup la (H; Lefebvre 1998: 264)
it lack salt in soup DEF
‘There lacks salt in the soup.’
e. li posib pou Jan vini (H; Lefebvre 1998: 261)
it possible for John come
‘It’s possible that John will come.’
The pronoun is absent (or phonologically null) with the modal verb (77a)
and the existential verb (77b), and that is what we also find in the IOC. It is
optionally present with the raising verb sanble in (77c) but obligatory with
manke and the raising adjective posib, (77d) and (77e), respectively. The
distribution of this pronoun with raising verbs and adjectives in the IOC is
actually different; it is possible to leave it out: mank disel dan lasup la (lit.
lack salt in soup the) ‘salt is lacking in the soup’ and posib Zan pu vini (lit.
possible John will come) ‘it’s possible John will come’.
With weather verbs, their subjects are generally lexical nouns (Lefebvre 1998:
251), although Gadelii (1997: 212) has an example in which the subject is
null, a possibility which also exists in the IOC.
(78) a. lapli tonbe (H; Lefebvre 1998: 251)

rain fall
‘It rains.’
b. yon ti – van vante (H; Lefebvre 1998: 251)
a little wind blow
‘It’s windy.’
c. fè fret (H; Gadelii 1997: 212)
make cold
‘It’s cold.’
The use of a lexical noun as the subject of a weather verb is also common in
the IOC, as shown in the following.
(79) a. lapli pe tonbe

rain PROG fall
‘It’s raining.’
b. zekler finn tape
lightning PERF hit
128 ‘There was lightning.’
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It is also possible to have constructions with the same meaning but with- Pronouns in
out the use of a weather verb. Instead the existential verb ena ‘to have’ is the French
used. creoles
(80) a. ena lapli

have rain
‘It’s raining.’ (There is rain)
b. ena loraz
have thunder
‘It’s thundering.’ (There is thunder)
c. ena divan
have wind
‘It’s windy.’ (There is wind)
What is clear here is that French creoles do not use the expletive pronoun as
the subject of weather verbs such as ‘rain’, ‘snow’, and so on. This contrasts
sharply with French, which uses the impersonal/expletive il ‘it’ obligatorily:
il pleut ‘it rains/is raining’, il neige ‘it snows/is snowing’ and so on.
4.3.5.3 Impersonal/expletive pronouns in Lesser Antillean creoles

In Lesser Antillean creoles (Martinican and Guadeloupean) the general rule
seems to be to leave out the impersonal or pleonastic/expletive pronoun with
the modal verb fok ‘necessary’, raising verbs mantjé ‘lack’ or saum ‘seem’,
and existential verb ni ‘have’, although, as we see in (81c), the subject pro-
noun can be optionally present. Its use, though, may be restricted to decre-
olised varieties of these creoles (Bernabé 2003: 50).
(81) a. fok ou ba sé pou-la manjé (M; Bernabé 2003: 58)

must 2s give DEM hen-DEF eat
‘You must give that hen something to eat.’
b. mantjé anlo doktè adan péyi-tala (M; Bernabé 2003: 57)
lack a lot doctor in country-DEM
‘There is a need for many doctors in that country.’
c. (i) ka saum Piè kanyan (M; Bernabé 2003: 47)
it PRES seem Peter sick
‘It seems Peter is sick.’
d. pa ni kabann adan chanm-lan (M; Bernabé 2003: 57)
NEG have bed in room-DEF
‘There is no bed in the room.’
e. ni onlo ki vini (Gu; Damoiseau 2012: 49)
have lot who come
‘There was a lot who came.’
129
4 As to weather verbs, the situation is similar to that we found in Haitian and
Pronouns the IOC. A lexical noun is used as subject, although, according to Bernabé
(2003: 24), the impersonal/expletive pronoun may be possible in mesolectal
varieties, as show (82b).
(82) a. lapli ka tonbé (M; Bernabé 2003: 24)

rain PRES fall
b. i ka plé (M; Bernabé 2003: 24)
it PRES rain
Generally, it seems that there may be a tendency to avoid the impersonal

pronouns, at least in the basilectal varieties.
Surprisingly, St. Lucian Creole appears to require the impersonal, pleonastic/

expletive subject pronoun with those verbs which in Martinican and Guadelou-
pean do not require it. In particular, the existential verb ni ‘to be’, the raising predi-
cate sam ‘to seem’ and sètẽ ‘to be certain’, and temporal complements can occur
with this pronoun. Note that the weather verb in (83e) has a noun as its subject.
(83) a. i ni plizie ti mulẽ isi (St. L; Carrington 1984: 113)

3s have several small mill here
‘There are several small mills here.’
b. i sam jo kaj deŝire i (St. L; Carrington 1984: 113)
3s seem 3p FUT tear 3s
‘It seems that they will tear it up.’
c. i pa sètẽ . . . (St. L; Carrington 1984: 126)
3s NEG certain
‘It is not definite . . .’
d. i te katr è (St. L; Carrington 1984: 116)
3s PAST four o’clock
‘It was four o’clock.’
e. lapli ka tõbe (St. L; Carrington 1984: 106)
rain PRES fall
‘Rain is falling (it is raining).’
Notice that the existential verb ni in (83a) retains its existential meaning
when the impersonal pronoun is used. This contrasts sharply with the situa-
tion in the other creoles (e.g. the IOC), where the presence of this pronoun
forces a change in the meaning of the verb from existential to possessional.
4.3.5.4 Impersonal/expletive pronouns in Guyanese and Karipuna

Looking at the same set of verbs and adjectives in Guyanese and Karipuna,
130 we find some similarities in the distribution of the impersonal, pleonastic/
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expletive pronoun. In Guyanese, this pronoun is obligatorily absent with the Pronouns in
modal verb expressing necessity, fo/fodha ‘must/is necessary’, and optional the French
with the existential verb gen/gã ‘have’. With weather adjectives, e.g. cho creoles
‘hot’, the subject pronoun is present, but with weather verbs, e.g. tonbé ‘to
fall’, it is replaced with a lexical noun.
(84) a. fo to koupé to zong (G; Damoiseau 2003: 85)

must 2s cut 2s nail
‘You must cut your nails.’
b. (i) gen moun? (G; Damoiseau 2003: 82)
3s have person
‘Is there someone?’
c. i ka fè cho (G; Damoiseau 2003: 82)
3s PRES make hot
‘It’s hot.’
d. lapli ka tonbé (G; Damoiseau 2003: 82)
rain PRES fall
Karipuna also does not require a subject pronoun with the verb expressing
necessity, fodha, or with existential verbs such as gã ‘have’, hete ‘stay’, but it
does require one with a temporal predicate or a verb such as bay ‘give’, which
also expresses existence or time in this creole.
(85) a. fodha u fé sa djime (K; Tobler 1983: 52)

must 2s do that tomorrow
‘You must do that tomorrow.’
b. gã mãyok la batxi? (K; Tobler 1983: 10)
have manioc there field
‘Is there manioc in the field?’
c. pa hete bakóv (K; Tobler 1983: 54)
NEG stay banana
‘There are no bananas.’
d. li bay moun (K; Tobler 1983: 27)
3s give people
‘There were enough people (for the job).’
e. li deha bay sẽk é (K; Tobler 1983: 59)
it already give five hour
‘It’s already five o’clock.’
f. li te bonó (K; Tobler 1983: 32)
3s PAST early
‘It was early.’
g. lapli tõbe tu nanwit (K; Tobler 1983: 56)
rain fall all night
‘It was raining all night.’ 131
4 4.3.5.5 Impersonal/expletive pronouns in Louisiana Creole
Pronouns
Louisiana Creole has a modal verb, fo/ifo/fale/fodre ‘is necessary/have to’.
Ifo looks like a fused morpheme, combining a reduced form of the imper-
sonal, pleonastic/expletive pronoun li ‘it’ and the modal verb fo ‘must’. The
pronoun has become an integral part of the lexical make-up of the verb,
although Neumann (1985: 273) notes that the occurrence of the morpheme
i is rare. This fusion of the pronoun and the modal verb reminds us of the
fusion in the French creoles of the French articles to nouns: lamen ‘hand’,
lavil ‘town’, disan ‘blood’, and so on, and it would not be unreasonable to
assume that the impersonal, pleonastic/expletive pronoun is now lacking
with this modal verb.
(86) a. ifo mon mon pèy 25 PERCENT (L; Klingler 2003: 311)
must 1s 1s pay 25 PERCENT
‘I must pay twenty-five percent.’
b. fo kupe zerb-la (L; Neumann 1985: 273)
must cut grass-DEF
‘The grass must be mowed.’
c. fo li vjẽ aster (L; Neumann 1985: 265)
must 3s come now
‘He must come now.’
d. fale mo kit la (L; Neumann 1985: 274)
must 1s leave here
‘I must leave (my piece of land).’
e. fodre mo gon (L; Neumann 1985: 274)
must 1s gone
‘I should have gone.’
The other context in which the impersonal, pleonastic/expletive pronoun is

missing is with the existential verb ena(n)/ina/na/enave ‘to have’.
(87) a. depwa . . . ena ki gro, ena ki ti piti (L; Klingler

Peas have which big, have which small 2003: 308)
‘Peas . . . there are some which are big and there are some
which are small.’
b. ina pa lekòl pou kreyol . . . (L; Klingler 2003: 307)
have NEG school for creole . . .
enan lekòl pou franse
have school for French
‘There’s no school for Creole, (but) there’s school for French.’
c. na tuzur zõ ki kõprõ pa (L; Neumann
have always people who understand NEG 1985: 181)
‘There are always people who don’t understand.’
132
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d. ena pre diz an li mouri (L; Klingler 2003: 308) Pronouns in
have about ten year 3s die the French
‘It’s about ten years since he died.’ creoles
The other existential verb in Louisiana Creole is gen/gẽ ‘have’, but, according
to Klingler (2003: 309), it occurs more frequently with an impersonal pro-
noun, e.g. ye/je ‘they’, than without it.
(88) a. ye gen de kalite demi (L; Klingler 2003: 309)

3p have two kind berry
‘They have two kinds of berries.’ (There are two kinds of berries)
b. je te gẽ de nom nwar la – la (L; Neumann
3p PAST have two man black DEF there 1985: 134)
‘There were two black men.’
c. te gen en vye fòm ye (L; Klingler 2003: 309)
PAST have an old woman 3s
te pel li Madòm
PAST call 3s Madam
‘There was an old woman they called Madam.’
d. i bije gen en trou andan li (L; Klingler 2003: 309)
‘There must be a hole in it.’
The last example is interesting in that it shows that the impersonal, pleonas-
tic/expletive subject need not be the plural ye but can also be the singular i
‘it’. This, however, may not be common. It may also be noted here that
Lousiana Creole uses another impersonal, pleonastic/expletive pronoun,
se/sa ‘it’, possibly from French ça, with raising verb gard/som ‘appear/seem’
and weather predicates’.
(89) a. sa gard kom si li malad (L; Neumann 1985: 275)

it look like if 3s sick
‘It seems that he’s sick.’
b. sa som kom si li malad (L; Neumann 1985: 275)
it seem like if 3s sick
‘It seems that he’s sick.’
(90) a. sa fe ŝo (L; Neumann 1985: 180)

it make hot
‘It’s hot.’
b. se te fe ŝo jer (L; Neumann 1985: 180)
it PAST make hot yesterday
‘It was hot yesterday.’
133
4 4.3.5.6 Impersonal/expletive pronouns in Tayo
Pronouns
Finally, Tayo too has an impersonal, pleonastic/expletive pronoun, namely
i ‘it’, and it occurs optionally with the modal verb fo (< Fr faut) ‘must/
should’, obligatorily with weather predicates, and never with the existential
na ‘have’.
(91) a. fo pa ke ta fe sa (T; Ehrhart 1993: 174)

must NEG that 2s do that
‘You mustn’t do that.’
b. i fo pa fe kom sa . . . (T; Ehrhart 1993: 193)
3s must NEG do like that
‘You mustn’t do (it) like that . . .’
c. na pa kelka (T; Ehrhart 1993: 143)
have NEG someone
‘There is no one.’
d. tro difisil mafa-la (T; Ehrhart 1993: 170)
too difficult thing-DEF
‘It’s too difficult, that thing.’
e. le fe frwa (T; Ehrhart 1993: 137)
3s make cold
‘It’s cold.’
Table 4.15 summarises the distribution of impersonal, pleonastic/expletive

pronouns in the French creoles.
Although not quite fully complete, it is clear from this table that the French
creoles generally tend to leave out the impersonal/expletive pronoun when it
occurs with modal and existential verbs but not with raising predicates,
Table 4.15 Distribution of the impersonal, pleonastic/expletive pronouns in the

French creoles
Modal Existential Raising Weather

verb verb predicate verb
IOC no no possible possible

H no no possible no
M no no possible no
Gua no no possible no
St. L ? yes yes yes
G no possible ? yes
K no no ? yes
L no no possible possible
T possible no no yes
134
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weather verbs, or temporal complements. However, a few creoles also prefer Concluding
no subject with these verbs. remarks
The pronoun systems of the French creoles clearly derive their different pro-
nouns (personal, demonstrative, possessive, reflexive, and impersonal/
expletive) from French or some varieties thereof. The personal and demon-
strative pronoun systems are clearly numerically simpler in comparison to
the French systems, and this simplicity may be attributed to the loss of mor-
phological gender and number marking in the creoles. As far as the possessive
pronoun systems are concerned, they appear to depart quite significantly
from the French model. They appear to use complex forms in comparison to
the simplex French forms mien(s), mienne(s), and so on. They all combine
the personal pronoun or the possessive determiner with some other element,
e.g. a preposition, pu (pu mwa ‘for me’/‘mine’), as in the IOC and Tayo; with
a noun, pa (mo pa/pa mwen ‘my share’/‘mine’), as in Guyanese, Karipuna,
and Haitian; with a demonstrative pronoun, ta(n) mwen and sa (a) mwen
‘mine’ and sa (a) mwẽ ‘mine’ in the Lesser Antillean creoles; and with a form
derived from the French possessive pronoun kèn or tchèn (mokèn/motchèn
‘mine’ < Fr tien(ne)). The French creoles also vary in terms of their reflexive
pronouns. Most of them use a body part to express reflexivity, the exceptions
here being Guadeloupean, Louisiana, and Tayo. These creoles instead use
bare pronouns. Other creoles also use bare pronouns, but not Martinican,
St. Lucian, and Karipuna. The IOC, Tayo, Louisiana also combine a pronoun
with -mem ‘self’, and only the IOC and Tayo can also express reflexivity with
a zero pronoun, e.g. with verbs which are inherently reflexive. The last type
of pronoun discussed here is the impersonal, pleonastic/expletive one, and it
seems clear that this is generally omitted in the creoles, perhaps with the pos-
sible exception of St. Lucian Creole.
135
Chapter 5
Adjectives
5.0 Introduction
This chapter deals with adjectives in the French creoles. After briefly outlining
adjectives in English and French, it considers the positions that adjectives occupy
inside the phrase and the clause. Their positions, as we will see, are generally
determined by their semantics. It also examines nominal phrases where two or
more adjectives occur and looks at the restrictions on their ordering in the light
of Cinque’s (1994) adjective ordering hierarchy. This chapter also compares the
French creoles to establish how they express comparison. Finally, it considers
adjective reduplication, a phenomenon which is common in the French creoles.
5.1 General
Adjectives are traditionally taken to be words which ‘describe’ an entity,

e.g. happy child, tall building, hot water, and so on. These can occur on their
own as predicative adjectives in a clause, e.g. that child is happy, this water is
hot, and so on. In such cases, a property is being predicated of the subject NP.
Adjectives can also occur inside a nominal expression where it modifies the entity
denoted by the noun, e.g. a happy child, a tall building, some hot water, and so
on. In such examples the adjectives are attributive and occupy a pre-nominal
position. But some attributive adjectives can also occupy a post-nominal posi-
tion, although this possibility is rather limited in English, e.g. court-martial,
governor-general, president-elect, and perhaps restricted to noun-adjective com-
pounds. In French, as we will see, the placement of adjectives after nouns is much
more common but restricted to adjectives of certain semantic types, e.g. colour,
shape, nationality, and so on. There are also some adjectives in both English and
French which can occur in pre-nominal and post-nominal position, and the dif-
136 ference in their position in relation to the noun often leads to a change in
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meaning, e.g. un gros fumeur ‘a heavy smoker’ and un fumeur gros ‘a fat smoker’ Adjectives
or the visible stars ‘the stars which are visible at the moment’ or the stars visible in French
‘the stars which are in principle visible from here’.
An important morphological property of adjectives in English, although not

restricted to adjectives, is that many of them can be inflected to express their
comparative and superlative forms, e.g. tall – taller – tallest, nice – nicer –
nicest, and so on. But not all adjectives are able to display such forms, e.g.
intelligent, beautiful, amongst others. The comparative and superlative forms
of such adjectives require the adverbs more and most, respectively, to com-
bine with them, e.g. more intelligent, more beautiful, most intelligent, most
beautiful, and so on. As we will see, this is also the way French and some
French creoles express their comparative and superlative adjectives.
Adjectives can occur by themselves and can function as the head of a phrase.
Such phrases can also contain dependents, either modifiers or complements,
e.g. she is very kind, you are absolutely right, and so on, where kind and right
are heads and very and absolutely are adverbial modifiers within the predica-
tive adjectival phrases. In addition to modifiers, an adjectival phrase can also
contain a complement of the head adjective, e.g. she is very fond of her
teacher; they are rather keen on deep-sea fishing. Here of her teacher and on
deep-sea fishing are the complements of the heads fond and keen, respectively.
But complements of adjectives are not restricted to prepositional phrases; they
can also be clauses, both finite and non-finite, e.g. I am sure I saw Bill at the
meeting; the students are keen to protest. The complement of sure is finite,
whilst that of keen is non-finite. As we will see, similar modification and
complementation patterns are possible in both French and French creoles.
5.2 Adjectives in French
Adjectives in French, as in other languages, can have different functions.

They can be modifiers, heads, or complements to heads of other categories.
Additionally, like adjectives in English, they can be used both attributively
inside a nominal phrase (une petite maison ‘a small house’) and predicatively
inside a clause (cette maison est trop petite ‘that house is too small’).
5.2.1 Adjectives as modifiers
As modifiers, adjectives in French can be positioned pre-nominally, post-

nominally, and both pre-nominally and post-nominally inside a noun phrase.
Most adjectives, consistent with the head-initial status of French phrases,
tend to occur after the noun, although a number of them are restricted to 137
5 pre-nominal position and a few are allowed in both pre-nominal and post-
Adjectives nominal positions.
5.2.1.1 Post-nominal adjectives

French adjectives are generally placed after the noun if they denote colour (1),
nationality (2), shape (3), religious affiliation (4), and origin (time and place) (5).
(1) a. une chemise verte

a shirt green
‘a green shirt’
b. une voiture blanche
a car white
‘a white car’
(2) a. une fille chinoise

a girl chinese
‘a Chinese girl’
b. un président américain
a president American
‘an American President’
(3) a. une table ronde

a table round
‘a round table’
b. un batîment carré
a building square
‘a square building’
(4) a. une femme chrétienne

a woman christian
‘a Christian woman’
b. un ami juif
a friend Jewish
‘a Jewish friend’
(5) a. des églises normandes

some church Norman
‘Norman churches’
b. les voitures japonaises
the car Japanese
‘Japanese cars’
It is also possible to find certain verbs in their participial form in post-nominal

138 position. However, they function as adjectives.
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(6) a. un voyage fatigant Adjectives
a journey tiring in French
‘a tiring journey’
b. une maison saisie
a house re-possessed
‘a re-possessed house’
c. les pays developés
the country developed
‘the developed countries’
5.2.1.2 Pre-nominal adjectives

Some French adjectives occur pre-nominally, such as those in (7); these tend
to be evaluative (subjective/emotive) adjectives.
(7) a. un vieux policier

an old policeman
‘an old policeman’
b. un long chemin
a long road
‘a long road’
c. une belle église
a beautiful church
‘a beautiful church’
d. un mauvais temps
a bad weather
‘a bad weather’
5.2.1.3 Pre- and post-nominal adjectives

There are some adjectives which occur both pre-nominally and post-
nominally, sometimes with a change of meaning, see (8)–(9), and sometimes
with no change in meaning, see (10).
(8) a. un grand homme

a big man
‘a famous man’
b. un homme grand
a man big
‘a tall man’
(9) a. sa propre cour

3s own courtyard
‘his/her own courtyard’ 139
5 b. une cour propre
Adjectives a courtyard clean
‘a clean courtyard’
(10) a. une charmante soirée

a charming evening
‘a pleasant evening’
b. une soirée charmante
an evening charming
‘a pleasant evening’
Pre- and post-nominal adjectives can co-occur inside a noun phrase, as seen
in (11).
(11) a. une grande maison blanche

a big house white
‘a big white house’
b. un vieux chateau hanté
an old castle haunted
‘an old haunted castle’
5.2.2 Adjective order
In French, as in other languages, a nominal expression can contain more than

one adjective, and these may be in pre-nominal or post-nominal position. In
such cases, adjectives appear to be strictly ordered in relation to each other,
as illustrated in the following examples.
(12) a. une belle grande vieille maison/*une vieille grande belle maison
a beautiful big old house
‘a beautiful big old house’
b. une jolie petite jeune fille/*une petite jeune jolie fille
a beautiful short young girl
‘a beautiful short young girl’
These examples show that evaluative or quality adjectives such as belle and
jolie must precede adjectives referring to size, grande and petite, which in
turn must precede adjectives referring to age, vieille and jeune.
Similarly, post-nominal adjectives are ordered according to some semantic

hierarchy. For instance, in (13), the adjectives expressing shape/size precede
the ones expressing colour. In (14), adjectives expressing nationality follow
140 those referring to subject fields or historical periods.
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(13) a. une table ronde blanche/*une table blanche ronde Adjectives
a table round white in French
‘a round white table’
b. une jupe courte verte/*une jupe verte courte
a skirt short green
‘a short green skirt’
(14) a. une délégation économique Japonaise/*une délégation

Japonaise économique
a delegation economic Japanese
‘a Japanese economic delegation’
b. des églises médiévales françaises/*des églises françaises
médiévales
some church medieval French
‘French medieval churches’
According to Sproat and Shih (1991) and Cinque (1994), among others,
when two or more adjectives occur in pre- or post-nominal position, they are
ordered in accordance with an adjective ordering hierarchy like the
following:
Evaluative > Size > Shape > Age > Colour > Provenance
This ordering can be seen in the following phrase those beautiful tiny round
blue Japanese plates. In this example the evaluative adjective beautiful pre-
cedes the size adjective tiny, which in turn precedes the shape adjective round,
which in turn precedes the colour adjective blue, which in turn precedes the
provenance or nationality adjective Japanese. Similar ordering restriction
holds in French une belle grande vieille maison ‘a beautiful big old house’, in
which the evaluative adjective belle ‘beautiful’ precedes the size adjective
grande ‘big’, which in turn precedes the age adjective vieille ‘old’.
5.2.3 Agreement between adjectives and nouns
French adjectives, unlike those in English and French creoles, display gen-
der and number agreement with the noun they modify inside a noun
phrase. In (15) the form of the pre-nominal and post-nominal adjective
varies with the gender of the head noun. The nouns voiture (15a) and robe
(15c) are feminine, whilst the nouns train (15b) and pantalon (15d) are
masculine; the adjectives, accordingly, display their feminine form (15a, c)
and the masculine form (15b, d). In (16) gender is invariant, but number
marking on the adjectives changes from singular (16a, c) to plural (16b,
d). Notice that the determiner also shows gender and number agreement. 141
5 It should be noted, however, that such gender and number agreement may
Adjectives generally be confined to written French and may not apply in speech.
(15) a. une belle voiture

a nice car
‘a nice car’
b. un beau train
a nice train
‘a nice train’
c. une robe verte
a dress green
‘a green dress’
d. un pantalon vert
a trousers green
‘a pair of green trousers’
(16) a. un principe générale

a principle general
‘a general principle’
b. des principes généraux
some principle general
‘general principles’
c. une voiture allemande
a car German
‘a German car’
d. des voitures allemandes
some car German
‘German cars’
Where adjectives are stacked inside the noun phrase either in pre- or post-
nominal position, each adjective displays gender and number agreement with
the noun, as shown in examples in (17) and (18).
(17) a. la première petite maison

the first small house
‘the first small house’
b. le premier petit bateau
the first small boat
‘the first small boat’
(18) a. les dernières belles maisons

the last beautiful house
‘the last beautiful houses’
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b. les derniers petits bateaux Adjectives
the last small boat in French
‘the last small boats’
It may be noted here that such agreement holds not only between attributive
adjectives and the nouns they modify but also between predicative adjectives
and the nouns or noun phrases of which they are predicated.
(19) a. Ce garҫon est très méchant

this boy be very naughty
‘This boy is very naughty.’
b. Cette fille est très méchante
this girl be very naughty
‘This girl is very naughty.’
(20) a. Ces garҫons sont très méchants

these boys are very naughty
‘These boys are very naughty.’
b. Ces filles sont très méchantes
these girls are very naughty
‘These girls are very naughty.’
5.2.4 Adjectives as heads and complements
As we have seen, adjectives in French, as in other languages, can function not

only as modifiers but also as heads, i.e. when they are used predicatively.
(21) a. Cette ville est ancienne.

that town be old
‘That town is old.’
b. Ces maisons sont belles.
those houses be beautiful
‘Those houses are beautiful.’
(22) a. Cette fille paraît intelligente.

that girl appear intelligent
‘That girl appears intelligent.’
b. Ces gens semblent être paresseux.
these people seem be lazy
‘These people seem to be lazy.’
The predicative adjectives are complements to the copula verb in (21) and
the raising verb in (22), but they are all predicated of the subject NP, dis-
playing both gender and number agreement with it. Note that the 143
5 complements of the verbs in such examples are not just adjectives but also
Adjectives adjectival phrases. This becomes clear when we add a degree modifier to the
adjective ancienne in (21a) and intelligente in (22a): Cette ville est très ancienne
‘That town is very old’ and Cette fille paraît très intelligente ‘That girl appears
very intelligent.’ One reason for treating ancienne in (21a) as an adjectival
phrase rather than just an adjective is because it occupies the same position
occupied by très ancienne. That is to say, they are both in the same complement
position. Another reason for treating them in the same way is because they can
both be replaced with the same clitic pronoun, as shown in (23).
(23) a. Cette ville est ancienne mais celle-là ne l’est pas.

‘This town is ancient but that one isn’t.’
b. Cette ville est très ancienne mais celle-là ne l’est pas.
‘This town is very old but that one isn’t.’
For these reasons, it seems reasonable to say that the adjectives in (21)–(22)
as well as those in (19)–(20) are all adjectival phrases and not just
adjectives.
Adjectives can also head phrases where the dependent element is their com-
plement rather than modifier. Examples of such transitive adjectives are fac-
ile, fier, friand, and so on. Their complements can be a clause, either non-finite
as in (24a) or finite as in (24b), or a prepositional phrase, as in (24c, d).
(24) a. C’est très facile à résoudre ce problème

‘It is very easy to solve this problem.’
b. Marie est certaine que sa soeur réussira
‘Mary is sure that her sister will succeed.’
c. Elle est vraiment fière de sa réussite
‘She is very proud of her success.’
d. Les enfants sont très friands de chocolats
‘The children are very fond of chocolates.’
The complement of the copula verb in each of these examples is an AP headed

by facile, fier, certain, and friand, and these adjectives have clauses and
phrases as their complements.
5.2.5 Adjectives as nouns and adverbs
As is the case with adjectives in English, some adjectives in French can belong
to more than one category. They can be nouns (25) where they occur with
the definite article and adverbs (26) where they modify the verb and show no
agreement with the subject.
144
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(25) a. Les vieux ont pris le train et les jeunes ont pris l’autobus Adjectives in
‘The old took the train and the young took the bus.’ the French
b. Les pauvres sont toujours gentils envers les riches creoles
‘The poor are always nice to the rich.’
(26) a. Ce parfum sent bon

‘This perfume smells nice.’
b. Ses grand-pères s’habillent jeune
‘His grand-fathers dress in a youthful manner.’
5.2.6 Comparative and superlative adjectives
French expresses the comparative and superlative form of adjectives in a

periphrastic manner. English also uses this way of expressing the comparative
and superlative form of adjectives but with only a subset of adjectives. For
most of its adjectives it uses inflectional morphology. The comparative form
is expressed in French by using the adverb plus ‘more’ in front of the adjec-
tive, as in plus grande ‘taller/bigger/older’ (lit. more tall/big/old). The superla-
tive form, meanwhile, is expressed by combining it with the definite article
as in la plus grande ‘the tallest/biggest/oldest’ (lit. the more tall/big/old).
However, note the use of comparative and superlative forms such as meilleur
‘better’ and mieux ‘best’.
(27) a. Jean est plus grand que son frère

‘John is older than his brother.’
b. Cette histoire est plus amusante que l’autre
‘This story is more amusing/funnier than the other.’
(28) a. Jean est le plus grand de tous ses amis

‘John is the oldest of all his friends.’
b. Cette histoire est la plus amusante de toutes les histoires
‘This story is the most amusing/funniest of all the stories.’
5.3 Adjectives in the French creoles
Many of the adjectives that we find in French have been retained in the
French creoles, and they generally display the same patterns of distribution
found in French. Adjectives which occur in pre-nominal position in French,
e.g. quality/evaluative, size, age, etc., are also found in pre-nominal position in
the French creoles, and those which occur in post-nominal position, e.g. shape,
colour, nationality/provenance, etc., in French are also placed post-nominally
in the French creoles. These patterns of distribution are strikingly similar. 145
5 5.3.1 Post-nominal adjectives
Adjectives
Adjectives describing colour, shape, taste, nationality, religious affiliation, and
origin (temporal and locational) are placed in post-nominal position, just as
they are in French. The following examples from the IOC are illustrative.
(29) a. enn loto ruz

a car red
‘a red car’
b. enn diven blan
a wine white
‘a white wine’
(30) a. enn batiman oval

a building oval
‘an oval building’
b. enn latab ron
a table round
‘a round table’
(31) a. enn gato du

a cake sweet
‘a sweet cake’
b. enn fri eg
a fruit bitter
‘a bitter fruit’
(32) a. enn loto alman

a car German
‘a German car’
b. enn akter ameriken
an actor american
‘an American actor’
(33) a. enn film sinwa

a film chinese
‘a Chinese film’
b. enn madam fransez
a woman french
‘a French woman’
(34) a. enn batiman colonial

a building colonial
146 ‘a colonial building’
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b. bann bizu medieval Adjectives in
PLU jewellery medieval the French
‘medieval jewellery’ creoles
Other French creoles, as expected, also have these attributive adjectives in

post-nominal position, as demonstrated in the following examples.
(35) a. viann-sa-a-salé salé (H; Valdman 1978: 204)

meat-DEM-DEF-salty salty
‘that very salty meat’
b. youn ti wòb jòn (H; Valdman 1978: 187)
a little skirt yellow
‘a little yellow skirt’
c. yon pom pouri (H; Lefebvre 1998: 341)
a apple rotten
‘a rotten apple’
d. bagay ron (H; Fattier and Sörés 1999: 52)
thing round
‘a round thing’
(36) a. flè rouj (M; Bernabé 2003: 207)

flower red
‘red flowers’
b. boug bab blan an (M; Bernabé 2003: 211)
man beard white DEF
‘the man with the white beard’
c. mi boug tèbè-a (M; Bernabé 2003: 271)
see chap idiot-DEF
‘Here’s the stupid chap.’
(37) a. loto blan an (G; Damoiseau 2003: 39)

car white DEF
‘the white car’
b. oun tab ron (G; Damoiseau 2003: 40)
a table round
‘a round table’
c. touris kanadien yan (G; Damoiseau 2003: 40)
tourist Canadian DEF
‘the Canadian tourists’
(38) a. zyè gri (L; Klingler 2003: 205)

eye grey
‘grey eyes’
b. to chapo nef (L; Klingler 2003: 205)
2s hat new
‘your new hat’ 147
5 c. en gro vye bros plat (L; Klingler 2003: 205)
Adjectives a big old brush flat
‘a big, old, flat paintbrush’
d. ẽ divõ for (L; Neumann 1985: 144)
a wind strong
‘a strong wind’
(39) a. xemiz blã la (K; Tobler 1983: 63)

shirt white DEF
‘the white shirt’
b. ane pase (K; Tobler 1983: 63)
year last
‘last year’
5.3.2 Pre-nominal adjectives
Adjectives describing age, size, and those which are evaluative (subjective or
emotive) tend to occur pre-nominally, just like they do in French. The follow-
ing examples are from the IOC.
(40) a. enn vie zom

an old man
‘an old man’
b. enn zenn garson
a young boy
‘a young boy’
(41) a. enn gran lakaz

a big house
‘a big house’
b. enn ti bis
a little bus
‘a tiny bus’
(42) a. enn bon diven

a good wine
‘a good wine’
b. sa bann move zanfan la
DEM PLU naughty child DEF
‘those naughty children’
However, when these same adjectives are modified by intensifying modifiers,

such as byen ‘very’, telman ‘so’, tro ‘too much’, ase ‘enough’, pli ‘more’, their natural
148
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position seems to be post-nominal. They are probably best described as relative Adjectives in
modifiers with an optional relative marker/complementiser: enn zanfan (ki) byen the French
move ‘a child (who is) very naughty’, enn baton (ki) pli long ‘a stick (which is) creoles
longer’. Modified post-nominal adjectives functioning as relative modifiers are
quite common in some languages, e.g. Indonesian (Dryer 2007: 18).
(43) a. *enn byen move zanfan

a very naughty child
‘a very naughty child’
b. enn zanfan byen move
a child very naughty
‘a very naughty child’
(44) a. ?enn pli long baton

a more long stick
‘a longer stick’
b. enn baton pli long
a stick more long
‘a longer stick’
Examples of pre-nominal adjectives in the other French creoles are given

here. Note that these belong to the same semantic categories, namely evalu-
ative, size, and age.
(45) a. youn bèl tifi (H; Valdman 1978: 187)

a pretty girl
‘a pretty girl’
b. dé piti kannòt (H; Valdman 1978: 187)
two small fishing boats
‘two small fishing boats’
c. ũ žẽn ti garsõ (H; Lefebvre 1982b: 26)
a young small child
‘a small young child’
(46) a. an pov boug (M; Bernabé 2003: 213)

a poor chap
‘a poor chap’
b. an gwo moun (M; Bernabé 2003: 213)
a big person
‘an important person’
c. an vié ti kay (M; Bernabé 2003: 213)
an old small house
‘a small old house’
149
5 d. an bon vié kanmarad (M; Bernabé 2003: 274)
Adjectives a good old friend
‘a good old friend’
e. on gran gason (Gu; Damoiseau 2012: 36)
a big boy
‘a big boy’
f. gwo pwason-lasa (Gu; Damoiseau 2012: 36)
big fish-DEM
‘that big fish’
g. bèl bwa pẽ (St. L; Carrington 1984: 76)
fine wood bread
‘fine breadfruit’
h. se zèn mun na (St. L; Carrington 1984: 76)
the young person DEF
‘the young folks’
(47) a. un bèl zorãž (G; Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy 1972: 113)

a beautiful orange
‘a nice orange’
b. en gro poson (G; Damoiseau 2003: 39)
a big fish
‘a big fish’
c. un grã mešã bug (G; Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy 1972: 113)
a tall naughty man
‘a naughty tall man’
(48) a. en move maladi (L; Klingler 2003: 202)
a serious illness
‘a serious illness’
b. en gron sak (L; Klingler 2003: 199)
a big sack
‘a big sack’
c. en vjé fam (L; Klingler 2003: 200)
an old woman
‘an old woman’
d. en gro vje bròs plat (L; Klingler 2003: 205)
a big old brush flat
(49) a. sa joli kaz (K: Tobler 1983: 62)

DEM pretty house
‘that pretty house’
b. mo txi só (K; Tobler 1983: 62)
1s little sister
150 ‘my little sister’
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5.3.3 Pre- and post-nominal adjectives Adjectives in
the French
creoles
A few adjectives can occur both pre- and post-nominally with no change in
meaning, as vie in (50); others, e.g. prop, however, bring about a change
in meaning; see (51)–(53).
(50) a. bann vie dimunn (IOC)

PLU old people
‘old people’
b. bann dimunn vie
PLU people old
‘old people’
(51) a. so prop lakur (IOC)

3s own courtyard
‘his/her own courtyard’
b. enn lakur prop
a courtyard clean
‘a clean courtyard’
(52) a. en gros fom (L; Neumann 1985: 138)

a big woman
‘a big woman’
b. en fom gros
a woman big
‘a pregnant woman’
(53) a. Piè sé an vié zanmi (M; Bernabé 2003: 214)

Peter be an old friend
‘Peter is an old friend.’ (long friendship)
b. Piè sé an zanmi vié
Peter be an friend old
‘Peter is a friend who is old.’ (age)
As in French, pre-nominal and post-nominal adjectives can co-occur inside

the noun phrase.
(54) a. enn gran lakaz vid (IOC)

a big house empty
‘a big empty house’
b. enn bon gato du (IOC)
a nice cake sweet
‘a nice sweet cake’
151
5 c. ũ ti garsõ žẽn (H; Lefebvre 1982b: 26)
Adjectives a little boy young
‘a little young boy’
d. youn ti wòb jòn (H; Valdman 1978: 187)
a little dress yellow
‘a little yellow dress’
e. an vié-piti-ti boutik malzorey (M; Bernabé
an old-small-small shop shabby 2003: 188)
‘a shabby small old shop’
f. õ gro mamaj ãnbetã (St. L; Carrington 1984: 76)
a big child annoying
‘a big annoying child’
g. en gro vje bròs plat (L; Klingler 2003: 205)
a big old brush flat
h. la gros mezõ zon-la se pu mwa (L; Neumann
the big house yellow-DEF be for me 1985: 144)
‘The big yellow house is mine.’
i. de gho hõx blã (K; Tobler 1983: 84)
two big rock white
‘two big white rocks’
5.3.4 Adjective order
Adjectives in the French creoles, like those in French, are linearly ordered when
they cluster inside the noun phrase, either in pre-nominal or post-nominal
position. Again the ordering is generally in accord with Cinque’s (1994)
adjective ordering hierarchy, according to which evaluative/quality/speaker-
oriented adjectives precede size adjectives, which in turn precede shape adjec-
tives, which in turn precede colour adjectives, and which in turn precede
origin/provenance adjectives. The following from the IOC are illustrative: in
(55a) the evaluative/quality adjective zoli ‘beautiful’ precedes size adjective
ti ‘small’, and in (55b) the same evaluative/quality adjective zoli precedes size
adjective long ‘long’, which in turn precedes age adjective zenn ‘young’. In
(56) the post-nominal colour adjectives ruz ‘red’ (56a) and blan ‘white’ (56b)
precede the nationality adjective zapone ‘Japanese’ (56a) and the shape adjec-
tive kare ‘square’ (56b), respectively. Reordering these adjectives, as shown
here, leads to ill-formed/unacceptable nominal expressions, assuming normal
intonation.
(55) a. enn zoli ti lisyen ??enn ti zoli lisyen (IOC)

a beautiful small dog’
152 ‘a beautiful small dog’
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b. enn zoli long zenn tifi *enn zenn zoli long tifi Adjectives in
a pretty tall young girl the French
‘a pretty tall young girl’ creoles
(56) a. enn loto ruz zapone *enn loto zapone ruz (IOC)
a car red Japanese
‘a red Japanese car’
b. enn latab blan kare *enn latab kare blan
a table white square
‘a square white table’
But exceptions to these orderings do exist, as we see in the data presented

here. In (45c) ũ žẽn ti garsõ ‘a young small child’, (46c) an vié ti kay ‘a small
old house’, and (54e) an vié-piti-ti boutik malzorey ‘a shabby small old shop’,
the size adjectives follow rather than precede the age adjective. In (47c) un
grã mešã bug ‘a naughty tall man’, the evaluative/quality adjective mešã
‘naughty’ follows rather than precedes the size adjective grã ‘tall’. Another
such example comes from Louisiana Creole, li gẽ ẽ gro bo sat blõ (lit. she get
a big beautiful cat white) ‘She’s got a beautiful big white cat’, in which the
size adjective gro ‘big’ precedes the evaluative/quality adjective bo ‘beautiful’
(Neumann 1985: 144). It is possible that such deviations are allowed because
of marked, rather than normal, intonation.
5.3.5 Adjectives as heads and complements
So far we have encountered examples in French and French creoles in which

the adjectives function as modifiers or adjuncts, whether in pre-nominal or
post-nominal position. Adjectives, like nouns and verbs, can of course also
occur on their own as heads of an adjectival expression. Such intransitive
adjectives include all the attributive adjectives listed earlier but used predica-
tively, as shown in the following examples from the IOC. Note that (57c) is
ambiguous between an attributive reading ‘her red hat’ and a predicative
reading ‘her hat is red’. Similarly, (57f) could be ambiguous between ‘her
German husband’ (as opposed to her other husband with a different national-
ity) and ‘her husband is German’. Such ambiguity does not arise in the other
examples because of the presence of the definite marker la, which brackets
off the noun on its left from the rest of the phrase or sentence.
(57) a. lavil la zoli (quality adjective)

town DEF beautiful
‘The town is beautiful.’
b. magazin la gran (size)
shop DEF big
‘The shop is big.’ 153
5 c. so sapo ruz (colour)
Adjectives 3s hat red
‘Her hat is red.’
d. latab la ron (shape)
table DEF round
‘The table is round.’
e. sa madam la bye vie (age)
DEM woman DEF very old
‘That woman is very old.’
f. so misie Alman (nationality)
3s husband German
‘Her husband is German.’
Some adjectives, however, can be followed by a complement in a way that the

adjectives listed in (57) cannot. The following examples from the IOC illustrate
this possibility.
(58) a. Zan byen kontan ki so tifi finn pas so legzamin

John very pleased that 3s daughter PERF pass 3s examination
‘John is very pleased that his daughter has passed her examination.’
b. Zan byen fier so bann zanfan
John very proud 3s PLU child
‘John is very proud of his children.’
c. li per so sef
3s afraid 3s boss
‘He’s afraid of his boss.’
d. mo sier ki li pu vini
1s sure that 3s FUT come
‘I’m sure that he will come.’
e. sa sat la parey kuman lot la
DEM cat DEF same like other DEF
‘This cat is like the other one.’
f. legzersis la bon pu fer pu sulaz duler lipie
exercise DEF good for do for ease pain leg
‘The exercise is good to do to ease leg pain.’
g. sa legzersis la pa fasil pu montre dimunn fer
DEM exercise DEF NEG easy for teach people do
‘That exercise is not easy to teach people.’
h. zot finn prese pu ale
3p PERF rush for go
‘They were in a hurry to leave.’
The adjectives kontan ‘pleased’ and sier ‘sure’ in (58a) and (58d), respectively,
154 take a declarative clause as their complements; the adjectives fier ‘proud’ in
(58b) and per ‘afraid’ in (58c) take a prepositional phrase with a null head
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preposition as their complements, while the adjective parey ‘similar’ in (58e) Adjectives in
also takes a prepositional phrase, but with an overt head. The adjective bon the French
‘good’ in (58f), fasil ‘easy’ in (58g), and prese ‘in a hurry’ in (58h) take a non- creoles
finite clause as their complements compared to sier ‘sure’ in (58d), which takes
a finite complement. As with French, the complements of adjectives in the
French creoles can be prepositional phrases (PPs) as well as clauses.
Examples of adjectival complements from other French creoles are given

in (59).
(59) a. sèten i ké pati (M; Bernabé 2003: 50)

certain 3s FUT leave
‘It is certain that he will leave.’
b. nou kontan diwè Kanmi érisi (M; Bernabé 2003: 223)
1p happy that Camille succeed
trapé bak
get baccalauréat
‘We are happy that Camille has got her baccalaureate.’
c. je pros pu gon (L; Neumann 1985: 146)
3p ready for go
‘They are about to leave.’
d. li fjer de so nuvo sar (L; Neumann 1985: 146)
3s proud of 3s new car
‘He’s proud of his new car.’
e. li trò grã pu l ap fè sa (H; Koopman and
3s too big for 3s PROG do that Lefebvre 1982: 81)
‘He’s too old to be doing that.’
f. li difisil pu m fè sa (H; Koopman and Lefebvre 1982: 70)
it difficult for 1s do that
‘It’s difficult for me to do that.’
g. mo té ké bien kontan si (G; Damoiseau 2003: 168)
1s PAST FUT very happy if
Mari-Lwiz té ka vini wè mo
Mary-Louise PAST FUT come see 1s
‘I would have been happy if Mary-Louise had come to see me.’
These examples show that adjectives in other French creoles can also take
PPs (59d), finite clauses (59a, b, g), or non-finite clauses (59c, e, f) as their
complements, just like complement-taking adjectives in French.
5.3.6 Adjectives as nouns and adverbs
It was noted earlier that some adjectives in French can also be classified as
nouns (les pauvres ‘the poor’) or adverbs (bon ‘nice’ as in ça sent bon ‘this 155
smells nice’). The same can be said to be true of some adjectives in the
5 French creoles, as shown in the following IOC examples: they function as
Adjectives nouns in (60a–d) and as adverbs in (60e–g). Notice that the nominal status
of the adjectives can be inferred from the fact that they occur with the
plural marker bann or numerals such as trwa ‘three’ and enn ‘one’, and
they can be followed by the specificity/definiteness marker la ‘the’.
(60) a. bann ris bizen ed bann pov

PLU rich must help PLU poor
‘The rich must help the poor.’
b. bann ruz finn perdi
PLU red PERF lose
‘The Reds have lost.’
c. ena trwa grand ek enn tipti
be three big and one small
‘There are three big ones and a small one.’
d. met bann vie la laba
put PLU old DEF there
‘Put the old ones there!’
e. manze la santi bon (cf. enn bon manze)
food DEF smell nice a nice food
‘The food smells nice.’ ‘a nice meal’
f. kriye for (cf. enn lavwa for)
shout loudly a voice loud
‘Shout loudly!’ ‘a loud voice’
g. semiz la kut ser (cf. enn semiz ser)
shirt DEF cost expensive a shirt expensive
‘That shirt is expensive.’ ‘an expensive shirt’
A few examples from other creoles are given in (61).
(61) a. piti a (St. L; Carrington 1984: 63)

little DEF
‘the little one’
b. pli gro a (St. L; Carrington 1984: 75)
more big DEF
‘the bigger one’
c. i pwan sé pli gwo la/a (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 936)
3s take PLU more big DEF
‘He took the biggest ones.’
5.3.7 Comparative and superlative adjectives
Unlike English, which in general uses inflection for comparative and superla-
156 tive form of adjectives (tall, taller, tallest), French, as we saw earlier, uses the
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adverb modifier plus ‘more’ to express comparison and a combination of the Adjectives in
definite article le/la and this adverb for superlative adjectives, e.g. le plus fort the French
‘the strongest’. French creoles have two ways of expressing comparison, creoles
namely the adverb pli/plis (< Fr plus) ‘more’ and the verb pase (< Fr dépasser
‘to surpass’). A few creoles, e.g. the IOC, Martinican, and Louisiana, use the
former while others, e.g. Haitian, St. Lucian, and Karipuna, use the verb pase
together with pli/pi or ki ‘than’. Guyanese, however, appears to use both. The
following examples illustrate this difference between these two groups of
creoles.
(62) a. li pli gran ki mwa (IOC)

3s more big than 1s
‘He’s taller/older than me.’
b. so lakaz pli piti ki pu twa (IOC)
3s house more small than for 2s
‘His house is smaller than yours.’
(63) a. kourè-tala pli rapid ki mwen (M; Bernabé 2003: 219)

runner-DEM more fast than 1s
‘That runner is faster than me.’
b. mété pli lou-a anba (M; Bernabé 2003: 218)
put most heavy-DEF down
‘Put the heaviest one down!’
(64) a. li pa ply ris ke John (L; Neumann 1985: 147)

3s NEG more rich than John
‘He isn’t richer than John.’
b. sar-sa-la pli vit ke tu lez-ot sar (L; Neumann 1985: 147)
car-DEM-DEF more fast than all other car
‘That car is faster than all the other cars.’
c. la pli grõ serpõ ke mo zame wa (L; Neumann 1985: 148)
the most big snake that 1s ever see
‘The biggest snake that I have ever seen.’
d. ye te plu gro ke mon (L; Klingler 2003: 199)
3p PAST more big than 1s
‘They were bigger than me.’
(65) a. li pli bèl pasé ou (H; Valdman 1978: 204)

3s more pretty pass 2s
‘She is prettier than you.’
b. Boukinèt (pli) bèl pase Mari (H; DeGraff 2007: 114)
Boukinet more beautiful pass Mary
‘Boukinet is more beautiful than Mary.’ 157
5 (66) a. mwẽ pli gro pase i (St. L; Carrington 1984: 144)
Adjectives 1s more big pass 3s
‘I am bigger than him.’
b. u ni laẑ pase mwẽ (St. L; Carrington 1984: 144)
2s have age pass 1s
‘You are older than me.’
(67) a. sa kaz – a pi bel ki to pa (G; Damoiseau

DEM house-DEF more beautiful than yours 2003: 75)
‘That house is more beautiful than yours.’
b. sa kaz – a bel pasé to pa (G; Damoiseau 2003: 75)
DEM house-DEF beautiful pass yours
‘That house is more beautiful than yours.’
c. a sa kaz-a ki pi bel a (G; Damoiseau
be DEM house-DEF that most beautiful DEF 2003: 76)
‘It’s that house which is the most beautiful.’
d. bakóv swit pasé goyave (G; Saint-Jacques-
banana sweet pass guava Fauquenoy 1972: 103)
‘Bananas are sweeter than guavas.’
e. pi zoli tifi-ya (G; Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy
more beautiful girl-DEF 1972: 104)
‘the most beautiful girls’
(68) a. li pi bõ pase sa (K; Tobler 1983: 71)

3s more good than DEM
‘It is better than that.’
b. mo tximun pi hot pase u-pa (K; Tobler 1983: 71)
1s child more tall than 2s
‘My child is taller than yours.’
Table 5.1 summarises the use of pli . . . ke and (pli) pase in the French creoles
discussed here.
Table 5.1 Distribution of comparative markers in the French creoles
pli/pi ki/ke (pli)/(pi) . . . pase
IOC Haitian Creole

Martinican and Guadeloupean Creole Guyanese Creole
Guyanese Creole Karipuna Creole
Louisiana Creole St. Lucian
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5.3.8 Adjective reduplication Adjectives in
the French
creoles
Reduplication is a common morphological process which has the effect of
intensifying or emphasising the meaning of an adjective when used pre-
nominally and the opposite effect when used post-nominally. It should be
noted, however, that not all adjectives lend themselves to this process. The
following examples from the IOC illustrate reduplication of quality, size, age,
shape, and colour adjectives.
(69) a. ena buku bon bon lekol laba

be many good good school there
‘There are many very good schools there.’
b. ena buku gran gran lakaz laba
be many big big house there
‘There are many very big houses there.’
c. ena buku vie vie dimunn dan sa lavil la
be many old old people in DEM town DEF
‘There are many very old people in that town.’
d. ena enn semiz zonn zonn dan larmwar
be a shirt yellow yellow in wardrobe
‘There is a slightly yellow shirt in the wardrobe.’
e. to bizen met bann ros ron ron laba
2s must put PLU rock round round there
‘You need to put slightly rounded rocks there.’
f. enn bug kuyon kuyon
a man stupid stupid
‘a man who is somewhat stupid’
One restriction on reduplication of adjectives is that it does not apply when

the adjectives are stacked (that is to say, several adjectives co-occur) inside
the nominal phrase. Example (70b) is impossible. However, it is possible for
reduplication to apply to one of them at a time, as shown in (70c) and (70d).
(70) a. ena enn zoli gran lakaz laba

have a beautiful big house there
‘There is a beautiful big house there.’
b. * ena zoli zoli gran gran lakaz laba
have beautiful beautiful big big house there
c. ena zoli zoli gran lakaz laba
have beautiful beautiful big house there
‘There are very beautiful big houses there.’
d. ena zoli gran gran lakaz laba
have beautiful big big house there
‘There are beautiful huge houses there.’ 159
5 Examples of reduplicated adjectives in the other French creoles which show
Adjectives an intensifying effect are given in (71)–(74).
(71) a. youn bèl bèl fi (H; Valdman 1978: 203)

a pretty pretty girl
‘a very pretty girl’
b. youn gro gro gro mapou (H; Valdman 1978: 203)
a big big big mapou
‘a very big mapou (tree)’
c. viann-sa-a salé salé (H; Valdman 1978: 204)
meat-DEM-DEF salty salty
‘That meat is rather salty.’
(72) a. li vini grã grã grã (G; Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy 1972: 104)
3s come big big big
‘He’s become very tall.’
b. li nwè nwè (G; Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy 1972: 104)
3s black black
‘He’s very black.’
(73) a. Woch-tala léjè léjè (M; Bernabé 2003: 217)

rock-DEM light light
‘That rock is very light.’
b. woch-tala léjè léjè anpil anpil (M; Bernabé 2003: 217)
rock-DEM light light much much
‘That rock is extremely light.’
c. boug bab blan blan an (M; Bernabé 2003: 217)
man beard white white DEF
‘the man with the very white beard’
(74) a. to moman te nwa nwa nwa (L; Klingler 2003: 351)

2s mother PAST black black black
‘Your mother was very black.’
b. nu se nwar nwar nwar nwar (L; Neumann 1985: 146)
1p FUT black black black black
‘We will be very black.’
Notice that the examples in (71c), (72), (73a, b), and (74a, b) display predicative
adjective reduplication, unlike those in (71a, b) and (73c), which show pre- and
post-nominal adjective reduplication, respectively. Notice also that in (73b) both
the adjective and the adverbial modifier are reduplicated to express intensifica-
tion. It is also worth pointing out that Martinican Creole uses adjectives such as
gran ‘big’ and gro ‘big’ in order to express adjective intensification.
160
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(75) a. an gran-bel fanm (M; Bernabé 2003: 208) Adjectives in
a big big woman the French
‘a very big woman’ creoles
b. an gro-papa-mal kannon (M; Bernabé 2003: 208)
a big-father-male cannon
‘a very big cannon’
5.3.9 Adjective compounds
Adjectives can also combine with other categories, particularly nouns, to

form adjective-noun compounds.
(76) a. gran misie (IOC)

big mister
‘chief’
b. ti non (IOC)
small name
‘first name’
c. latet dir (IOC)
head hard
‘stubborn (person)’
d. fam-sarz (< sage femme) (IOC)
woman-instructed
‘midwife’
(77) a. ti moun (H; Valdman 1978: 155)

small person
‘child’
b. jé fò (H; Valdman 1978: 155)
eye strong
‘audacious (person)’
c. tèt-di (H; Lefebvre 1998: 336)
head-strong
‘stubborn (person)’
(78) a. popòt-marõ (G; Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy 1972: 135)

galley-slave
‘galley-slave’
b. negrès gró zibèrn (G; Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy
woman big pouch 1972: 135)
‘matron’
161
Adjectives
This chapter has surveyed attributive and predicative adjectives in the

French creoles and has looked at the distribution of attributive adjectives
inside nominal expressions. Most of the adjectives in the creoles under con-
sideration originate from French. Interestingly, they have retained their
French pre- and post-nominal position. Additionally, where more than one
adjective is present, an ordering restriction similar to that which constrains
the order of adjectives in French applies in both pre- and post-nominal posi-
tion. There is considerable similarity between the creoles in terms of the
distribution of their adjectives as well as in terms of the order in which they
occur when they are stacked inside a noun phrase. Another common feature
of adjectives in the French creoles, which French adjectives lack, is redupli-
cation. This process either intensifies or tones down the meanings expressed
by the adjectives. However, when it comes to expressing comparison, the
creoles do not all behave in the same way. Some have adopted the French
analytic phrase plus . . . que ‘more than’, others use the comparative word
pase ‘pass’, either on its own or in combination with the adverb plis/pli.
Only Guyanese Creole makes use of both.
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Chapter 6
Adverbs
6.0 Introduction
This chapter examines adverbs in the French creoles. Following a brief discus-
sion of adverbs in English and French, it looks at the different types of adverbs
which the French creoles have inherited from French and at their semantics.
It also looks at their distribution in a sentence and compares it with the dis-
tribution of adverbs in French. This chapter also considers the ordering
restrictions on adverbs and assesses the extent to which these restrictions
conform to Cinque’s adverb ordering hierarchy. It also briefly discusses adverb
reduplication, a phenomenon which most French creoles appear to have.
6.1 General
Adverbs most typically modify verbs (She ran quickly), although they can also
modify adjectives (She was adequately fit for the job), other adverbs (He ran
incredibly quickly), and whole sentences (Fortunately, they got to the airport
on time). Semantically, they generally have the function of describing the man-
ner in which some action or event took place or the degree to which some
description of an individual, entity, or action holds, as in She was adequately
fit for the job. This, however, is not the case with some adverbs, e.g. fortu-
nately or actually, as in Actually, I was in the pub at that time or Fortunately,
they took their umbrellas with them. These are sentence-adverbs, and their
function is to add the speaker’s viewpoint to the meaning of the sentence.
Adverbs can generally be distinguished by their morphology (form), syntax

(distribution), and semantics (meaning). In English, for instance, many
adverbs end with the derivational -ly suffix (vaguely, oddly, squarely) and,
as is evident from these examples, this suffix is usually added to adjectives,
163
6 e.g. a vague answer, an odd individual, a square field. Other examples are
Adverbs happily, briefly, highly, carelessly, gently, disappointingly, and so on. Some
adverbs, however, occur without the -ly suffix, e.g. fast as in He drove fast
or hard as in He worked hard. The relationship between adjectives and
adverbs, the two categories which function as modifiers, is generally thought
to be a close one. Adverbs are formed by using adjectives as a base. They can
be both modified by the intensifying adverb very or so: She is very/so fond of
her friends and She speaks very/so fondly of her friends. They can also both
display inflectional comparative and superlative affixes: She runs faster/the
fastest; This is a faster car/The fastest car has just been sold. However, there
are also important differences between them. Adjectives, for instance, modify
nouns and provide descriptive information, whilst adverbs modify other cat-
egories, e.g. verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, and they provide information
which not only describes (e.g. an action) but also indicates location (e.g.
there), time (e.g. yesterday), attitude (e.g. sadly), and so on. Another differ-
ence is that adjectives can take complements (fond of her friend), while
adverbs generally do not (*fondly of her friend), but note He works indepen-
dently of his colleagues, in which the PP of his colleagues is a complement of
the adverb independently.
Adverbs provide a range of meanings which can be assigned to different

semantic classes. These include manner – carefully, loudly; time – now, later;
degree – so, sufficiently, this; location – there, here; frequency – always,
sometimes; attitude – frankly, sadly, probably; and so on. Since the primary
function of adverbs is to modify verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and sentences,
they fit quite well with their traditional characterisation as adjunct phrases,
e.g. adjuncts inside VP – He cried quietly, inside AP – He is incredibly lazy,
inside ADVP – He drives incredibly fast, and inside a sentence (S) – Frankly,
no one cares. Since only other adverbials can function as modifiers of adverbs
(incredibly loudly), the internal structure of most adverbial phrases, unlike
those of other categories, is rather simple, with the main adverb functioning
as head and the other as a modifying adverb.
Turning now to their distribution, it is interesting that it is determined not

only by their category but also by the semantic classes to which they belong.
The positions which adverbs can occupy inside a clause are (a) clause-initial
position: Sadly, no one came to the meeting, (b) pre-auxiliary position: He
still does not know what to do, (c) post-auxiliary position: They will never
agree to his proposal, (d) a pre-verbal position: He may have been deliber-
ately misleading his opponents, (e) post-verbal position: He speaks highly of
his teachers, and (f) clause-final position: He speaks incredibly slowly now.
Notice, however, that the same adverb can sometimes occur in more than one
position, e.g. clause-initially and clause-finally, e.g. Evidently, he left early
and He left early, evidently, or clause-initially and following an auxiliary, e.g.
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Probably, she is playing the piano and She is probably playing the piano. Adverbs in
There are further restrictions on their distribution, particularly when two or French
more adverbs co-occur, but this time on their linear ordering in relation to
each other. Evaluative adverbs such as fortunately or speaker-oriented
adverbs such as frankly, for instance, must precede adverbs such as obvi-
ously, e.g. Unfortunately, John obviously wasted all his money but not
*Obviously John unfortunately wasted all his money and Frankly, John obvi-
ously did not use his time well but not *Obviously, John frankly did not use
his time well. Such restrictions are said to hold cross-linguistically (Cinque
1999).
6.2 Adverbs in French
In French, also, adverbs can sometimes be distinguished by their form. One

common adverbial suffix is -ment, which is added to the feminine form of an
adjective in order to form an adverb, e.g. doucement ‘gently’, activement
‘actively’, or correctement ‘correctly’, and to the masculine form: vraiment
‘really’, joliment ‘beautifully’, and absolument ‘absolutely’. This adverb-
forming derivational suffix seems to vary in its morphological form from
-ment, to -amment as in couramment ‘fluently’ or -emment as in prudemment
‘prudently’ or (é)ment as in uniformément ‘uniformly’. Interestingly, like
English, French also has adverbs which display just their stem forms (i.e. bare
adverbs, with no adverb-forming suffix). The following examples are illustra-
tive: chaud ‘hot’ as in servir chaud ‘serve hot’, cher ‘expensive’ as in payer
cher ‘to pay dearly’, fort ‘loud’ as in parler fort ‘to talk loudly’. These are
words that can also function as adjectives: un café chaud (lit. a coffee hot) ‘a
hot coffee’, un billet cher (lit. a ticket expensive) ‘an expensive ticket’. Note
that French often has recourse to adverb phrases or multi-word adverbs in
order to translate -ly ending adverbs in English (à part ‘separately’, à peu près
‘nearly’, avec colère ‘angrily’).
The functional role of French adverbs is similar to that of English adverbs.

They are essentially adjuncts, modifying (a) a verb Il marche vite ‘he walks
quickly’, (b) an adjective vraiment intéressant ‘really interesting’, (c) another
adverb Le train roulait incroyablement doucement ‘the train was running
incredibly slowly’, (d) or a sentence Heureusement, ils sont partis à l’heure
‘fortunately they left just in time’. Another similarity between French and
English adverbs lies in the range of meanings they encode. The different
semantic types listed for English adverbs are also available in French. These
include (a) time adverb Elle se réveillait tȏt le matin ‘she used to wake up
early in the morning’, (b) manner adverb Elle parle doucement ‘she speaks
softly/quietly’, (c) degree adverb il boit modérément/trop ‘he drinks
165
6 moderately/too much’, (d) frequency adverb il boit souvent ‘he often drinks’,
Adverbs and (e) place adverb ils sont assis ici ‘they are sitting here’.
Adverbs in French, just like those in English, can also modify sentences,
e.g. Heureusement, elles sont parties à temps ‘fortunately, they left just in
time.’ Such adverbs are speaker-oriented, as noted earlier, in that they
express the speaker’s viewpoint or assessment of a situation or event. Thus,
the example just presented can be paraphrased as ‘It was fortunate (as far
as the speaker can see) that they left just in time’, i.e. their leaving just in
time is seen by the speaker as a good or positive thing. Other adverbs
which have the same function are: probablement ‘probably’, peut-être
‘perhaps’, sans doute ‘undoubtedly/without doubt’, certainement ‘cer-
tainly’, sûrement ‘surely’. The following are illustrative: Elle a probable-
ment pris le train de Marseilles ‘She has probably taken the train to
Marseilles’, Nous sommes peut-être déjà en retard ‘We are probably
already late’, Elle est sans doute la meilleure candidate ‘She is undoubtedly
the best candidate’.
As is the case with English adverbs, French adverbs can also co-occur in
a sentence, but only if they meet an ordering requirement, as shown by
the contrast from Cinque (1999: 7–12) between Heureusement, sans
doute Pierre viendra ‘Luckily, Peter will undoubtedly come’ and *Sans
doute, heureusement Pierre viendra or between A l’époque, il ne possédait
déjà plus rien ‘At that time he already no longer possessed anything’ and
*A l’époque, il ne possédait plus déjà rien. The same contrast shows up
in C’est lui qui a généralement toujours raison ‘It’s him who is generally
right’ and *C’est lui qui a toujours généralement raison. Such contrasts
suggest that certain adverbs have to precede others, but which precedes
which crucially depends on their semantics. Thus evaluative adverbs such
as heureusement ‘fortunately’ precede modal adverbs such as peut-être
‘perhaps’.
6.3 Adverbs in the French creoles
French creoles, just like French, have an inventory of adverbs. These are
mostly derived from French. Although their inventories of adverbs are not as
large as that of French, those adverbs which they have inherited from French
nevertheless express a similar range of meanings including manner, time,
location, degree, aspect, attitude, and frequency.
All the French creoles have some adverbs which end with the suffix – man (< Fr
-ment). In the IOC we find dusman ‘slowly/quietly’, vreman ‘truly’, (mal)
erezman ‘(un)luckily’, sirman ‘surely’, zeneralman ‘generally’, anjelman
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‘annually’, mantalman ‘mentally’, zisteman ‘exactly/just so’, finalman Adverbs in
‘finally’, resaman ‘recently’, dernierman ‘recently’, aktjelman ‘actually’, sel- the French
creoles
man ‘only’, and kareman ‘without question’. In Louisiana Creole (Neumann
1985), we find similar forms zisteman ‘exactly’, direkteman ‘directly’, kare-
man ‘at once’, malerezman ‘unfortunately’, subitman ‘suddently’, sirman
‘surely’, and zoliman ‘enough’. In Haitian (Lefebvre 1998), the following
adverbs display the same ending: avidèman ‘visibly’, alekoutman ‘atten-
tively’, bosalman ‘wildly’, alèzman ‘comfortably’, bozoman ‘elegantly’.
Among the Caribbean creoles, St. Lucian (Carrington 1984) has the follow-
ing: vremã ‘truly’, sèlmã ‘only’, natirelmã ‘naturally’, atŝèlmã ‘at present’,
and sẽmplemã ‘simply’. In Karipuna (Tobler 1983), we find examples such
as dusman ‘slowly’ and vitman ‘quickly’. Examples such as bosalman ‘wildly’
and bozoman ‘elegantly’ in Haitian show that the suffix -man is being used
with roots which are not of French origin, e.g. bosal ‘wild’ and bozo ‘ele-
gant’. We may infer from such examples that there is a derivational process
at work, similar to French -ment suffixation, but, as expected of derivation,
it is only partially productive, i.e. it only applies to a small number of words.
Similarly, the occurrence of vitman ‘quickly’ in some creoles, e.g. Karipuna
and Martinican (Bernabé 2003: 244), shows that the -man suffix is being
extended to an adverb, which, in modern French, does not end with this suf-
fix, although it may have done so in seventeenth century French. That said,
it is a reasonable assumption that most of the French adverbs ending with
-ment would have been inherited directly from French rather than through a
process of suffixation which applied to words of the adjective class. However,
it is important to note that there are a few adjective-adverb pairs such as vre
‘true’ and vreman ‘truly’ or ere ‘fortunate’ and erezman ‘fortunately’, and so
on. This would suggest that a morphological process is at work.
Most of the remaining adverbs in the French creoles, however, tend to have
morphologically simplex form. They can be identified by their distribution
and, in most cases, their meaning. As we saw earlier, it is possible to predict
perhaps with more accuracy their distribution in a clause if their semantic
type (e.g. manner, place, time, etc.) is known. But first some examples of the
different types of adverbs in the French creoles are presented, starting with
the IOC in Table 6.1.
The following examples illustrate these different semantic types.
(1) a. li res kot so mama aster (Time)

3s live at 3s mother now
‘He lives with his mother now.’
b. mo ti met mo liv laba (Place)
1s PAST put 1s book there
‘I put my book there.’
167
6 Table 6.1 Types of adverbs in the IOC
Adverbs
Time aster ‘now’, taler/plitar/lot-ler ‘later’, tar ‘late’, boner ‘early’,
dimen ‘tomorrow’, midi ‘noon’, aswar ‘tonight’, avan ‘long ago’,
samdi ‘Saturday’
Place isi ‘here’, la ‘here/there’, laba ‘there’, lao ‘up’, anler ‘up’, anba
‘down’, akote ‘at the side’, deor ‘outside’, andan ‘inside’, lwen ‘far
away’, okennpar ‘nowhere’, partu ‘everywhere’, divan ‘at the front’
Manner byen ‘well’, mal ‘badly’, drwat ‘straight’, ekspre ‘deliberately’, vit
‘quickly’, dusman ‘slowly’, ansanm ‘together’, for ‘loudly’
Degree byen ‘sufficiently’, tro ‘too much’, ase ‘enough’, preske ‘almost’,
apenn ‘barely’, nett ‘completely’
Aspect deza ‘already’, nepli ‘anymore’, ankor ‘still’, tuzur ‘still’
Frequency suvan ‘often’, rare ‘rarely’, zamen ‘never’, tuletan ‘always’, parfwa
‘sometimes’
Attitude erezman ‘luckily’, malerezman ‘unluckily’, sirman ‘surely’, kapav ‘maybe’
Focus zis ‘only’, selman ‘only’
c. li mans byen dusman (Manner)

3s walk well slowly
‘He walks very slowly.’
d. zot finn preske fini ranz zot lakaz (Degree)
3p PERF almost finish build 3p house
‘They’ve almost finished building their house.’
e. li pe ankor dormi (Aspect)
3s PROG still sleep
‘He’s still sleeping.’
f. zot vini parfwa (Frequency)
3p come sometimes
‘Sometimes they come.’
g. erezman so mama ti lakaz (Attitude)
fortunately 3s mother PAST home
‘Fortunately, her mother was at home.’
h. li zis bwar, li pa manze (Focus)
3s only drink 3s NEG eat
‘He only drinks, he doesn’t eat.’
Haitian too has a similar set of adverbs which express a similar range of
meanings, as tabulated in Table 6.2.
The following examples are illustrative.
(2) a. l’ rivé b’matẽ (Time) (H; Sylvain 1936: 148)

3s arrive morning
168 ‘He arrived this morning.’
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Table 6.2 Types of adverbs in Haitian Creole Adverbs in
the French
Time bone ‘early’, pita ‘later’, demen ‘tomorrow’, midi ‘noon’, aswè a creoles
‘tonight’, b’matẽ ‘early morning’
Place isit la ‘here’, la ‘there’, anndan ‘inside’, lwen ‘far’, anba ‘under’,
sou ‘on’, deyò ‘outside’
Manner vit ‘quickly’, dousman ‘slowly’, di ‘hard’, byen ‘well’, seryezman
‘seriously’
Degree trò ‘too much’, trè ‘very’, prèske ‘almost’, apen ‘barely’, ase
‘enough’
Aspect deja ‘already’, toujou ‘still’, ankor ‘yet’, anjeneral ‘usually’
Frequency suvan ‘often’, žamé ‘never’, raman ‘seldom’, pafwa ‘sometimes’,
tužu ‘always’
Attitude erezman ‘fortunately’, malerezman ‘unfortunately’, rèlman ‘really’,
pètèt ‘perhaps’
Focus jis ‘only’, sèlman ‘only’, tou ‘also’, menm ‘even’, žuk ‘even’
b. mété-l laba (Place) (H; Sylvain 1936: 147)

put 3s there
‘Put it there.’
c. alé dusmã (Manner) (H; Sylvain 1936: 145)
go slowly
‘Go slowly.’
d. li trò lwẽ (Degree) (H; Sylvain 1936: 150)
3s too far
‘He is too far.’
e. nu šita diža (Aspect) (H; Sylvain 1936: 148)
1p sit already
‘We are already sitting down.’
f. m’té tužu di u sa (Frequency) (H; Sylvain 1936: 149)
1s PAST always tell 2s that
‘I have always told you that.’
g. li žuk šãté (Focus) (H; Sylvain 1936: 150)
3s even sing
‘She even sings.’
Table 6.3 lists similar types of adverbs in Martinican Creole. Again, they can
be identified by the meanings they express.
The following examples from Bernabé (2003) illustrate the use of some of
these adverbs.
(3) a. chouval-la pa ka kouri jòdi-a (Time) (M; Bernabé 2003: 31)

horse-DEF NEG PRES run today
‘The horse isn’t running today.’ 169
6 Table 6.3 Types of adverbs in Martinican
Adverbs
Time jòdi-a ‘today’, bonmatin ‘early morning’, oswè-a ‘tonight’, dèmen
‘tomorrow’, atjolman ‘now’, midi ‘noon’
Place adan ‘inside’, la ‘here’, isi ‘here’, lot bò ‘over there’, anba ‘under’,
anlè ‘on’, dèrò ‘outside’
Manner vit ‘quickly’, byen ‘well’, mal ‘badly’
Degree bokou ‘a lot’, enpé ‘a little’, trop ‘too much’
Aspect ja ‘already’, ankó ‘again’, janmen ‘never’, toujou ‘always’
Frequency touléjou ‘always’, janmen ‘never’, délè ‘sometimes’, souvan ‘often’
Attitude asire ‘sure’, sèten ‘certain’
Focus menm ‘even’, sel ‘only’
b. lè u rive, man té la (Place) (M; Bernabé 2003: 62)

when 2p arrive 1s PAST here
‘When you arrived, I was here.’
c. tanbou-tala, i ka sonnen bien (Manner) (M; Bernabé 2003: 35)
drum-that 3s PRES sound well
‘That drum sounds nice.’
d. se timanmay-la toujou pa rivé (Aspect) (M; Bernabé
PLU child-DEF still NEG arrive 2003: 88)
‘The children have still not arrived.’
e. Eliza ka lévé a siz-è touléjou (Frequency)
Eliza PRES rise at six o’clock everyday (M; Bernabé 2003: 145)
‘Eliza wakes up at six everyday.’
f. sèten i ké pati (Attitude) (M; Bernabé 2003: 59)
certain 3s FUT leave
‘It is certain that he will leave.’
g. i pa menm gadé kò i (Focus) (M; Bernabé 2003: 177)
3s NEG even look body 3s
‘He doesn’t even look at himself.’
Karipuna has a similar inventory of adverbs, and they belong to the same
semantic types, as shown in Table 6.4.
The following examples from Tobler (1983) are illustrative.
(4) a. ye hive aye (Time) (K; Tobler 1983: 52)

3p arrive yesterday
‘They arrived yesterday.’
b. laba bola ye ka hete (Place) (K; Tobler 1983: 52)
there yonder 3p PRES stay
‘They live over there.’
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Table 6.4 Types of adverbs in Karipuna Adverbs in
the French
Time bomãtẽ ‘morning’, taló ‘soon’, aye ‘yesterday’, midji ‘noon’, sẽk é creoles
‘five o’clock’, aswè ‘evening’, bonó ‘early’
Place isi-la ‘here’, laba ‘there’, la ‘there’, ofõ ‘yonder’, phòx ‘near’,
lweng ‘far’, mitã ‘middle’, tupatu ‘everywhere’
Manner vitmã/vit ‘quickly’, dusmã ‘slowly’, byã ‘well’, du ‘hard’
Degree phòx ‘nearly’, tho ‘too/too much’, asey ‘enough’, mayẽ ‘quite’,
phoš ‘almost’, dhét ‘straight’, boku ‘much’
Aspect deha ‘already’, tužu ‘still’, õko ‘yet’
Frequency tuleju ‘everyday’
Attitude pitét ‘perhaps’, wakhé ‘apparently’
Focus hẽ ‘only’, osi ‘also’, sél ‘only’
c. si u kupu vitmã, ka fãde (Manner) (K; Tobler 1983: 14)

if 2s cut quickly PRES break
‘If you cut (it) quickly, it breaks.’
d. zohãj la vyat tuju (Aspect) (K; Tobler 1983: 58)
orange DEF green still
‘The oranges are still green.’
e. so mãmã malad tu le ju (Frequency) (K; Tobler 1983: 40)
3s mother ill everyday
‘His mother is ill everyday.’ (His mother is always ill.)
f. ye hive ayé wakhé (Attitude) (K; Tobler 1983: 41)
3p arrive yesterday apparently
‘They arrived yesterday, apparently.’
g. salakul ka hẽ póté xévwét (Focus) (K; Tobler 1983: 58)
wader PRES only bring shrimp
‘The wader (a bird) only brings shrimp.’
Table 6.5 lists adverbs in Louisiana Creole. They too express a similar range
of meanings.
The following examples illustrate their use in this creole.
(5) a. mo p’ ale zurdi (Time) (L; Neumann 1985: 289)

1s NEG go today
‘I won’t go today.’
b. li met le pakon akote pu demẽ (Place) (L; Neumann
3s put the pecan aside for tomorrow 1985: 291)
‘He’s put the pecans aside for tomorrow.’
c. no te kupe nuzot move (Manner) (L; Neumann 1985: 284)
1p PAST cut ourselves badly
‘We cut ourselves badly.’
171
6 Table 6.5 Types of adverbs in Louisiana Creole
Adverbs
Time aster ‘now’, tar ‘late’, boner ‘early’, demẽ ‘tomorrow’, jer
‘yesterday’, bõmatẽ ‘morning’, midi ‘noon’, aswar ‘night’, lõtõ
pase ‘long ago’, taler ‘later’, apre-midi ‘afternoon’
Place isi ‘here’, la ‘here/there’, laba ‘there’, õler ‘up’, õba ‘down’, akote
‘at the side’, õdeor ‘outside’, ondõ ‘inside’, lwẽ ‘far’, õkekpar
‘somewhere’
Manner byen ‘well’, move ‘badly’, drwat ‘straight’, espre ‘deliberately’, vit
‘quickly’, direktemõ ‘directly’, dusmõ ‘slowly’, õsom ‘together’,
mje ‘better’, di ‘hard’
Degree byen ‘very’, tro ‘too much’, telmõ ‘so’, preske ‘almost’, a fòs ‘so
much’, a penn ‘barely’, ase ‘enough’, jolimõ ‘beautifully’
Aspect deẑa ‘already’, nepli ‘anymore’, õkor ‘still’, tuzur ‘still’, stil ‘still’
Frequency suvõ ‘often’, ẑamẽ ‘never’, kek-fwa ‘sometimes’, (zõ)-de-fwa
‘sometimes’
Attitude erezman ‘fortunately’, malerezman ‘unfortunately’, vraiment
‘truly’, rèlman ‘really’
Focus ẑiŝ ‘only’, sèlmã ‘only’, yenk ‘only’
d. sa vini ẑilimõ ŝo (Degree) (L; Neumann 1985: 286)

that come very hot
‘That (the weather) is very warm now.’
e. li deẑa gon (Aspect) (L; Neumann 1985: 289)
3s already go
‘He’s already gone.’
f. zõ-de-fwa mo parl kreol (Frequency) (L; Neumann
ek me piti 1985: 289)
with 1s child
sometimes 1s speak creole
‘Sometimes I speak Creole with my children.’
g. rèlman, kreyòl se en BROKEN LANGUAGE (Attitude)
really creole is a broken language (L; Klingler 2003: 355)
‘Really, Creole is a broken language.’
h. li pa ẑiŝ ŝõt, li pẽ osi (Focus) (L; Neumann 1985: 294)
3s NEG just sing 3s paint also
‘He not only sings, but he also paints.’
The examples presented here show that the French creoles have drawn most
of their adverbs from French or some variety thereof. These adverbs, as we
have seen, belong to different semantic classes, for instance, time, place,
degree, and so on. The lists presented here are by no means exhaustive, but
they do give us an idea of the different types of adverbs that these creoles
172 have inherited from their lexifier.
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6.3.1 Adverb order Adverbs in
the French
creoles
Adverbs in English, as we saw earlier, can occur in different positions in a
clause. Their distribution (i.e. where they occur), however, depends crucially
on their semantics. The same is true of French adverbs. Attitude adverbs such
as heureusement ‘luckily’ can occur at the beginning, middle, or end of a
clause (Hawkins and Towell 1996: 123): Malheureusement, personne n’avait
vu l’accident ‘Unfortunately, no one had seen the accident’, Personne n’avait
malheureusement vu l’accident, ‘No one, unfortunately, had seen the acci-
dent’, Personne n’avait vu l’accident malheureusement ‘No one had seen the
accident, unfortunately’. Frequency adverbs, on the other hand, tend to occur
between the auxiliary and the verb Nous avons souvent rencontré nos amis
au cinéma ‘We often met our friends at the cinema’, and aspect adverbs tend
to follow the copula verb Ils sont encore à l’étranger ‘They are still abroad’
or the auxiliary Il n’est pas encore arrivé ‘He hasn’t arrived yet’.
Similar restrictions appear to hold on the distribution of adverbs in the

French creoles, as shown in the following examples from the IOC: (6)
shows restrictions on temporal adverbs, (7) on location adverbs, (8) on
manner adverbs, (9) on degree adverbs, (10) on aspectual adverbs, (11)
on frequency adverbs, (12) on attitude adverbs, and (13) on focus adverbs.
(6) a. zot ti vini midi

3p PAST come noon
‘They came at noon.’
b. midi zot ti vini
noon 3p PAST come
c. * zot midi ti vini
3p noon PAST come
d. * zot ti midi vini
3p PAST noon come
(7) a. zot ti pe asize deor

3p PAST PROG sit outside
‘They were sitting outside.’
b. deor zot ti pe asize
outside 3p PAST PROG sit
c. *zot deor ti pe asize
3p outside PAST PROG sit
‘They were sitting outside.’ 173
6 d. *zot ti deor pe asize
Adverbs 3p PAST outside PROG sit
e. *zot ti pe deor asize
3p PAST PROG outside sit
(8) a. zot mars dusman

3p walk slowly
‘They walk slowly.’
b. ?dusman zot marse
slowly 3p walk
c. *zot dusman marse
3p slowly walk
(9) a. zot pe tro koze

3p PROG much talk
‘They are talking too much.’
b. * tro zot pe koze
much 3p PROG talk
c. * zot tro pe koze
3p much PROG talk
d. * zot pe koze tro
3p PROG talk much
(10) a. zot ti pe ankor dormi

3p PAST PROG still sleep
‘They were still sleeping.’
b. zot ti ankor pe dormi
3p PAST still PROG sleep
c. ? zot ankor ti pe dormi
3p still PAST PROG sleep
d. * ankor zot ti pe dormi (OK with ankor meaning ‘again’)
still 3p PAST PROG sleep
e. * zot pe dormi ankor (OK with ankor meaning ‘again’)
3p PROG sleep still
174 ‘They were still sleeping.’
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(11) a. zot ti pe vinn zue suvan Adverbs in
3P PAST PROG come play often the French
‘They often used to come to play.’ creoles
b. suvan zot ti pe vinn zue
often 3p PAST PROG come play
‘They often used to come to play.’
c. * zot suvan ti pe vinn zue
3p often PAST PROG come play
d. * zot ti suvan pe vinn zue
3p PAST often PROG come play
e. * zot ti pe suvan vinn zue
3p PAST PROG often come play
f. * zot ti pe vinn suvan zue
3p PAST PROG come often play
(12) a. erezman zot ti fini ale

fortunately 3p PAST finish go
‘Fortunately, they had already gone.’
b. zot ti fini ale erezman
3p PAST finish go fortunately
c. zot erezman ti fini ale
3p fortunately PAST finish go
d. zot ti erezman fini ale
3p PAST fortunately finish go
e. *zot ti fini erezman ale
3p PAST finish fortunately go
(13) a. li travay mem zur konze piblik

3s work even day holiday public
‘He works even on public holidays.’
b. li mem travay zur konze piblik
3s even work day holiday public
‘He even works on public holidays.’
c. * li travay zur konze piblik mem
3s work day holiday public even
‘He even works on public holidays.’ 175
6 It is evident from these examples that most adverbs in the IOC are not free to
Adverbs occur in any position inside the clause. It seems that they can generally be placed
clause-initially or clause-finally, except when they encode degree (9), aspect (10),
and focus (13). Degree and aspect adverbs tend to occur in front of the verb,
while focus adverbs tend to occur in front of a clause-internal NP. Temporal (6),
locative (7), and manner (8) adverbs occur in clause-final position, but they can
also occur clause-initially. This latter position is a marked position for them. As
for attitude adverbs (12), they can occur clause-initially, clause-medially, and
clause-finally, although a clause-final position is a marked position for adverbs
of this type. Among those adverbs which can occur clause-internally, the degree
type (9) seems to be restricted to pre-verbal position, whilst the aspect type (10)
is free to occur in front of or after a tense, aspect, or mood marker as well as
between them, given that they are free-standing morphemes.
The flexibility that adverbs generally enjoy is in sharp contrast to the restricted
distribution of words belonging to other categories. This is perhaps consistent
with their functional status as modifiers or adjuncts. Their general optionality
in a clause is also in sharp contrast with the obligatory nature of arguments
(e.g. subject or object). Thus the adverbs in the examples in (6)–(13) can be
left out without affecting their grammaticality. The other noteworthy property
of adverbs is that when two or more of them occur in a clause they have to
be ordered in relation to each other: He will probably never see his friend
again and *He will never probably see his friend again. The contrast between
these two constructions suggests that attitude/possibility adverbs such as
probably must precede frequency adverbs such as never. Such ordering restric-
tions are not arbitrary but appear to follow certain putatively universal prin-
ciples, as has been demonstrated in the work of Cinque (1999) among others.
According to Cinque’s hierarchy, attitude (speaker’s attitude) adverbs, e.g.
fortunately, precede time adverbs, e.g. past once or future then, which in turn
precede aspect adverbs, e.g. usually, again, often, which in turn precede man-
ner adverbs, e.g. quickly, which then precede another time adverb, e.g.
already, and other types of aspect adverbs, e.g. still, no longer, followed by
voice adverbs, e.g. well, and aspect adverbs, e.g. fast, early, again.
Similarly, when two or more adverbs occur in the French creoles, they too
are ordered in relation to each other. The following examples from the IOC
illustrate the restrictions on adverb ordering.
(14) a. erezman souvan zot ti al vizit

fortunately often 3p PAST go visit
bonom la (attitude < frequency)
old man DEF
‘Fortunately, they often went to visit the old man.’
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b. * souvan erezman zot ti al vizit bonom la Adverbs in
often fortunate 3p PAST go visit old man DEF the French
‘Fortunately, they often went to visit the old man.’ creoles
(15) a. malerezman sizer labutik deza ferme (attitude < time <
unfortunately six o’clock shop already close aspect)
‘Unfortunately, shops are already closed at six.’
b. * sizer malerezman labutik deza ferme
six o’clock unluckily shop already close
c. * malerezman labutik deza ferme sizer
unfortunately shop already close six o’clock
(16) a. souvan seter li ankor lakaz (frequency < time <

often seven o’clock 3s still home aspect)
‘Often at seven he is still at home.’
b. * seter souvan li ankor lakaz
seven o’clock often 3s still home
c. * souvan li ankor lakaz seter
often 3s still home seven
(17) a. li finn deza byen kriye ar zot (aspect < degree)

3s PERF already much shout at 3p
‘He has already shouted a lot at them.’
b. * li finn byen deza kriye ar zot
3s PERF much already shout with 3p
‘He has already shouted a lot at them.’
The attitude adverb erezman and the frequency adverb souvan can both
occupy a clause-initial position, as shown in (14) and (16). However,
when they co-occur, as in (14), the attitude adverb must precede the fre-
quency adverb. The reverse ordering is ruled out, as we see in (14b). In (15),
a time and an aspect adverb are added to the attitude adverb, and it is clear
that the attitude adverb must precede the time adverb, which in turn must
precede the aspect adverb. And where a frequency and a time adverb
occur with an aspect adverb, as in (16), the frequency adverb must pre-
cede the time adverb, and the time adverb again must precede the aspect
adverb. Aspect adverbs, it seems, must follow all the other types except
degree adverbs, as shown in (17). Such restriction facts concerning the
distribution of adverbs in the IOC seem quite consistent with the general
177
6 cross-linguistic restrictions suggested by the hierarchy of adverb positions
Adverbs proposed in Cinque (1999).
6.3.2 Adverb reduplication
Like adjectives, adverbs in the French creoles, but not in French, can be redu-
plicated to express certain nuances of meaning. The following are illustrative.
(18) a. koz dusman dusman (IOC)

talk quietly quietly
‘Talk very quietly/softly.’
b. marse vit vit (IOC)
walk quickly quickly
‘Walk very quickly.’
c. sant for for (IOC)
sing loudly loudly
‘Sing very loudly.’
d. li manze buku buku mem (IOC)
3s eat much much EMPH
‘He eats a lot.’
(19) a. sé an moun ki ka travay (M; Damoiseau 2012: 131)

It a person who PRES work
anlo anlo anlo
much much much
‘It’s someone who works a lot.’
b. a roun moun ki ka travay (G; Damoiseau 2012: 131)
it a person who PRES work
rounlo rounlo rounlo
much much much
c. so kò pa bon pies pies pies (G; Damoiseau 2003: 141)
3s body NEG good at all at all at all
‘He is really not very well.’
d. se on moun ki travay anpil
it a person who work much
anpil anpil (H; Damoiseau 2012: 131)
much much
e. to te kuri lwẽ-lwẽ-lwẽ (L; Neumann 1985: 340)
2s PAST run far-far-far
‘You went too far.’
178
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f. la je te ŝofe ẽ kuto ŝo-ŝo-ŝo . . . (L; Neumann 1985: 340) Concluding
so 3p PAST heat a knife hot-hot-hot remarks
‘So, they heated a knife for a while, (until it was red)’
g. dusmã dusmã li hele (K; Tobler 1983: 83)
quietly quietly 3s call
‘He called very quietly.’
The obvious difference between the IOC and the Caribbean creoles is that
adverbs can be repeated three times in the latter but only twice in the former.
Repeating any of the adverbs in (18) a third time results in ungrammatical
constructions.
(20) a. * koze dusman dusman dusman

talk quietly quietly quietly
b. *marse vit vit vit
walk quickly quickly quickly
c. *sant for for for
sing loudly loudly loudly
d. * li manze buku buku buku mem
3s eat much much much EMPH
Reduplication of adverbs is limited to certain semantic types. Those which

lend themselves to this morphological process appear to be manner adverbs,
as seen in (18a–c) and (19g), and degree (quantity) adverbs, as in (18d) and
(19a–f). In some creoles, e.g. Louisiana Creole, it may be more restricted,
affecting only degree (intensifying) adverbs, e.g. li byen byen vyeu (lit. he very
very old) ‘He’s very old’ (Klingler 2003: 351).
This chapter has considered words which belong to the category adverb. The
French creoles have each built their inventory of adverbs by borrowing them
from their lexifier. As we have found, these adverbs come from different
semantic types, similar to those which exist in French. Adverbs belonging to
certain types appear to have a more flexible distribution inside the clause than
others. Where more than one adverb occurs, an ordering restriction, much
in accord with similar restrictions on the distribution of adverbs in other
languages, applies. Again there is much similarity between the creoles in this
matter, as well as between the creoles and French. We have also seen that
adverbs in creoles, unlike their antecedents in French, can be reduplicated in
order to express intensification of manner or amount.
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Chapter 7
Prepositions
7.0 Introduction
This chapter deals with prepositions in the French creoles. It begins with a
brief discussion of prepositions in English and French and then considers
prepositions in the French creoles. It examines the absence of French gram-
matical prepositions in some of the creole structures and the different semantic
roles which lexical prepositions across the French creoles encode. It also con-
siders the existence of preposition stranding in Louisiana Creole and its
absence in all the other creoles. The chapter concludes with a discussion of
the reanalysis of lexical prepositions as grammatical markers in some of the
creoles.
7.1 General
Words which belong to the class preposition are words which can be used to
express a range of semantic relations: location – on/under/by/over the table,
instrument – with a pen/by hand, goal – to church/for her children, source/
provenance – from India, and so on. Although they can sometimes occur on
their own, e.g. They arrived after/They went through, It flew out, in most
cases they are followed by a noun phrase which functions as their object, It
came on a ship, or a phrase belonging to another category, e.g. a preposi-
tional phrase, It came from under the rug, or a clause, The country was
invaded while its people slept, although the choice of a complement (whether
a noun phrase, prepositional phrase or clause) often depends on the preposi-
tions. For instance, after can be followed by both a noun phrase and a clause,
e.g. Bill left after the meeting/Bill left after the meeting began, but while can
only be followed by a clause, e.g. Bill slept while the film was on/*Bill slept
while the film. Prepositions, as we have seen, select their complements and
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are therefore transitive, but they can themselves sometimes be selected by a General
verb, adjective, or noun to which they link their complements: abide
by/*for/*while these rules, fond of/*for cherries, the professor of/*for chem-
istry. In English, as in French, prepositions have an invariant form as a result
of not displaying any morphological inflection, and regarding their distribu-
tion, they (i.e. the phrases they head) can occur as complements of verbs,
adjectives, and nouns, as noted earlier, as well as modifiers, e.g. too heavy
for his age, a man with a chip on his shoulder, and adjuncts, e.g. walk with
a stick, chair with a soft seat.
Prepositions are not all the same. Some encode meanings, as we saw earlier;
others have a purely grammatical role. We therefore differentiate between
lexical (meaning-bearing) prepositions – in the restaurant, in front of the
classroom, by the seaside – on the one hand and grammatical/functional
prepositions such as of, for, to in phrases such as the office of the German
Chancellor, fond of strawberries, for Bill to be happy, similarity to his grand-
mother on the other. This distinction is justified on the grounds that we can,
for example, cleft or topicalise lexical prepositional phrases: It was in the
restaurant that we met the President; In the restaurant we met the President,
but not grammatical/functional prepositional phrases: *It was of strawber-
ries that Bill was fond/*Of strawberries Bill was fond. The role of the gram-
matical preposition is clearly not to contribute to the meaning of a sentence
but to relate its complement to the rest of the sentence. Without such preposi-
tions, the following phrases are clearly ill-formed in English: *the office the
German Chancellor, *fond ice-cream, *Bill to be happy, nor can they be
substituted for by other prepositions *the office for the German Chancellor,
*fond on ice-cream, *to Bill to be happy. The missing prepositions in exam-
ples such as *the office the German Chancellor and *fond ice-cream are often
classified as case-assigning prepositions. They have to be present for these
phrases to be grammatical. The distinction between prepositions which are
lexical and those which are grammatical is justified as it is needed to explain
why French creoles have retained one type of French prepositions (i.e. the
meaning-bearing/lexical ones) and dispensed with the other type (i.e. the
grammatical ones).
Prepositions head prepositional phrases, and their position in such phrases

is not the same in all the languages. In English, French, and similar languages,
they precede their complements. In other languages, e.g. Hindi, Turkish,
Japanese, and so on, prepositions linearly follow their complements: mez par
(lit. chair on, Hindi) ‘on the chair’, okulun iҫi (school inside, Turkish) ‘inside
the school’, kuruma-de (car-in, Japanese) ‘in the car’. These languages there-
fore have post-position. French creoles, as we will see, make the same choice
as their lexifier when it comes to the position of the preposition in relation
to its complement.
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7 7.2 Prepositions in French
Prepositions
Prepositions in French, just like those in English, can be classified as either

grammatical or meaning-bearing/lexical words. Typical examples of preposi-
tions which belong to the former are à ‘of’ and de ‘of’.
(1) a. la voiture de Marie

‘Mary’s car’
b. une maison à deux étages
‘a two-storey house’
c. Il a été accusé de crimes violents
‘He was accused of committing violent crimes.’
d. une bouteille remplie de vin
‘a bottle full of wine’
Lexical or meaning-bearing prepositions outnumber grammatical preposi-

tions not only in English and French but also in other languages. Examples of
lexical/meaning-bearing prepositions in French are (a) temporal or physical
location avant/après ‘before/after’, (b) duration pendant/dans ‘during/in’,
(c) place dans/en/au/chez ‘in/into/from/at’ or à cote ‘beside’, sur ‘on’, sous
‘under’, (d) comitative avec ‘with’, (e) instrumental avec ‘with’, (f) measurement
or path par ‘by’, (g) reason pour ‘for/because of’, and so on. For a longer list of
lexical prepositions in French, see Hawkins and Towell (1996: 301–331).
(2) a. Il est arrivé avant/après moi

‘He arrived before/after me.’
b. Il dormait pendant la discussion
‘He was asleep during the discussion.’
c. Elle est partie avec son amie
‘She left with her friend.’
In the examples in (1) and (2), the prepositions occur with a noun phrase
complement, which they link to a noun, a verb, or an adjective. As the exam-
ples in (3) illustrate, they can also link clauses to the rest of the sentence.
(3) a. Il jouait pendant que sa mère preparait le dîner

‘He was playing while his mother cooked dinner.’
b. Avant de quitter la maison, Jean avait écrit une lettre à sa mère
‘Before leaving home, John wrote his mother a letter.’
e. Après avoir recontré son instituteur, Jean est rentrée chez lui
‘After having met his teacher, John went home.’
Lexical/meaning-bearing prepositions in French also express a range of

182 semantic relations, as illustrated in the following examples.
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(4) a. Ils sont à l’école (Location) Prepositions
‘They are at school.’ in the French
b. J’ai donné le livre à Marie (Goal, beneficiary) creoles
‘I gave the book to Mary.’
c. Nous allons à la mer (Goal, location)
‘We are going to the seaside.’
d. Elle voyage en voiture (Means)
‘She travels by car.’
e. Elle est arrivée à midi (Time)
‘She arrived at noon.’
f. Elle a coupé le pain avec un couteau (Instrument)
‘She cut the loaf of bread with a knife.’
g. Elle est partie avec sa mère (Company)
‘She left with her mother.’
h. Le train de Paris est arrivé (Source)
‘The train from Paris has arrived.’
7.3 Prepositions in the French creoles
The distinction between prepositions which are grammatical and those which
are lexical/meaning-bearing is also a useful one to have when discussing
words belonging to this class in the French creoles. This is because, of these
two types, French creoles generally lack the French grammatical prepositions
but have retained the lexical ones.
7.3.1 Absence of French grammatical prepositions
The following examples illustrate the general absence of grammatical prepo-

sitions in the IOC.
(5) a. lakaz so mama

house 3s mother
‘her mother’s house’
b. kapital lostrali
capital Australia
‘the capital of Australia’
c. konstriksion lakaz
construction house
‘the construction of houses’
d. mwa zanvie
month January
‘the month of January’ 183
7 The equivalents of (5a–d) in French require the preposition de ‘of’ in
Prepositions order to link the two nominal expressions. Its absence is not limited to
the IOC but is also quite widespread in the other French creoles, as illus-
trated in (6).
(6) a. bouat alimèt (H; Valdman 1978: 188)

box match
‘a box of matches’
b. youn pil wòch (H; Valdman 1978: 188)
a heap rock
‘a heap of rocks’
c. kay papa l (H; Valdman 1978: 189)
house father 3s
‘his father’s house’
(7) a. dlo mineral Frans (M; Bernabé 2003: 112)

water mineral France
‘mineral water from France’
b. liv Kanmi a (M; Bernabé 2003: 113)
book Camille DEF
‘Camille’s book’
c. latjé pwason-an (M; Bernabé 2003: 123)
tail fish-DEF
‘the tail of the fish’
(8) a. se sulie madam la (St. L; Carrington 1984: 89)

PLU shoe woman DEF
‘the woman’s shoes’
b. plizie bõm pasti (St. L; Carrington 1984: 90)
several tin sweet
‘several tins of sweets’
c. farin frãs (St. L; Carrington 1984: 90)
flour France
‘wheat flour’ (i.e. flour from France)
d. papa nu (St. L; Carrington 1984: 92)
father 1p
‘our father’
(9) a. loto mo frè a (G; Damoiseau 2003: 39)

car 1s brother DEF
b. oun lasoup poson (G; Damoiseau 2003: 41)
a soup fish
184 ‘a fish soup’
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c. chien vwazen an (G; Damoiseau 2012: 37) Prepositions
dog neighbour DEF in the French
‘the neighbour’s dog’ creoles
(10) a. pedas lapót (K; Tobler 1983: 61)

piece door
‘a piece of the door’
b. nót kalite héméd (K; Tobler 1983: 62)
other type medicine
‘other types of medicine’
c. bo lahivyè (K; Tobler 1983: 86)
side river
‘the river’s edge’
(11) a. la po bef (L; Neumann 1985: 110)

the skin ox
‘oxskin’
b. ŝapo lapaj (L; Neumann 1985: 110)
hat straw
‘a straw hat’
c. sa sé te momon mo papa (L; Klingler 2003: 190)
that PAST mother 1s father
‘That was my father’s mother.’
In all these creoles the two nominal expressions are simply juxtaposed. How-
ever, the semantic relations between them remain unaffected. It should be
noted that this preposition is not always missing in some of the French cre-
oles. Karipuna, for instance, appears to have retained it in the following
examples.
(12) a. kaz dji mo bélmé (K; Tobler 1983: 12)

house of 1s mother-in-law
‘my mother-in-law’s house’
b. hibã dji sèt Antonyo (K; Tobler 1983: 63)
ribbon of Saint Anthony
‘St. Anthony’s ribbons’
The other grammatical preposition, i.e. à, is also missing in the French cre-
oles, as we see in (13). However, it can be found occasionally in the possessive
constructions in a few of the creoles. See the examples in (14).
(13) a. maze m nã (H; Valdman 1978: 83)

food 1s DEF
‘my food’ 185
7 b. pitit mwẽ ã (H; Valdman 1978: 83)
Prepositions child me DEF
‘my child’
c. met li (M; Damoiseau 2012: 21)
boss 3s
‘his boss’
d. papa i (St. L; Carrington 1984: 136)
father 3s
‘her father’
(14) a. liv (a) Jan an (H; DeGraff 2007: 119)

book to Jan DEF
‘Jan’s book’
b. met a’ y (Gu; Damoiseau 2012: 21)
boss to 3s
‘his boss’
c. sè a Frèd (L; Klingler 2003: 188)
sister of Fred
‘Fred’s sister’
d. mo te gen bon lenj a mon (L; Klingler 2003: 189)
1s PAST have good clothes to 1s
‘I had my good clothes.’
e. la mezzo a le Gilbo (L; Neumann 1985: 131)
the house of the Gilbeau
‘the Guilbeau’s house’
f. la plas a sõ papa (L; Neumann 1985: 160)
the place of his father
These two prepositions are used in French not only to link two nominal
expressions, as we saw earlier, but also to link a nominal or adverbial phrase
to a verb, as illustrated in (4). However, constructions similar to these also
occur in the French creoles but without these prepositions. The following
examples from the IOC are illustrative.
(15) a. mo ti donn liv la Zan

1s PAST give book DEF John
‘I gave the book to John.’
b. zot finn al bazaar
3p PERF go market
‘They’ve gone to the market.’
c. li pu vini set et
3s FUT come seven o’clock
186 ‘He will come at seven.’
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d. zot res/abit Paris Prepositions
3p live Paris in the French
‘They live in Paris.’ creoles
(16) a. dokter la sort Lasin

doctor DEF come China
‘That doctor comes from China.’
b. enn mo kamarad ti vini
one 1s friend PAST come
‘One of my friends came.’
Constructions corresponding to (15a–d) in French display the preposition à,

which gets translated into English by different prepositions depending on the
semantic roles they encode as ‘to’ (goal, beneficiary): J’ai donné le livre à Jean
in (15a), ‘to’ (goal, locational) Ils sont allés à l’hôpital in (15b), ‘at’ (time) Il
viendra à sept heures in (15c), ‘in’ (location) Ils habitent à Paris in (15d).
Likewise, constructions corresponding to (16a, b) in French will have a prep-
osition de to link the noun and the verb in (16a): le médecin vient de La Chine
and the nominal and numeral in (16b): un de mes amis est venu.
Examples from other French creoles also show these prepositions missing, par-
ticularly in the context of nouns denoting places commonly visited by their speak-
ers, e.g. home, school, market, hospital, church, seaside, river, and so on.
Note that in French all these examples will have a preposition in these contexts.
(17) a. i ale lopital (H; Damoiseau 2012: 61)

3s go hospital
‘He went to the hospital.’
b. monpè a legliz (H; Damoiseau 2012: 72)
priest DEF church
‘The priest is at church.’
(18) a. man wé doktè-a lopital (M; Bernabé 2003: 60)
1s see doctor-DEF hospital
‘I saw the doctor at the hospital.’
b. manman-mwen té ka lavé rad lariviè (M; Bernabé
mother-1s PAST PROG wash clothes river 2003: 63)
‘My mother was washing clothes in the river.’
(19) a. anu ale laplas (St. L; Carrington 1984: 107)

let go market
‘Let’s go to the market!’
b. bug la sòti Oleõ (St. L; Carrington 1984: 107)
man DEF come Oleon
‘The fellow has come from Oleon.’ 187
7 (20) a. I ka travay lopital (G; Damoiseau 2003: 125)
Prepositions 3s PRES work hospital
‘She works at the hospital.’
b. I alé lopital (G; Damoiseau 2003: 125)
3s go hospital
‘He’s gone to the hospital.’
c. mo wè Sandrin lapos (G; Damoiseau 2003: 132)
1s see Sandrin post-office
‘I saw Sandrin at the post-office.’
(21) a. epi to va la mes (L; Neumann 1985: 257)

then you go the mass
‘Then you go to mass.’
b. . . . kouri legliz katolik (L; Klingler 2003: 436)
go church Catholic
‘ . . . go to the Catholic church.’
It is also worth noting in connection with these examples that Louisiana

Creole sometimes allows a preposition following a verb like kouri ‘run’ and
di ‘tell’. Karipuna also appears to have a few constructions in which the
preposition à (also pronounced la) ‘to’ is allowed.
(22) a. li kuri a lekol (L; Neumann 1985: 257)

3s run to school
‘He goes to school.’
b. li di sa a nuzot (L; Neumann 1985: 256)
3s say that to 1p
‘He told us that.’
c. guyav la tõbe a té (K; Tobler 1983: 68)
guava DEF fall to ground
‘The guava fell to the ground.’
d. ye ka xãte la legliz (K; Tobler 1983: 68)
3p PRES sing at church
‘They are singing at church.’
e. mo k-ale la legliz (K; Tobler 1983: 68)
1s PRES-go to church
‘I’m going to church.’
The data presented here show an important difference between French and
the creoles derived from it concerning the distribution of prepositions. The
French creoles clearly lack the grammatical prepositions de and à in those
contexts in which French requires them. Whilst *la maison Pierre (cf. la
maison de/à Pierre) ‘Peter’s house’, *la soupe poisson (cf. la soupe de poisson)
‘fish soup’, *la construction la maison (cf. la construction de la maison)
188
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‘the construction of the house’, *beaucoup gens (cf. beaucoup de gens) ‘many Prepositions
people’ and *Elle est l’hôpital (cf. Elle est à l’hôpital) ‘She is at the hospital’ in the French
are all ungrammatical in French unless a preposition is present, they are creoles
perfectly grammatical in the French creoles: lakaz Pierre (house Peter) ‘Peter’s
house’, buku dimun (many people) ‘many people’, lasup pwason (soup fish)
‘fish soup’, and li lopital (she hospital) ‘she is in/at the hospital’. The possibil-
ity of phrases where constituents are simply juxtaposed inevitably raises
questions about the role of prepositions in such a structure. It seems reason-
able to infer from their absence and from the fact that the semantics of these
phrases remains unchanged that they are not just semantically empty but also
grammatically redundant. If so, it is reasonable to ask, why do French and
English require that they be present in the structure under discussion? One
suggestion is that these grammatical prepositions are case-realising elements
(Chomsky 1986). Indeed, in some languages morphological case on nouns
has the same role that prepositions play in languages such as French and
English. With the loss of much of French inflectional morphology in the
French creoles, it is not surprising that the French case-realising prepositions
de and à are also missing. The elimination of semantically meaningless items
in the French creoles (or creoles generally) is a well-known phenomenon. The
absence of expletive pronouns is a case in point. If universally every phoneti-
cally realised noun requires (abstract) case, as proposed in Chomsky (1981),
then one might argue that the case realising prepositions de and à are simply
missing at the surface in the French creoles.
However, as we have already noted, these prepositions are not missing in all
the French creoles. They are sometimes found in Louisiana Creole (see (14c–f)
and (22a, b)) and Karipuna (see (22c–e)). Examples of this preposition can
also be found in northern Haitian Creole and Guadeloupean (see Valdman
1978: 189–190) piti a mari (cf. Fr l’enfant de Marie) ‘Mary’s child’, yon
tonton a bab blanch (cf. Fr un vieil homme à la barbe blanche) ‘an old man
with a white beard’. However, these occur rarely. It is also interesting to note
that Louisiana Creole uses the preposition a not only where French uses à
but also where it uses the preposition de. In fact Neumann (1985: 303) notes,
for instance, that the use of de in Louisiana Creole is very rare. Instead it uses
a (< Fr à), e.g. Je sorti a la Frõs (cf. Fr Ils sont venus de France) ‘They have
come from France’. It also uses pu ‘for’ and avek ‘with’ to replace de ‘about’
in some constructions, e.g. li rakõte li pu sa (Fr Il lui parlait de cela) ‘He told
him about that’ and la ter te kruvi avek la nez (cf. Fr La terre était couverte
de neige) ‘The ground was covered with snow’. In comparison to all the other
French creoles, Louisiana Creole seems unique in its retention and use of the
grammatical French preposition à.
One explanation for this remarkably unusual phenomenon is that it may have
been influenced by Cajun French, as suggested by Neumann (1985: 131), and
189
7 the preposition à was probably re-introduced and used as an all purpose
Prepositions grammatical linker. It therefore replaced not only the French preposition à but
also de. According to Papen and Rottet (1997: 81) Cajun French, like popular
French, uses à but not de, for instance to link a possessor and a possessed
noun in genitive structures le bateau à Pap (the boat to father) ‘Dad’s boat’,
la maison à Cheryl (the house to Cheryl) ‘Cheryl’s house’, if the possessor is
a proper noun. Where the possessor is not a proper noun, either preposition
is possible: ҫa, c’est le livre de/à mon frère ‘that, that’s my brother’s book’.
Neumann (1985: 304) notes, however, that there is evidence from old texts
that structures with two juxtaposed NPs occurred without either of these two
prepositions. If so, it would seem that the use of grammatical preposition a in
Louisiana Creole may be a later development, clearly influenced through its
contact with neighbouring Cajun language. It is interesting to note that pos-
sessive constructions in Old French also occurred without a linking preposi-
tion, as shown in the following from Price (1971: 97): la meson son pere ‘his
father’s house’ (lit. the house his father), li filz Marie ‘Marie’s son’ (lit. the son
Mary), li chevaus le Roi ‘the King’s horses’ (lit. the horses the King). These
match the possessive structure in the French creoles.
Finally, it should be noted that other creoles also use meaning-bearing prepo-
sitions to fill in the gap left by the omission of à and de, just like Louisiana
Creole. The following are from the IOC.
(23) a. enn misie avek/ar labarb (cf. Fr un homme à barbe)

a man with beard
‘a man with a beard’
b. fer avek/ar lamen (cf. Fr fabriqué à main)
make with hand
‘hand-made’
c. lesiel kuver avek/ar niyaz (cf. Fr le ciel est covert de nuages)
sky cover with cloud
‘The sky is covered by clouds.’
d. enn pie ranpli ar fri (cf. Fr un arbre rempli de fruits)
a tree filled with fruit
‘a tree filled with fruits’
7.3.2 The semantics of prepositions
Turning now to the lexical (meaning-bearing) prepositions, let us first observe

that all the French creoles have an inventory of these lexical items, which
they have inherited from French. These have some semantic content by virtue
of being able to express certain semantic roles, e.g. location, source,
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instrument, accompaniment, and so on. The following is a list of some of Prepositions
these prepositions from the IOC (24), Haitian (25), Martinican (26), St. in the French
Lucian (27), Guyanese (28), Karipuna (29), and Louisiana Creole (30), creoles
together with the semantic roles they encode.
(24) a. li pe asiz anba enn pie (Location)

3s PROG sit under a tree
‘He’s sitting under a tree.’
b. mo ti aste enn zuzu pu twa (Goal/Beneficiary)
1s PAST buy a toy for 2s
‘I bought you a toy.’
c. li finn amenn enn radio depi la Frans (Source)
3s PERF bring a radio from the France
‘He’s brought a radio from France.’
d. zot pe travay depi gramatin (Temporal)
3p PROG work since morning
‘They have been working since morning.’
e. zot nepli voyaz par bato (Means)
3p no longer travel by boat
‘They no longer travel by boat.’
f. mo pu kup li ar/(av)ek enn sizo (Instrument)
1s FUT cut it with a sissors
‘I will cut it with a pair of sissors.’
g. zot pu vinn ar/(av)ek mwa (Accompaniment)
3p FUT come with 1s
‘They will come with me.’
h. nu pu/kont lindepandans (Support/Opposition)
1p for/against independence
‘We are for/against independence.’
(25) a. rivé nan chimen, li tchoué difé-a (Location)

arrive on road 3s put out fire-DEF (Valdman 1978: 265)
‘On arriving on the road, she put the fire out.’
b. se sizo pu kupe zõg mun (Goal) (Koopman and
be scissors for cut nail people Lefebvre 1982: 83)
‘These are scissors for clipping nails.’
c. réméd (ké) m pral fè pu ou (Beneficiary)
medicine that 1s FUT make for 2s (Valdman 1978: 191)
‘the medicine which I will make for you’
d. habitant nan lavil-yo (Source) (Valdman 1978: 190)
habitant in town-PLU
‘the habitants of/from the town’
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7 e. kuto avek li mo kupe pẽ a (Instrument)
Prepositions knife with 3s 1s cut bread DEF (Koopman 1982a: 179)
‘the knife with which I cut the bread’
f. n ap mãže diri avek pwa (Accompaniment)
1p PROG eat rice with peas (Lefebvre 1982b: 34)
‘We’re eating rice with peas.’
(26) a. péchè-a adan kannot-la (Location)

fisherman-DEF in canoe-DEF (Bernabé 2003: 28)
‘The fisherman is in the canoe.’
b. Piè ka pale ba Pol (Goal) (Bernabé 2003: 39)
Peter PRES speak to Paul
‘Peter was speaking to Paul.’
c. man ka travay ba an moun (Beneficiary)
1s PRES work for a person (Bernabé 2003: 199)
‘I work for a person.’
d. ou ké mennen mwen lanmè épi ou? (Accompaniment)
2s FUT take 1s seaside with 2s (Bernabé 2003: 64)
‘Will you take me to the seaside with you?’
e. timanmay-la ka palé dépi tjektan (Temporal)
child-DEF PRES speak since some time (Bernabé 2003: 39)
‘The child has been talking for some time.’
f. yo ka pran dlo ek sio-a (Instrument)
3p PRES take water with pail-DEF (Bernabé 2003: 251)
‘They take water with the pail.’
(27) a. ã kaj se de mun sa la (Location)

in house DEM two person DEM (Carrington 1984: 95)
‘in the house of those two people’
b. i sòti dè ãlè mòn sa la (Source) (Carrington 1984: 96)
3s come from high hill DEM
‘He came from way up on that hill.’
c. mwẽ desan ãba (Goal) (Carrington 1984: 96)
1s go down
‘I went downstairs.’
d. apre desam (Temporal) (Carrington 1984: 98)
after December
‘after December’
e. i èvèk mẽ (Accompaniment) (Carrington 1984: 116)
3s with 1s
‘He’s with me.’
f. i di mwẽ pòte bagaj la ba li (Beneficiary)
3s tell 1s carry thing DEF for 3s (Carrington 1984: 124)
‘She told me to bring the thing for her.’
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(28) a. timoun-yan ka jwé annan lakou-a (Location) Prepositions
child-PLU PRES play in yard-DEF (Damoiseau 2003: 124) in the French
‘The children are playing in the yard.’ creoles
b. mo voyé oun let pou Jérar (Goal) (Damoiseau 2003: 19)
1s send a letter for Gerald
‘I sent a letter to Gerald.’
c. Mariz lopital dipi trwa simenn (Temporal)
Mary hospital since three week (Damoiseau 2003: 124)
‘Mary has been in hospital for three weeks.’
d. i ka koupé zerb ké so sab (Instrument)
3s PRES cut grass with 3s cutlass (Damoiseau
‘He cuts grass with his cutlass.’ 2003: 123)
e. Jéraldin annan jarden-an ké (Damoiseau 2003: 124)
Geraldine in garden-DEF with
so kanmarad-ya
3s friend-PLU
‘Geraldine is in the garden with her friends.’ (Accompaniment)
(29) a. li ka hete kote so mãmã (Location) (K; Tobler 1983: 68)

3s PRES live at 3s mother
‘He lives with his mother.’
b. li lese-l pu om la (Beneficiary) (Tobler 1983: 47)
3s leave-3s for man DEF
‘He left it for that man.’
c. mo axte – l dji mo tõtõ (Source) (Tobler 1983: 68)
1s buy 3s from 1s uncle
‘I bought it from my uncle.’
d. bwé sa héméd pu thwa ju (Temporal) (Tobler 1983: 70)
drink the medicine for three days
‘Drink the medicine for three days.’
e. li ka maxe ke batõ (Means) (Tobler 1983: 69)
3s PRES walk with stick
‘He walks with a stick.’
f. li bat lapot ke mato (Instrument) (Tobler 1983: 69)
3s hit door with hammer
‘He hit the door with a hammer.’
g. mo hive ke mo papa (Accompaniment) (Tobler 1983: 69)
1s arrive with 1s father
‘I arrived with my father.’
(30) a. li met sa ondõ so poŝ (Location) (Neumann 1985: 308)

3s put that inside 3s pocket
‘He put that inside his pocket.’
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7 b. li vajõ avek mwa (Goal) (Neumann 1985: 314)
Prepositions 3s gentle with 1s
‘He’s gentle with me.’
c. mo erite sa par popa (Source) (Klingler 2003: 363)
1s inherit that from father
‘I inherited that from my father.’
d. mo sa bek ondõ de mwa (Temporal) (Neumann
1s FUT back in two month 1985: 306)
‘I’ll be back in two months.’
e. li vini avek ẽ padna (Accompaniment) (Neumann
3s come with a friend 1985: 317)
‘He came with a friend.’
This represents a very small sample of lexical prepositions across the different
French creoles. Of course, each creole has a lot more prepositions, and, as
we saw earlier, they encode different semantic roles. However, it is possible
for one preposition to encode more than one semantic role. The preposition
ar/(av)ek (< Fr avec ‘with’) in the IOC has the following roles: instrumental
li ti kup gato la ar enn kuto ‘she cut the cake with a knife’, accompaniment
zot ti vinn ar mwa ‘they came with me’, means mo ti anvoy li let la ar to
kamarad ‘I sent him the letter through your friend’, location gard li ar twa
‘keep it with you’, source/cause sa maladi la vinn dan pei ar turis ‘this disease
is brought into the country by tourists’, and goal pu fer pikjer ar zot dan lekol
(lit. (someone) will do injection to them in school) ‘someone will vaccinate
them at school’ or pa kriye ar zot ‘don’t shout at them’. These different
semantic roles are determined by the verbs with which the preposition occurs.
The difference in the interpretation of the preposition dan in li sorti dan sa
tru la ‘it comes out from that hole’ and li rant dan sa tru la ‘it goes in/into
that hole’ must be attributed to the verbs in these sentences. It has a source
role in the former and a goal role in the latter. Notice that the French sentence
corresponding to the first one will have the preposition de ‘from’ rather than
dans ‘in’.
A further observation concerning lexical prepositions in the French creoles

is the way they are used, firstly, in comparison with French and, secondly, in
comparison with each other. There are, for instance, some clear examples, as
we have just seen, where the gap left by the loss of the French preposition de
(source) is filled with another preposition, e.g. dan. In Louisiana Creole the
French preposition de can be replaced not only by dan ‘from’ but also by the
instrumental par ‘by’.
(31) a. li ti sorti dan cha-la (Klingler 2003: 360)

3s PAST come=out in car-DEF
‘He came out of the car.’
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b. mo érite sa par popa (Klingler 2003: 363) Prepositions
1s inherit that from father in the French
‘I inherited that from my father.’ creoles
The equivalent of (31a) in the IOC also uses source dan. However, the IOC
sentence which corresponds to (31b) uses ar ‘from’.
(32) a. li ti sorti dan loto la

3s PAST come out in car DEF
‘He came out of the car.’
b. mo ti erit lakaz la ar mo papa
1s PAST inherit house DEF from 1s father
‘I inherited the house from my father.’
The French equivalents of both these sentences use de ‘from’, as shown in (33).
(33) a. Il sort de la voiture

‘He comes out of the car.’
b. J’ai hérité cette maison de mon père
‘I inherited that house from my father.’
However, the use of dan in the French creoles to substitute for French de
‘from’ need not be surprising, since French also uses dans ‘from’ to encode
source role, as in the following examples.
(34) a. J’ai pris un stylo dans mon sac

‘I took a pen from my bag.’
b. Il a bu du vin dans une bouteille
‘He drank wine from a bottle.’
Concerning the difference between the French creoles in connection with

their use of other prepositions to replace the French grammatical preposition
à and de, two observations need to be made. Firstly, Louisiana Creole uses a
lexical preposition kote (usually a locative) to replace the grammatical prepo-
sition à in ditransitive constructions. In the IOC and the other French creoles,
this preposition is simply missing.
(35) a. so popa e dòn so fiy kote nonm-la (Klingler 2003: 362)

3s father PROG give 3s daughter to man-DEF
‘Her father is giving his daughter to the man.’
b. so papa pe donn so tifi misie la (IOC)
3s father PROG give 3s daughter man DEF
‘Her father is giving his daughter to the man.’
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7 The French equivalent is son père donne sa fille à l’homme ‘Her father
Prepositions gives his daughter to the man’. Secondly, some of the lexical prepositions
which the French creoles have inherited from French have over time devel-
oped different uses in different creoles. To illustrate, consider the use of
apre (< Fr après ‘after’) in Louisiana Creole. This can be used with the
meaning of at and from , as in the following examples from Klingler
(2003: 359), while still retaining its original locative meaning after. In the
IOC, however, this preposition retains its original temporal or location
meaning li ti vini apre de zer/apre mwa ‘he came after two/after me’, and
cannot be used to replace the preposition in the Louisiana examples (see
(36b) and (37b)).
(36) a. li louve so zye apre mon (Klingler 2003: 359)

3s roll 3s eye after 1s
‘He rolled his eyes at me.’
b. * li rul so lizye apre mwa (IOC)
3s roll 3s eye after 1s
‘He rolled his eyes at me.’
(37) a. mo pòn chodè bouke-la apre la miray (Klingler

1s hang string flower-DEF after the wall 2003: 359)
‘I hung the flower pot from the wall.’
b. * mo ti apandan pot fler-la apre miray (IOC)
1s PAST hang pot flower after wall
‘I hung the flower pot from the wall.’
Likewise, the preposition pou (< Fr pour ‘for’) in Louisiana Creole has a goal
role, meaning ‘toward’, which its IOC counterpart lacks. When the Louisiana
example (38a) is translated into the IOC (38b), the preposition seems to have
more of a grammatical role, meaning ‘as far as all the people are concerned,
I am good’.
(38) a. mo bon pou tou-moun, to kònè (Klingler 2003: 362)

1s good for all-people, 2s know
‘I’m good to everybody, you know.’
b. mo bon pu tu dimun, to kone (IOC)
1s good for all people 2s know
‘Everyone thinks well of me, you know.’
7.3.3 The syntax of prepositions
Turning now to the syntax of these lexical prepositions, notice that, with the
196 exception of Louisiana Creole, French creoles do not allow constructions in
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which a preposition is stranded. Preposition stranding is common in a lan- Prepositions
guage like English, e.g. ‘the knife that you cut the string with’. Constructions in the French
corresponding to this English sentence are ungrammatical in all the creoles creoles
except Louisiana. Example (39a) from Neumann (1985: 314) illustrates
preposition stranding in this creole. Sentences corresponding to (39a) in the
IOC are ungrammatical. The same is true in the Lesser Antillean creoles, as
the example in (39c) illustrates.
(39) a. sa se sila to fe ẽ ru avek (L; Neumann 1985: 314)

that be what 2s make a roux with
‘That is what you make a roux with.’
b. * sa mem ki to fer salad avek (IOC)
that self that 2s make salad with
c. * Jak yo ka pòté fig ba (M/Gu; Gadelii
Jack 3p PRES bring banana to 1997: 298)
‘Jack, they brought bananas to.’
Interestingly, this is a phenomenon which, although rare in continental

French, has been observed to be quite common in the French varieties spoken
in North America, e.g. Montréal French (40a, b), from Roberge and Rosen
(1999) and (40c) Poplack (2009), respectively.
(40) a. c’est la personne que j’ai du trouble avec

‘This is the person that I have trouble with.’
b. Où il vient de?
‘Where does he come from?’
c. Ça c’est un gars que j’ai déjà sorti avec
‘This one, it’s a guy that I already went out with.’
It is not inconceivable that preposition stranding in Montreal French might

have been influenced by language mixing, i.e. English and French mixing.
However, more pertinent to the existence of preposition stranding in Louisi-

ana Creole is the influence of neighbouring Cajun French. The following
examples from Papen and Rottet (1997: 107) show that this variety of French
allows prepositions to be stranded (see chapter 13 for more discussion).
(41) a. le bougue que je travaille avec

‘the guy that I work with’
b. la maison que vous-autes reste dedans
‘the house that you live in’
In the light of these examples, it seems reasonable to attribute preposition

stranding in Louisiana Creole to contact influence, particularly from neigh-
bouring Cajun French rather than internal language change. This 197
7 phenomenon is otherwise unknown in the French creoles, as it is in standard
Prepositions French. The equivalents of (41) in the IOC and the other French creoles show
the complement of the preposition being pied-piped.
(42) a. bug ar ki mo travay la

man with whom 1s work DEF
‘The man with whom I work’
b. lakaz dan ki zot reste la
house in which 2s live DEF
‘The house in which you live’
However, using a resumptive pronoun instead of pied-piping the complement

of a preposition seems preferable in some of these creoles, particularly with
complements which are indirect or oblique and animate. This can be seen in the
following examples from Martinican (43a), Haitian (43b, c) and the IOC (43d).
(43) a. Kanmi sé an moun mwen pa (M; Bernabé 2003: 194)

Camille be a person 1s NEG
janmen pale ba i
never speak to 3s
‘Camille is a person I have never spoken to.’
b. fiy m sòti ak li a (H; Lefebvre 1998: 203)
girl 1s go=out with 3s DEF
‘the girl I went out with’
c. moun ou rive ak li -a sé youn bòkò (H; Valdman
person 2s arrive with 3s DEF it a sorcerer 1978: 278)
‘The person you came with is a sorcerer.’
d. tifi to ti al lekol ar li la (IOC)
girl 2s PAST go school with 3s DEF
‘the girl with whom you went to school’
Prepositions head prepositional phrases, and these prepositional phrases are

generally flexible in their position in a clause. They can, for instance, be in
clause-initial position as a topic or cleft phrase, and in both cases they appear
in a position other than their base position, as shown in (44) from the IOC,
(45) from Haitian, and (46) from Lesser Antillean creoles.
(44) a. li ti al Lafrans par bato (IOC)

3s PAST go France by boat
‘They went to France by boat.’
b. par bato li ti al Lafrans
by boat 3s PAST go France
‘By boat he went to France.’
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c. par bato ki li ti al Lafrans Prepositions
by boat that 3s PAST go France in the French
‘It was by boat that he went to France.’ creoles
(45) a. se ak mama l Mari vle (H; Piou 1982: 125)

it with mother 3s Mary want
pu l al ašte flè
for 3s go buy flowers
‘It’s with her mother that Mary wants to go and buy flowers.’
b. sé nan mòn li yé (H; Valdman 1978: 233)
it in mountain 3s be
‘It’s in the mountains that he is.’
c. nan mòn li yé (H; Valdman 1978: 233)
in mountain 3s be
‘In the mountains he is.’
(46) a. ba Jak yo ka pòté fig (M/Gu; Gadelii 1997: 298)

to Jack 3p PRES bring banana
‘To Jack they are bringing bananas.’
b. sé ba Mari yo ka pòté fig (M/Gu; Gadelii 1997: 304)
it to Mary 3p PRES bring banana
‘It’s to Mary that they are bringing bananas.’
7.3.3.1 Preposition reanalysis

The loss of verbal inflection and grammatical prepositions in the French creoles
meant that new grammatical items were created from lexical items through the
well-known process of grammaticalisation. It has been argued that pou/pu in
Haitian Creole is not only a lexical preposition but also a modal auxiliary
marking irrealis, as in (47a), as well as a complementiser, as in (47b) (see Koop-
man and Lefebvre 1982, DeGraff 2007). These developments are the result of
grammatical re-categorisation (Koopman and Lefebvre 1982).
(47) a. šãm lã pu bale (H; Koopman and Lefebvre 1982: 83)

room DEF for sweep
‘The room will be/must be swept.’
b. sa pu n fè?
what for 1p do
‘What should we do?’
A similar situation exists in the IOC. The word pu (< Fr pour) functions not
only as a preposition but also as a modal verb and a complementiser, which
introduces a non-finite clause.
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7 (48) a. mo ti amenn sa pu twa
Prepositions 1s PAST bring that for you
‘I brought that for you.’
b. mo pu amenn sa pu twa
1s FUT bring that for 2s
‘I will bring that for you.’
c. pu mo amenn sa pu twa pu byen difisil
for 1s bring that for 2s FUT very difficult
‘For me to bring you that will be very difficult.’
d. li pu byen difisil pu mo amenn sa pu twa
3s FUT very difficult for me bring that for you
‘It will be very difficult for me to bring you that.’
The pu is (48a) is clearly a preposition (benefactive), and it occurs with the

auxiliary pu (future) in (48b). Both of these occur with a third pu in (48c)
and (48d), which, by virtue of its position in relation to the subject mo, must
be treated as a complementiser. It introduces the non-finite clause mo amenn
sa pu twa as its complement. Notice that the non-finite nature of this comple-
ment can be inferred from the fact that we cannot also have a modal auxiliary
pu in it: *pu mo pu amenn sa pu twa pu byen difisil. There is, however, an
important difference between the complementiser pu/pou in the IOC and
Haitian Creole. In the latter, it can introduce not only a non-finite clause
kouto sa a pa fèt pou koupe pen ‘This knife was not made for cutting bread’
(DeGraff 2007: 109) but also a finite clause mwen te mande pou l te vini ‘I
asked that he/she come’ (DeGraff 2007: 109).
The reanalysis of the preposition pu as an auxiliary seems to be restricted to

the IOC and Haitian Creole. It is conceivable that this preposition was
already functioning as an auxiliary in the input, given that spoken (popular)
French has expressions such as être pour to express a future action, as in this
example from Lefebvre (1998: 113) Jean est pour partir ‘John is about to go’.
The use of this expression in spoken/popular French is noted in Grevisse
(1975: 646, cited in Lefebvre 1998: 113). Interestingly, it also occurs in Cajun
French, as in this example from Papen and Rottet (1997: 102) J’sus pour
partir ‘I am about to leave’. This would suggest that pu/pou was already
functioning as an auxiliary expressing a prospective meaning when it was
acquired in the creoles. However, the fact that its use as an auxiliary is limited
to the IOC and Haitian Creole would appear to favour some kind of reanaly-
sis from preposition to auxiliary, particularly if it were the case that the input
was stripped of its functional elements (the auxiliaries avoir ‘to have’ and
être ‘to be’, articles, and so on).
Surprisingly, as we have noted, the other French creoles (Martinican, Guya-

nese, Karipuna, and Louisiana Creole, for instance) do not use pu/pou to
200 express irrealis or future tense, although they do use it as a preposition and
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a complementiser, as seems to be the case in Karipuna (49) and Louisiana Prepositions
Creole (50). in the French
creoles
(49) a. p-ka bay tã pu mo tone (Tobler 1983: 15)

NEG-PRES give time for 1s return
‘There isn’t time for me to return.’
b. u tho pitxi pu ale pexe (Tobler 1983: 15)
2s too little for go fish
‘You are too little to go fishing.’
(50) a. la t a koupe i fen pou to kwi li (Klingler
then 2s FUT cut 3s fine for 2s cook 3s 2003: 371)
‘Then you’ll cut it fine so you can cook it.’
b. ye kònen sa pou fe (Klingler 2003: 371)
3p know what for do
‘They know what to do.’
Notice that in the (a) sentences of (49) and (50) pu/pou precedes the subject
of the subordinate clause, which is a clear indicator of its status as a comple-
mentiser. In the (b) sentences it simply introduces non-finite subject-less
complements.
Another lexical preposition which has been reanalysed as a modal auxiliary

in some of the creoles is apre. It occurs in phonetically simplified forms ape
and pe in the IOC, ape and ap in Louisiana Creole, and ap in Haitian Creole,
and it is used to encode the progressive aspect, although Haitian Creole also
uses it as a marker of the irrealis/future. Chaudenson (1995: 46) suggests that
the progressive ape/pe/ap derives historically from the expression être après
(be after) followed by the infinitive in spoken French (e.g. in the Poitevin
variety, Rickard 1974: 127) Les enfants sont après jouer ‘the children are
playing’ (Rickard 1974: 127) or Jean est après manger ‘John is eating’ (Lefe-
bvre 1998: 121), in which case the source of ape/pe/ape was probably already
a French aspectual marker and no reanalysis, as such, is required to explain
its auxiliary status in the French creoles. It is interesting to note in this con-
nection that Cajun French also uses être après followed by an infinitive to
express the progressive aspect. What is also worth noting is that the copula
verb need not be present, as in the following from Papen and Rottet (1997:
102): il (est) après manger ‘He is eating’. Here too the question of whether
the French après has been reanalysed as an auxiliary or was already so in the
input is relevant. The fact that the use of this preposition as an auxiliary is
restricted to some of the creoles favours reanalysis of a lexical preposition as
a functional verbal element, a process which is also apparent in the case of
the perfective fin/inn from the verb finir ‘to finish’. It should also be noted
here that the preposition apre (< Fr après) also occurs as a lexical verb in the
IOC li pe apre mo lisyen ‘he is chasing my dog’. This example illustrates both 201
7 its uses, as an auxiliary and a verb. As expected, the following is ambiguous:
Prepositions mo ti vinn apre li ‘I came after him’ or ‘I came to chase him’. On the former
reading apre is a preposition, on the latter a verb.
This chapter has provided an overview of prepositions in the French creoles.

We have seen that the French grammatical prepositions à and de ‘of’ are
generally absent in the French creoles, but French lexical prepositions are
reasonably well represented. It has looked at the semantics of these lexical
prepositions, in particular at the range of semantic functions/roles they
encode, and at some of their syntactic properties, in particular their mobility
within a clause and their resistance to stranding. Louisiana Creole seems
exceptional in this case, but this can be attributed to contact influence from
Cajun French. We have also seen how two of the lexical prepositions have
been reanalysed as functional elements, namely as an auxiliary in order to
express an aspectual or prospective meaning and as a complementiser to
introduce non-finite clauses with or without a subject.
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Chapter 8
Verbs
8.0 Introduction
This chapter focuses on verbs in the French creoles. After a brief outline of
the typology of verbs in English and French, it concentrates on different types
of verbs in the French creoles including transitive, ditransitive, unaccusative,
unergative, ergative, complex-transitive, raising, control, existential, caus-
ative, and serial verbs. It will become clear that the French creoles have
inherited not only a large part of the French inventory of verbs but also their
argument structures. Two interesting types of verbal constructions are also
discussed, namely double object constructions and serial verb constructions,
neither of which exists in the lexifier language.
8.1 General
Words which belong to the class verb in a language like English share certain
morphological and syntactic properties. For instance, a regular verb such as
to park is inflected with the suffix -s, e.g. She parks her car outside the house,
if it is in the present tense and has a third person singular subject. If it is in
the past tense, it is inflected with the suffix -ed, e.g. She parked her car outside
the house. A verb in English is also a word which combines with a modal
auxiliary such as may, e.g. She may park her car outside the house. Clearly,
only a word which belongs to this category can substitute for park in such
an example, e.g. She may wash/repair/paint her car outside the house.
In languages such as English and French, verbs not only contribute their lexi-
cal meaning to the interpretation of a sentence, but they also relay information
about time (the temporal location of an action or event, i.e. when it takes
or took place), aspect (i.e. whether it is ongoing or completed), and mood 203
8 (i.e. its likelihood, etc.). Additionally, they encode information about their
Verbs subject (person, number, and gender) and, in some languages, their object.
Thus the inflection -s on walk in John walks to school encodes tense informa-
tion (present), aspect information (habitual), and mood information (realis)
as well as agreement information about the subject, i.e. third person singular.
Information relating to the subject of a finite verb is richer in some languages
than others. Finite verbs in Italian and Spanish, for instance, encode more
information about their subject than finite verbs in English or French. The
following paradigm of the Spanish verb comer ‘to eat’ shows six different
forms of this verb in the present indicative: como ‘I eat’, comes ‘you (singular)
eat’, come ‘s/he eats’, comemos ‘we eat’, coméis ‘you (plural) eat’, and comen
‘they eat’. As the English translations of these forms show, the information
encoded in the verb about its subject in English is almost non-existent: the
verb displays tense, person, and number information, i.e. ‘eats’ only in the
third person singular. It is interesting to note here that it is not necessary in
Spanish to have a subject in a finite clause, as the amount of information it
provides about the subject on the finite verb is adequate for the purpose of
identifying it. In English, on the other hand, the subject of a finite sentence
cannot be left out.
Within the verb class, it is possible to set up different subclasses by relying primar-
ily on their semantics. Thus some verbs are active, dynamic or non-stative – build,
scrub, cut, and so on – while others are stative: remain, hear, know, and so on.
In a language like English, these two types can also be differentiated in other ways.
For instance, the progressive aspect can be used with active/non-stative verbs, but
it cannot always be used with stative verbs, as shown in the contrast between
They are learning English versus *They are knowing English. Additionally, active
or non-stative verbs can be used as imperative; stative verbs cannot: Learn this
piano piece but not *Know this piano piece.
Another well-known distinction is between verbs which are transitive and
verbs which are intransitive: buy, build, chase, and so on are transitive verbs,
as they require an object, as shown by the ungrammaticality of *I bought/
built/chased, while go, sleep, smile, and so on are intransitive, as they do not
have or require an object, e.g. I am going/sleeping/smiling. Note that some
transitive verbs can have an intransitive use: She is reading/eating/washing.
Within the subclass of transitive verbs, one can also identify different sub-
types: mono-transitive (verbs with one object: the dog chased the cat) and
ditransitive (verbs with two objects: John gave his brother his car).
Within the subclass of intransitive verbs, we can also further distinguish

between verbs whose subject has an agentive role, John jumped/laughed/
sneered, and verbs whose subject has a theme/patient role, John fell/col-
lapsed/died. The former belong to the unergative type and the latter to the
204 unaccusative type. Clearly this distinction is based on the semantics of the
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verbs, more specifically on the semantic relation or role which the verbs Verbs in
assign to their grammatical subject. Thus, in John jumped, the subject John French
did something, whereas in John fell, something happened to John. Still within
the subclass of intransitive verbs, one can identify a class of middle verbs:
cook as in this pasta cooks quickly, wash as in these trousers wash easily,
read as in this book reads well. Related to middle verbs are passive verbs:
these dishes were washed in cold water, this book was read by everyone, the
new car was stolen this morning. The subject of middle and passive verbs has
the same semantic role as the subject of unaccusative verbs. They all have a
patient, theme, or undergoer role, and they all correspond semantically to
the object of these verbs.
Another subclass of verbs is the class of raising verbs. These are verbs such
as seem and appear, and they have the property of taking a clause as their
complement and an expletive pronoun it/there as their subject: It seems she
has left, There appears to have been a mistake. In generative grammar
(Chomsky 1981) the subject Mary in a sentence like Mary seems/appears to
have lied is said to be the subject of the complement clause at some abstract
level (e.g. D-structure) because it bears the semantic role (agent) which the
verb lie in the complement clause assigns to it: [ [ ] seems/appears [Mary to
have lied]]. The subject Mary is then raised to become the subject of the
main clause.
8.2 Verbs in French
Verbs in French are traditionally grouped into four conjugations depend-

ing on their morphology, i.e. endings. These are: verbs ending with -er as
in manger ‘to eat’, verbs ending with -ir as in finir ‘to finish’, verbs ending
with -re as in vendre ‘to sell’, and verbs ending with -oir as in recevoir ‘to
receive’.
As was the case with verbs in English, verbs in French can also be grouped,
depending on their semantics and syntax, into different types. They can be
transitive, i.e. verbs which have an object Jean mange une banane ‘John
eats a banana’, and intransitive, i.e. verbs which do not have an object Jean
dort ‘John is sleeping’. Transitive verbs can further be classified as mono-
transitive, i.e. with only one object, as Jean adore les animaux ‘John loves
animals’, or ditransitive, i.e. verbs with an object and a prepositional phrase
complement Jean a donné son livre à son ami ‘John gave his book to his
friend’. Intransitive verbs can also be further subclassified as unaccusative
verbs, i.e. verbs whose grammatical subject has a patient, theme, or under-
goer role Jean est tombé ‘John fell’, or unergative verbs, i.e. verbs whose
grammatical subject has an agentive role Jean a ri ‘John laughed’. 205
8 Additionally, one could identify certain verbs as impersonal verbs, i.e.
Verbs verbs which take the expletive subject il as in Il fait chaud ‘It’s hot’ or Il y
a bien des choses à manger ‘There is plenty to eat’, and verbs which take
the expletive subject il and a complement clause, which may be either finite
or non-finite. These latter verbs are few in number, and they include sem-
bler ‘seem’ and paraître ‘appear’, i.e. verbs which were labelled raising
verbs earlier. Sentences in which such verbs are used are Il semble/paraît
que Marie est triste ‘it seems/appears that Mary is sad’ or Marie semble/
paraît être triste ‘Mary seems/appears sad’. In the latter example, the com-
plement of the verbs is a non-finite clause in which the adjective predicate
is predicated of its subject Mary, as shown in this representation: [ [ ]
semble/paraît [Marie être triste]]. The subject position in the main clause
is empty, as it does not have a semantic subject. It is filled either with the
expletive pronoun il, in which case we get il semble/paraît que Marie est
triste, or by raising the subject of the complement clause, i.e. Marie into
the empty subject position in the main clause, in which case we get Marie
semble/paraît triste.
Another set of verbs is the set of pronominal verbs, i.e. verbs whose object is
a reflexive pronoun which agrees with the subject as in Je me lave ‘I wash
myself’ or Tu te regards dans le mirroir ‘You are looking at yourself in the
mirror’, Nous nous connaissons ‘We know each other’.
8.2.1 French verb morphology
Verbs in French, as in other languages, can be further classified as being finite

or non-finite. Finite verbs display different surface forms which express a
range of meanings relating to tense, aspect, mood, person, and number.
These, together with the lexical meaning of the verb, contribute to the overall
interpretation of a sentence.
Verbal inflection can be used to express different tenses. Tense in French, as

in other Romance languages, is traditionally viewed as a ternary system
which characterises time as past (anterior), present (simultaneous), and
future (posterior) relative to the time of speaking. Verbal inflection, either
on its own or in combination with an auxiliary, can express these different
tenses.
(1) a. Nous mangeons à huit heures

‘We eat at eight.’
b. Nous avons mangé à huit heures
‘We ate at eight.’
c. Nous mangerons à huit heures
‘We will eat at eight.’
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Verbal inflection on its own encodes present tense in (1a) and future tense in Verbs in
(1c), but it combines with the auxiliary in order to express past tense, as in French
(1b). Note that the auxiliary also displays tense, person, and number infor-
mation (see later discussion). Note also that verbal inflection alone may be
sufficient to express the simple past (or past historic), but this use of the past
tense is restricted to written language and formal speech.
(2) a. Nous mangeâmes

‘We ate.’
b. Nous parlâmes
‘We spoke.’
The time of speaking as illustrated in (1) is ‘now’, but the speech time could
also be ‘then’ (past), in which case one could refer to past and future relative
to ‘then’ (a time in the past). Here too verbal inflection alone can express the
past, as in (3b), or it combines with an auxiliary, as in (3a) and (3c).
(3) a. Nous avions mangé à huit heures

‘We had eaten at eight o’clock.’
b. Nous mangions à huit heures
‘We were eating at eight o’clock.’
c. Nous aurions mangé à huit heures
‘We would have eaten at eight o’clock.’
Verbal inflection on finite verbs in French, it should be remembered, expresses

not only tense information but also agreement information (i.e. person, num-
ber, and gender) relating to the subject of a finite clause. This is clear from
the verbal paradigms in (4) for the verb parler ‘to speak’.*
(4) parler ‘to speak’ (conjugation)

Simple Present Simple Past Simple Future
Je parl-e Je parl-ai Je parl-erai
‘I speak.’ ‘I spoke.’ ‘I will speak.’
Tu parl-es Tu parl-as Tu parl-eras
‘You speak.’ ‘You spoke.’ ‘You will speak.’
Il parl-e Il parl-a Il parl-era
‘He speaks.’ ‘He spoke.’ ‘He will speak.’
Elle parl-e Elle parl-a Elle parl-era
‘She speaks.’ ‘She spoke.’ ‘She will speak.’
Nous parl-ons Nous parl-âmes Nous parl-erons
‘We speak.’ ‘We spoke.’ We will speak.’
Vous parl-ez Vous parl-âtes Vous parl-erez
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8 Ils parl-ent Ils parl-èrent Ils parl-eront
Verbs ‘They speak.’ ‘They spoke.’ ‘They will speak.’
Elles parl-ent Elles parl-èrent Elles parl-eront
‘They speak.’ ‘They spoke.’ ‘They will speak.’
Gender and number agreement with the subject is displayed on the verb when
it is preceded by the auxiliary être ‘to be’ but not the auxiliary avoir ‘to have’,
except when an unstressed object pronoun occurs pre-verbally, as shown in
the following.
(5) a. Il est arrivé hier

‘He arrived yesterday.’
b. Elle est arrivée hier
‘She arrived yesterday.’
c. Ils sont arrivés hier
d. Elles sont arrivées hier
(6) a. Je l’ai vu hier

‘I saw him yesterday.’
b. Je l’ai vue hier
‘I saw her yesterday.’
The difference is the morphology of the verb relates directly to the gender
and number of the subject in (5) and that of the object in (6). Note that inflec-
tion on verbs is very different as well as simpler in spoken French than in
written French. Thus, the following three forms of parler in the present
indicative – parle, parles, and parlent – are all pronounced the same way, i.e
with a zero affix. Likewise, the forms of the verbs in (5) and (6) are only dif-
ferent in written language. As far as spoken French is concerned, they are
morphologically uniform.
Note, however, that verbal inflection is not limited to finite verbs, as is clear
from the different forms which a verb like donner ‘to give’ displays when it
is non-finite.
(7) Non-finite verbs donn-er ‘to give’

Simple Infinitive donn-ant ‘giving’
Present Participle donn-é ‘given’
Past Participle donn-e/donn-ons/donn-ez
Imperative Give!
Like tense, aspect too can be expressed either with verbal inflection alone or
208 by combining verbal inflection with an auxiliary. Aspect is more about the
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internal make-up of the action or state denoted by the verb – whether it is Verbs in
habitual, ongoing, or completed. Traditionally, aspect is characterised as French
either an ongoing or habitual (i.e. imperfect) event, as in (8a), or completed
(i.e. a past) event, as in (8b).
(8) a. Elle prend son petit déjeuner.

‘She is having her breakfast.’
b. Elle a pris son petit déjeuner.
‘She had her breakfast.’
Turning now to mood, it too can be expressed with verbal inflection in French.
Mood grammaticalises the semantic concept of modality and is concerned
with the speaker’s attitude to the event denoted by the verb in the clause. Thus
an event judged or believed likely or probable by the speaker of the sentence
is expressed using the indicative mood, while one judged or believed unlikely
or improbable (or one wished for) is expressed using the subjunctive. This
may be illustrated with the complement of a verb like croire ‘to believe’ or
penser ‘to think’ when used in an affirmative and a negative context.
(9) a. Je crois qu’il part demain

‘I believe that he is leaving tomorrow.’
b. Je ne crois pas qu’il parte demain
‘I don’t believe that he is leaving tomorrow.’
(10) a. Je pense que Marie viendra demain

‘I think that Mary will come tomorrow.’
b. Je ne pense pas que Marie vienne demain
‘I don’t think that Mary will come tomorrow.’
The same distinction between an event judged likely and the use of the indica-
tive on the one hand and an event judged unlikely or less probable (or doubt-
ful) and the use of subjunctive on the other can be seen where the main verb
is an impersonal verb, i.e. a verb which takes an expletive pronoun as its
subject and expresses likelihood or doubt. The event denoted by the verb in
the complement clause is therefore less likely in (11b) than in (11a).
(11) a. Il est probable que Jean viendra demain

‘It’s probable that John will come tomorrow.’
b. Il est possible que Jean vienne demain
‘It’s possible that John will come tomorrow.’
c. Il est douteux que Jean vienne demain
‘It’s doubtful that John will come tomorrow.’
The subjunctive mood is also used to express the speaker’s view as to whether
an entity exists or not. In (12a) the interpretation is that ‘I am looking for a 209
8 specific student who speaks Welsh’ (i.e. such a student exists), whereas in (12b)
Verbs the interpretation is that ‘I am not looking for any specific student who speaks
Welsh’ (i.e. the student may not exist). This difference in meaning derives
directly from the mood of the verb in the modifying relative clause; in (12a) it
expresses the indicative mood, while in (12b) it expresses the subjunctive mood.
(12) a. Je cherche un étudiant qui sait parler le gallois

‘I’m looking for a student who can speak Welsh.’
b. Je cherche un étudiant qui sache parler le gallois
‘I’m looking for a student who can speak Welsh.’
Interestingly, in French, as in English and other languages, a speaker’s atti-

tude about an event or the participants in an event can also be expressed with
a modal verb. French has the following modal verbs: devoir ‘must’, pouvoir
‘can’, falloir ‘have to/must’, and savoir ‘can’. These express different mean-
ings: logical necessity, probability, moral obligation, hypothetical, certainty,
permission, and so on. The following examples with the modal verb devoir
must are illustrative, but see chapter 9 for a more detailed discussion.
(13) a. Jean doit être dans sa chambre.

‘John must be in his room.’
b. Tu dois rentrer chez toi.
‘You must go home.’
c. Il devait partir à sept heures mais le train a été retardé.
‘He was to leave at seven but the train was delayed.’
The meaning that the modal verb contributes to the meaning of the sentence in
(13a) is that of logical necessity, i.e. it is logically necessary (from what is known
or what can be logically inferred) that John is in his room. In (13b) the modal
verb expresses an obligation, while in (13c) it expresses the idea that the planned/
hypothetical event did not take place. Consider now the modal verb pouvoir
‘can’; it expresses permission in (14a), ability in (14b), or possibility in (14c).
(14) a. Tu peux sortir.

‘You can go out.’
b. Il ne peut pas monter l’escalier.
‘He can’t go upstairs.’
c. Elle peut encore réussir si elle travaille dur.
‘She can still succeed if she works hard.’
The modal verb falloir ‘have to/ought to’ indicates a sense of obligation or
necessity, as shown in (15).
(15) a. Il faut lui encourager.

210 ‘He must be encouraged.’
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b. Il aurait fallu que la police l’arrête. Verbs in the
‘The police should have stopped him.’ French creoles
The modal verb savoir ‘know how to/can’ expresses a subject-oriented

(deontic) modality, as illustrated in the following.
(16) a. Il sait réparer les voitures.

‘He can (knows how to) repair cars.’
b. Il sait compter.
‘He can count.’
In this use, savoir has the same force as pouvoir, except that it refers to
knowledge/ability to do something in general rather than on specific occa-
sions, in which case pouvoir is more appropriate as in Il peut monter l’escalier
‘He can go upstairs’.
8.3 Verbs in the French creoles
8.3.1 Morphology of verbs
One of the distinguishing features of verbs in the French creoles is that they
lack the verbal morphology of French verbs which, as we saw earlier,
expresses tense, aspect, mood, and agreement marking with the subject of a
finite clause. They generally only retain the root (bare) form of the French
verbs, sometimes with some phonetic modifications, and therefore no verbal
affixes to express tense, aspect, and mood. Without verbal inflection, there
is also no person, number, or gender agreement with the subject in a finite
clause. It is worth emphasising that such agreement information is in any
case redundant when the subject is overtly present. The following paradigms
illustrate the verb koze ‘to speak’ in its present, past, and future tense form
in the IOC.
(17) Present Past Future

mo koze mo ti koze mo pu koze
1s speak 1s PAST speak 1s FUT speak
‘I speak.’ ‘I spoke.’ ‘I will speak.’
to koze to ti koze to pu koze
li koze li ti koze li pu koze
‘S/he speaks.’ ‘S/he spoke.’ ‘S/he will speak.’ 211
8 nu koze nu ti koze nu pu koze
Verbs 1p speak 1p PAST speak 1p FUT speak
‘We speak.’ ‘We spoke.’ ‘We will speak.’
u/zot koze u/zot ti koze u/zot pu koze
2p speak 2p PAST speak 2p FUT speak
zot koze zot ti koze zot pu koze
3p speak 3p PAST speak 3p FUT speak
‘They speak.’ ‘They spoke.’ ‘They will speak.’
As this paradigm illustrates, the verb is morphologically uniform across

tense, person, and number. That is to say, the form it displays is invariant and
similar to its root form. Tense is signalled by free-standing pre-verbal mor-
phemes. The past (anterior) tense is marked with the pre-verbal ti (< Fr
était/étaient/été) and the future (posterior) tense with the pre-verbal marker
pu (< Fr pour ‘for’). The present tense, however, is signalled by the absence
of these markers, although in the Atlantic creoles, such absence can also
indicate the past rather than present (for more detailed discussion on this,
see chapter 9). We may assume that the present or past tense in such cases
has a zero (Ø) morpheme.
Like tense, aspect too is marked independently of the verb, with free-standing
morphemes. These are pe (ongoing) and finn (completive) in the IOC, and
they can combine with tense markers to express different nuances of tempo-
ral and aspectual meanings.
(18) a. mo pe manze
1s PROG eat
‘I’m eating.’
b. mo ti pe manze
1s PAST PROG eat
‘I was eating.’
c. mo finn manze
1s PERF eat
‘I have eaten.’
d. mo ti finn manze
1s PAST PERF eat
‘I had eaten.’
Tense and aspect in the other creoles are discussed in detail elsewhere, but for
now the point is made that the French creoles have developed a small set of
free standing morphemes to express those different temporal, aspectual, and
modal meanings which are generally expressed by verbal inflection in French.
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Although the verbs in the paradigms in (17) display a uniform surface form, Verbs in the
this uniformity sometimes does not hold. Verbs ending with a vowel in some French creoles
of the creoles can display a long and a short form by dropping their word-
final vowel. This kind of alternation is widespread in the IOC (e.g. manze –
manz ‘to eat’, ale – al ‘to go’, panse – pans ‘to think’, koze – koz ‘to speak’,
and so on) but occurs with fewer verbs in some creoles. In others, such an
alternation is not available (e.g. Guyanese and Karipuna). A few examples
of this phenomenon can be found in St. Lucian (Carrington 1984: 54): vini –
vin ‘to come’, ale – al ‘to go’, sòti – sòt ‘to come from’, and fini-fin ‘to finish’.
Similarly, in Martinican and Guadeloupean, there are two forms of ‘to come’,
namely vin/vini (see Bernabé 1983: 1171), and two forms of ‘to hear’, namely
tandé/tann ‘to hear’. In Haitian we find konnen/konn ‘to know’ and gengnen
and gen ‘to have’ (Valdman 1978: 164, Lefebvre 1998: 269), the result of
dropping the nasalised vowel at the end of the verb.
One creole which has a slightly larger number of verbs which display this
alternation in comparison to the creoles of the Atlantic is Louisiana Creole
(see Neumann 1985: 189–194 for a list of such verbs). However there is an
important difference between the alternation in Louisiana Creole and that
found in the IOC. In the former, the change from one form to the other can
signal a change in grammatical information, a change in tense, for instance.
The short form signals habitual/universal present tense, while the long form
past tense, as shown in (19a, b) from Klingler (2003: 236); in the latter, i.e.
the IOC, this change is dependent on syntactic or structural factors: the verb
has a short form when it is followed by a complement and a long form when
it is not (see Syea 1992, 2013a). Thus sentences which correspond to the
Louisiana examples (19a, b) in the IOC show the verb in its short form as it
is followed by a complement, as shown in (19c, d), and in its long form when
it is followed by an adjunct, as in (19e), or when it is in sentence-final posi-
tion, as in (19f).
(19) a. to monj sa ek de graton (L; Klingler 2003: 236)

2s eat that with some crackling
‘You (always) eat that with crackling.’
b. lapen monje tou lafèr (L; Klingler 2003: 236)
rabbit eat all thing
‘Rabbits ate everything.’
c. to manz/*manze sa ek dile (IOC)
2s eat that with milk
‘You (always) eat this with milk.’
d. lapen ti manz/*manze tu zafer (IOC)
rabbit PAST eat all thing
‘Rabbits ate everything.’
213
8 e. li manze/*manz midi (IOC)
Verbs 3s eat noon
‘He eats at noon.’
f. li manze/*manz (IOC)
3s eat
‘He eats (something).’
What we see here is that Louisiana Creole uses verbal inflection, i.e. the verb-
final vowel -e, to express past tense and its absence to express the habitual
present. The IOC, by contrast, uses a free-standing morpheme to express past
tense. Louisiana Creole therefore displays morphological tense marking and
is accordingly an exception to any generalisation that the French creoles lack
verbal tense-marking inflection.
Klingler (2003: 235) also notes that when a verb with the long form in Loui-
siana Creole is unaccompanied by a pre-verbal marker, it is interpreted either
as habitual present or past, i.e. mo manje can be interpreted as either ‘I eat’
or ‘I ate’. It is interesting to note in connection with this alternation in Loui-
siana Creole that a similar phenomenon exists in Réunion Creole: m i manz
‘I eat/I am eating’ and m i manze ‘I ate/used to eat/was eating’ (Corne 1999:
80). Both creoles therefore use verbal morphology to encode tense.
8.3.2 Typology of verbs in the French creoles
Verbs in the French creoles, like those in French, have different semantic and
syntactic properties, which makes it possible to classify them into different well-
known types, such as transitive, ditransitive, unaccusative, unergative, and rais-
ing, as well as semantic types such as stative and non-stative, and so on.
8.3.2.1 Transitive verbs

As noted earlier, these are verbs which require an object, and the relation
between the verb and its object is a very close one. Intuitively and semanti-
cally, the object ‘completes the action’ or ‘takes the action’ (Lobeck 2000:
252) denoted by the verb, and without it, the verb cannot stand on its own,
except in certain contexts. Examples of transitive verbs in the French creoles
are given here.
(20) a. nu ti truv enn lisyen (IOC)

1p PAST see a dog
‘We saw a dog.’
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b. li finn desir let la (IOC) Verbs in the
3s PERF tear letter DEF French creoles
‘He has torn the letter.’
(21) a. m te wè Pyè (H; Koopman 1982b: 217)

1s PAST see Peter
‘I saw Peter.’
b. papa-m sélé bourik (H; Valdman 1978: 216)
father-1s harness donkey
‘My father harnessed the donkey.’
(22) a. mo frè achté oun loto (G; Damoiseau 2003: 13)

my brother buy a car
‘My brother bought a car.’
b. Patrik lavé loto-a (G; Damoiseau 2003: 15)
Patrick wash car-DEF
‘Patrick washed the car.’
(23) a. Piè ka fè an kay (M; Bernabé 2003: 39)

Peter PRES make a house
‘Peter is building a house.’
b. Kanmi ka manjé lanmori épi pen (M; Bernabé
Camille PRES eat salted fish with bread 2003: 42)
‘Camille eats salted fish and bread.’
(24) a. i puse kanòt li (St. L; Carrington 1984: 100)

3s push boat 3s
‘He pushed his boat.’
b. i dubut tròk la (St. L; Carrington 1984: 100)
3s stop truck DEF
‘He stopped the truck.’
(25) a. mo k-ale plãte mo batxi (K; Tobler 1983: 18)

1s PROG-go plant 1s field
‘I’m going to plant my field.’
b. nu ka mãje kaymã (K; Tobler 1983: 25)
1p PROG eat alligator
‘We are eating alligator.’
(26) a. chyen-la trape lode lapen-la (L; Klingler 2003: 178)

dog-DEF catch scent rabbit-DEF
‘The dog caught the rabbit’s scent.’
215
8 b. mo te ramas tou la krème-lan (L; Klingler
Verbs 1s PAST collect all the cream-DEF 2003: 179)
‘I gathered up all the cream.’
One interesting feature of transitive verbs in the French creoles is that their
object can be left out provided an appropriate context is available, as illus-
trated in the following examples from the IOC.
(27) a. to’nn repar mo loto?

2s PERF repair 1s car
‘Have you repaired my car?’
b. wi, mo’nn repare
Yes, 1s PERF repair
‘Yes, I have.’
(28) a. li ti poste to let?

3s PAST post 2s letter
‘Did he post your letter?’
b. non, li pa ti poste
no 3s NEG PAST post
‘No, he didn’t.’
Such responses are ill-formed in French unless a pre-verbal clitic pronoun is used:
Oui, je l’ai réparée ‘Yes, I repaired it’ or Oui, je l’ai postée ‘Yes, I posted it.’ In
the IOC these do not require an object pronoun, although one can be inserted,
but only in post-verbal position: wi, mo’nn ranz li ‘Yes, I’ve repaired it’, not *wi,
mo li finn ranze (lit. yes, I it have repaired). But generally they are perfectly
acceptable without an object, particularly where it is indefinite, as shown in (29).
(29) a. to ti aste disik?

2s PAST buy sugar
‘Did you buy sugar?’
b. Wi, mo ti aste (*li)
Yes 1s PAST buy 3s
‘Yes, I bought some.’
Similar examples of object-less transitive and ditransitive constructions also

occur in some of the other French creoles.
(30) a. dòn mon (L; Klingler 2003: 212)

give 1s
‘Give me (some).’
b. anon pran (L; Klingler 2003: 212)
let take
216 ‘Let’s take (some).’
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c. mõtre mwẽ (St. L; Carrington 1984: 103) Verbs in the
show 1s French creoles
‘Show me (it).’
d. Pyè trapé (M/Gu; Bernabé 1983: 850)
Peter catch
‘Peter caught (someone).’
e. mo dumãde u si u ke le (K; Tobler 1983: 37)
1s ask 2s if 2s FUT want
‘I asked you whether you would like (some bananas).’
There are two other types of verbs which, syntactically, behave just like
transitive verbs in that they require a constituent to follow them, although it
does not ‘take the action’ of the verb in the way that the object of a transitive
verb does. These are the semantically empty copula verb (French être ‘to be’)
and the inchoative verbs (i.e. verbs which denote a change of state) such as
to become in English or devenir ‘to become’ in French.
(31) a. They are doctors

b. Ils sont médecins
‘They are doctors.’
(32) a. They became doctors

b. Ils sont devenus médecins
‘They became doctors.’
Neither the copula nor the inchoative verb can occur without a complement.
Thus *ils sont (31b) and *ils sont devenus (32b) or their English equivalents
are clearly ill-formed.
Constructions such as (31) are copula-less in some of the French creoles, for
instance in the IOC, e.g. zot dokter (lit. they doctor) ‘they are doctors’. An
alternative analysis might be to assume that they have a zero copula. Construc-
tions corresponding to (32) in the French creoles, however, have an inchoative
verb. This can be vini ‘to come’ in some of the creoles, bay ‘to give’, hive ‘to
arrive’, tune ‘to turn into’ in others, but all these are translatable as ‘to become’.
(33) a. Pier finn vinn en dokter (IOC)

Peter PERF become a doctor
‘Peter has become a doctor.’
b. Timanmay-tala ka vini sire (M; Bernabé 2003: 29)
child-DEM PRES become teaser
‘This child is becoming a teaser.’
c. i vini dòktè (St. L; Carrington 1984: 106)
3s become doctor
‘He became a doctor.’ 217
8 Like the copula, these verbs require a complement. It is in this respect that
Verbs inchoative and copula verbs (more generally copular verbs) are transitive-
like. However there are important differences between the complement of an
inchoative and copula verb (i.e. predicative complements (Huddleston 1984))
and the complement (object) of a transitive verb, particularly in terms of
reference and agreement. Objects of transitive verbs, for instance, are refer-
ential; predicative complements of inchoative or copula verbs, in contrast,
are non-referential, which explains why they can be adjectival whilst the
objects of transitive verbs cannot.
(34) a. li’ nn vinn gran (IOC)

3s PERF become big
‘He’s become big.’
b. * li’ nn ranz gran
3s PERF build big
Although number agreement is generally non-existent in creoles, it does sur-

prisingly hold with predicative complements. Note the contrast between
(35a) and (35b) from the IOC.
(35) a. zot finn apel enn dokter/(bann) dokter

3p PERF call a doctor/PLU doctor
‘They’ve called a doctor/doctors.’
b. zot finn vinn *enn dokter/ dokter
3p PERF become a doctor/doctor
‘They have become doctors.’
The singular predicative complement in (35b) is incompatible with the plural

subject. Such a constraint does not operate in (35a) on the object of a transi-
tive verb.
A further difference which exists between the objects of transitive verbs and
the predicative complements of copular and inchoative verbs, one which
exists in the IOC, is that unlike objects, predicative complements cannot be
phonologically null, even when an appropriate context is created. Observe
the contrast between (36) and (37) in the IOC.
(36) a. to’nn apel enn dokter?

2s PERF call a doctor
‘Have you called a doctor?’
b. wi mo’nn apele
yes 1s PERF call
‘Yes, I called a doctor.’
218
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(37) a. Zan finn vinn enn dokter? Verbs in the
John PERF become a doctor French creoles
‘Has John become a doctor?’
b. * wi, li’ nn vini
yes 3s PERF become/become
Although copular verbs in the IOC behave syntactically like transitive verbs in
that they require a complement, they are somewhat different; their complement
can never be omitted, unlike that of a transitive verb, and it is predicated of the
subject, as is clear from the number agreement it displays. The objects of the
transitive verbs looked at so far have been nominal, i.e. NPs, but it is worth not-
ing that they can also be clausal, as in these examples from the IOC: mo kone
Zan la ‘I know John is here’, mo krwar Zan laba ‘I believe John is there’, and so
on. (For a full survey of complement types and complementisers, see chapter 12).
A last observation concerning transitive verbs in the French creoles is that

they can be used reflexively. In French, verbs such as raser ‘to shave’, laver
‘to wash’, sentir ‘to feel’, and so on are pronominal verbs. They can be used
reflexively, and the reflexive unstressed object pronoun is placed pre-verbally,
as in Je me rase ‘I’m having a shave’, Je me lave ‘I am having a wash’, Je me
sens mal ‘I feel ill’. These pronominal verbs can also be used reflexively in
the French creoles, except that the object reflexive pronoun is either omitted,
as in (38a–c), or realised post-verbally as a bare personal pronoun, as in
(38d), or as a personal pronoun affixed with the reflexive morpheme -mem
‘self’, as in (38e, f). Another possibility is to have a nominal object formed
by combining the noun lekor/kò ‘body’ or tet ‘head’ with a possessive pro-
noun, as in (38g–j).
(38) a. mo pe raze (IOC)

1s PROG shave
‘I’m having a shave/I’m shaving myself.’
b. Eliza ka benyen adan lariviè- a (M; Bernabé 2003: 49)
Eliza PRES swim in river-DEF
‘Eliza is swimming in the river.’
c. . . . to gen benyen ankò . . . (L; Klingler 2003: 304)
2s have bathe again
‘ . . . you have to bathe again . . .’
d. mo pe raz mwa (IOC)
1s PROG shave 1s
‘I’m shaving myself.’
e. li tchouwe li-mèm (L; Klingler 2003: 304)
3s kill 3s-self
219
8 f. ouzo benyen zo-menm (L; Klingler 2003: 304)
Verbs 2p bathe 3p-self
‘You wash yourselves.’
g. Piè ka gadé kò i adan glas-la (M; Bernabé
Peter PRES look body 3s in mirror-DEF 2003: 49)
‘Peter is looking at himself in the mirror.’
h. m té gadé kò-m nan glas (H; Valdman 1978: 208)
1s PAST look body-1s in mirror
‘I was looking at myself in the mirror.’
i. mwẽ kupe kò mwẽ (St. L; Carrington 1984: 74)
1s cut body 1s
‘I cut myself.’
j. mo ka défann mo kò (G; Damoiseau 2003: 55)
1s PRES defend 1s body
‘I will defend myself.’
The object of the verbs in (38a–c) can be said to be implicit. It is assumed

that a reflexive interpretation of these verbs is possible, as they derive from
French pronominal verbs. However, they can also be used non-reflexively:
mo pe raz mo kamarad ‘I’m shaving my friend’.
As is clear from these examples, the French creoles clearly differ as to whether
or not they realise an object pronoun with pronominal verbs, and if they do,
whether it takes the form of a bare personal pronoun in the accusative form,
or a personal pronoun reinforced with the reflexive suffix -mem, or a noun
meaning ‘body’ and modified by a personal pronoun. For instance, Carrington
(1984: 74) notes that, in St. Lucian, imperatives do not allow a bare personal
pronoun *amize u/zot ‘enjoy yourself/yourselves’. Instead, they require a
‘body’ noun: amize kò u/zot (lit. enjoy body your) ‘enjoy yourself/yourselves’.
By contrast, in the IOC bare personal pronouns are acceptable amiz u/zot but
not *amiz u/zot lekor (lit. enjoy your body) ‘enjoy yourself/yourselves’.
8.3.2.2 Ditransitive verbs

As was noted earlier, there are some verbs in English and French which
require two objects. These are ditransitive verbs such as give, send, and pass
in English and donner ‘to give’, envoyer ‘to send’, passer ‘to pass’ in French.
In English, these verbs can be followed either by an indirect object and a
direct object, e.g. send John a book or a direct object and a prepositional
complement, e.g. send a book to John. In French, by contrast, they can only
be followed by a direct object and a prepositional complement e.g. donner
un livre à Marie ‘to give a book to Mary’ but not *donner Marie un livre
‘give Mary a book’. In the French creoles, however, such verbs are generally
followed by the indirect object and then the direct object. That is, they tend
220 to have double objects, unlike their French counterparts.
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The following are illustrative. Verbs in the
French creoles
(39) a. li pu anvwaj Mari enn kado (IOC)
3s FUT send Mary a gift
‘He will send Mary a gift.’
b. li bay Mari krab (H; Lefebvre 1998: 283)
3s give Mary crab
‘He gave Mary some crab.’
c. Piè ba Eliza en bo (M; Bernabé 2003: 40)
Peter give Eliza a kiss
‘Peter gave Eliza a kiss.’
d. Jan bay timoun-an soumaké (G; Damoiseau 2003: 19)
John give child-DEF money
‘John gave the child money.’
e. nu te baj zot kat gud (St. L; Carrington 1984: 102)
1p PAST give 3p four dollar
‘We had given them four dollars.’
f. li bay mo de djize (K; Tobler 1983: 24)
3s give 1s two egg
‘He gave me two eggs.’
g. mo don ma momõ põje-la (L; Neumann 1985: 255)
1s give 1s mother basket-DEF
‘I gave my mother the basket.’
It is possible, however, to find in some of these creoles the analogue of the

French ditransitive structure in which the verb is followed by the direct object
and a prepositional complement. The preposition which heads the preposi-
tional complement is, however, sometimes null, as shown in (40), and some-
times overt, as in (41).
(40) a. li pu donn kado la so kamarad (IOC)

3s FUT give gift DEF 3s friend
‘He will give the gift to his friend.’
b. mo prète larjan-la li, . . . (L; Klingler 2003: 211)
1s lend money-DEF 3s
‘I lent him the money, . . .’
(41) a. ? mo finn donn kado la pu li (IOC)

1s PERF give gift DEF for 3s
‘I gave the gift to him.’
b. li voyè bagay-sa-a pou mouen (H; Valdman 1978: 248)
3s send thing-DEM-DEF for 1s
‘He sent that thing to/for me.’ 221
8 c. Konpè Lapin pòté an soup (M; Bernabé 2003: 96)
Verbs Mister Rabbit bring a soup
titiri ba Konpè Chien
fish to Mister Dog
‘Mister Rabbit brought a fish soup to Mister Dog.’
d. mo voyé oun let pou Jérar (G; Damoiseau 2003: 19)
1s send a letter to Gerrard
‘I sent a letter to Gerrard.’
e. mo ke bay de djize pu u (K; Tobler 1983: 24)
1s FUT give two egg to 2s
‘I will give you two eggs.’
f. eskè to vòye li pou li? (L; Klingler 2003: 211)
Q 2s send 3s to 3s
‘Did you send it to her?’
g. mo don põje-la a ma momõ (L; Neumann 1985: 256)
1s give basket-DEF to 1s mother
‘I will give the basket to my mother.’
Ditransitive constructions such as (40) are impossible in Martinican, Guade-

loupean, and Guyanese. Both Bernabé (2003) and Damoiseau (2003) reject
examples such as those in (42).
(42) a. * Piè ba an bo Eliza (M; Bernabé 2003: 40)

Peter give a kiss Eliza
b. * Kanmi ba lajan timanmay-la (M; Bernabé 2003: 155)
Camille give money child-DEF
c. * Kristof montré foto-ya so kanmarad (G; Damoiseau
Christoff show photo-DEF 3s friend 2003: 20)
In these creoles, ditransitives with a prepositional complement are only pos-

sible if the head of their prepositional complement is overt, as shown in the
example in (41c).
On the other hand, St. Lucian Creole does not allow the alternative ditransitive
constructions in (41). According to Carrington (1984: 102), this creole requires
that the indirect object be linearly adjacent to the verb. In other words, ditran-
sitive verbs can only occur with double objects. Since all the French creoles use
these verbs in a double object structure, it is arguable that this structure repre-
sents the unmarked option, while the alternative direct object followed by a
prepositional complement represents the marked option. It is also worth noting
that examples such as (41a) in the IOC are questionable since the preposition
has more of a beneficiary interpretation rather than a goal one.
We saw in our discussion of transitive verbs (see examples (30a, c)) that their
222 direct object can be missing. Interestingly, this is also possible with the direct
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and indirect object of ditransitive verbs, as illustrated by the examples in Verbs in the
(43) from the IOC. French creoles
(43) a. to ti donn Zan liv la?

2s PAST give John book DEF
‘Did you give John the book?’
b. non, mo pa ti done
no 1s NEG PAST give
‘No, I didn’t.’
Sometimes only the direct object is left out, as shown in (44) and (45).
(44) a. to ti donn Zan liv la? (IOC)
2s PAST give John book DEF
‘Did you give John the book?’
b. wi, mo ti donn li
yes, 1s PAST give 3s
‘Yes, I gave him (it).’
(45) a. donn mwa! (IOC)
give 1s
‘Give me (something)!’
b. bay pu mo (K; Tobler 1983: 68)
give for me
‘Give (it) to me!’
Notice that the reference of the missing objects can be readily established via
discourse or context, e.g. the previous question. Note also that the third
person object pronoun in (44b) must be interpreted as animate rather than
inanimate. The response cannot be translated as ‘Yes, I gave it (to him).’ In
other words, it seems that either both objects can be phonologically null or
only the direct object. This represents an interesting constraint on the pos-
sibilities which exist when spelling out (or not spelling out) the objects of
ditransitive verbs.
The possibility of double-object constructions in the French creoles and the

possibility of unexpressed objects with both transitive and ditransitive verbs
represent two interesting developments as well as an interesting departure from
ditransitive constructions in French. However, it is possible to trace double-
object constructions to French imperative structures such as Donne-moi ton
livre ‘give me your book’, Envoyez-moi une lettre ‘send me a letter’, Passez-lui
sa chemise ‘Give him his shirt’. It is not inconceivable that the double object
constructions in the French creoles might have been modelled on such French
imperative constructions. For further discussion on the origin of double-object
constructions in creoles, see Bruyn, Muysken, and Verrips (1999) and Syea
(2011, 2013a). 223
8 8.3.2.3 Unaccusative verbs
Verbs
Unaccusative verbs are a subset of intransitive verbs which have the distinctive
property of having a subject which is semantically interpreted as their object
and, accordingly, encodes a theme/patient rather than agent role. Typical unac-
cusative verbs in French are: tomber ‘to fall’, casser ‘to break’, arriver ‘to arrive’,
and so on, and these have the additional distinctive property of combining with
the auxiliary être ‘to be’ rather than avoir ‘to have’ to form a compound verb.
(46) a. Il est tombé

‘He fell down.’
b. C’est cassé
‘It’s broken.’
c. Ils sont arrivés
‘They have arrived.’
Similar verbs occur in the French creoles. It is interesting to note that, in the
absence of passive constructions, unaccusative and middle verbs are the only
verbs which allow their object to be realised in subject position. The follow-
ing unaccusative verbs occur in the IOC.
(47) a. vaz la finn fele

vase DEF PERF crack
‘The vase has cracked.’
b. Zan finn tombe
John PERF fall
‘John has fallen down.’
c. zot p’ ankor arive
3p NEG yet arrive
‘They haven’t arrived yet.’
d. diber la pe fonn
butter DEF PROG melt
‘The butter is melting.’
The other French creoles also have a similar set of unaccusative verbs, which can
be traced back to their unaccusative counterparts in the lexifier. This includes verbs
such as arive/rive (< Fr arriver ‘to arrive’), ale (< Fr aller ‘to go’), glise (< Fr glisser
‘to slip’), tonbe (< Fr tomber ‘to fall’), pati (< Fr partir ‘to leave’), and so on.
(48) a. li rive Pòtoprens (H; Lefebvre 1998: 249)

3s arrive Port-au-Prince
‘He arrived in Port-au-Prince.’
b. li ale Pòtoprens (H; Lefebvre 1998: 249)
3s go Port-au-Prince
224 ‘He went to Port-au-Prince.’
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c. Piè glinsé (M; Bernabé 2003: 45) Verbs in the
Peter slip French creoles
‘Peter slipped.’
d. Piè tonbé (M; Bernabé 2003: 45)
Peter fall
‘Peter fell down.’
e. i pati bonmanten-an (G; Damoiseau 2003: 17)
3s go morning-DEF
‘He went/left that morning.’
f. i pa vini pas i malad (G; Damoiseau 2003: 21)
3s NEG come because 3s ill
‘She hasn’t come because she is ill.’
g. lapli ka tõbe (St. L; Carrington 1984: 106)
rain PRES fall
h. bug la sòti oleõ (St. L; Carrington 1984: 107)
man DEF come Oleon
‘The fellow comes from Oleon.’
i. sa reste ẽ but tõ (L; Neumann 1985: 257)
that stay a little time
‘That stayed (like that) for a few minutes.’
j. li muri dõ so lit (L; Neumann 1985: 257)
3s die in 3s bed
‘He died in his bed.’
k. lominét ka ghõfle (K; Tobler 1983: 31)
omelette PROG swell
‘The omelette is puffing up.’
l. li hive pu koze ke mo (K; Tobler 1983: 15)
3s arrive for talk with 1s
‘He came to talk with me.’
In all these examples, the semantics of the verbs is such that their subject has a
theme role, one which is canonically associated with the object of a transitive
verb. It is worth noting in this connection that while syntactic passive construc-
tions are generally missing in most creoles, inherited unaccusative constructions
have survived. This may be because, unlike unaccusative constructions, syntac-
tic passives are only possible in languages like English and French if some
detransitivising element (e.g. an auxiliary and passive inflection) is present.
8.3.2.4 Unergative verbs

Another type of intransitive verb is the unergative type. Like unaccusative
verbs, unergative verbs are verbs with a single argument. However, there is
an important difference between them relating to how their subject is 225
8 interpreted. The subject of an unaccusative verb, as we saw earlier, is inter-
Verbs preted as its semantic object and has a theme role, while the subject of an
unergative verb is interpreted as its semantic subject and it has an agent role.
The latter has a relation with its verb which is somewhat looser (or cogni-
tively less close) than the relation between the subject of an unaccusative
(understood as the logical object) and its verb. In French, these two classes
of verbs are also differentiated in terms of the auxiliary with which they
occur; unaccusative verbs occur with the auxiliary être ‘to be’ – Jean est arrivé
‘John has arrived’ – while unergative verbs occur with the auxiliary avoir ‘to
have’ – Jean a souri ‘John smiled’. The following are examples of unergative
verbs in French: sauter ‘to jump’, rire ‘to laugh’, travailler ‘to work’, nager
‘to swim’, courir ‘run’, and so on, and the French creoles have very clearly
drawn from this list.
(49) a. Il a sauté.
‘He jumped.’
b. Elle a ri.
‘She laughed.’
c. Ils ont parlé.
‘They spoke.’
d. Nous travaillons.
‘We are working.’
e. Nous nageons chaque dimanche.
‘We swim every Sunday.’
The IOC have a similar set of unergative verbs: sote ‘to jump’, riye ‘to laugh’,
koze ‘to talk’, travay ‘to work’, naze ‘to swim’, and so on.
(50) a. li ti sote
3s PAST jump
‘He jumped.’
b. li pe riye
3s PROG laugh
‘She is laughing.’
c. zot pe koze
3p PROG talk
‘They are talking.’
d. nu pu travay
1p FUT work
‘We will work.’
e. zot pe naze
3p PROG swim
‘They are swimming.’
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Examples of unergative verbs in the other French creoles are listed here. Verbs in the
French creoles
(51) a. l’ ape rõfle (L; Neumann 1985: 257)
3s PROG snore
‘He’s snoring.’
b. Torti galope (L; Neumann 1985: 257)
tortoise run
‘The tortoise ran.’
c. li té travay jodi-a (H; Valdman 1978: 251)
3s PAST work today-DEF
‘He has worked today.’
d. li vansé piti piti (H; Valdman 1978: 252)
3s advance little little
‘He moved forward slowly.’
e. mwẽ pa sa naze (St. L; Carrington 1984: 106)
1s NEG know swim
‘I cannot swim.’
f. nu tut ka predie ãsam (St. L; Carrington 1984: 106)
1p all PRES pray together
‘We all pray together.’
g. i ka jwé bien (G; Damoiseau 2003: 128)
3s PRES play well
‘She plays well.’
h. i ka maché (G; Damoiseau 2003: 154)
3s PRES walk
‘She walks.’
i. chouval-tala, li, i poko kouri (M; Bernabé 2003: 33)
horse-DEM 3s 3s NEG=yet run
‘That horse, it hasn’t run yet.’
j. timanmay-la ka palé dépi tjek tan (M; Bernabé 2003: 39)
child-DEF PRES speak since some time
‘The child has been speaking for some time.’
k. li maxe, li maxe pu djivã (K; Tobler 1983: 11)
3s walk 3s walk for front
‘He walks, he walks on ahead.’
l. kaymã ka ghõde (K; Tobler 1983: 61)
alligator PROG roar
‘The alligator is roaring.’
The subject in each of these sentences acts as an agent or actor. That is to say,
the subject can be understood to be doing something rather than having
something done to it or something happening to it, which is how the subject
of an unaccusative verb is interpreted.
227
8 8.3.2.5 Ergative verbs
Verbs
Another subset of verbs is a small number of ergative verbs, i.e. verbs which
can be used transitively (John sank the body in the pond) as well as ergatively
(The body sank in the pond). In the latter, the subject is interpreted as the
logical object of the verb, and it has a theme role. Ergative verbs in English
include break, sink, roll, and so on. Similar verbs can also be used ergatively
in French: Le verre est rempli d’eau ‘The glass is filled with water’, Le bateau
a coulé au fond ‘The boat sank to the bottom’. French creoles also have a list
of ergative verbs. The following are from the IOC.
(52) a. laglas la finn kase but but

mirror DEF PERF break piece piece
‘The mirror broke into pieces.’
b. barik la pe ranpli ar dilo
barrel DEF PROG fill with water
‘The barrel is filling up with water.’
c. pri tu marsandiz pe ogmante
price all goods PROG increase
‘The prices of all goods are going up.’
d. dile la pe buij
milk DEF PROG boil
‘The milk is boiling.’
e. dibwa la pe fann
wood DEF PROG split
‘The wood is splitting.’
The verbs in (52a–e) can also be used transitively, as shown in the following.
(53) a. li’ nn kas laglas la but but

3s PERF break mirror DEF piece piece
‘He broke the mirror into pieces.’
b. mo ti ranpli barik la ar delo
1s PAST fill barrel DEF with water
‘I filled the barrel with water.’
c. zot pe ogmant pri tu zafer
3p PROG increase price all thing
‘They are putting up prices.’
d. mo pe buij dile la
1s PROG boil milk DEF
‘I’m boiling the milk.’
e. les nu fann dibwa la
let 1p split wood DEF
‘Let’s split/chop the wood.’
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Similar ergative verbs exist in the other French creoles, as shown in the Verbs in the
examples in (54). French creoles
(54) a. la douzèn ponm vann sen goud (H; Valdman 1978: 263)
the dozen apple sell five gourd
‘A dozen apples sell for five gourds.’
b. loto-a krazé (M; Bernabé 2003: 93)
car-DEF crash
‘The car crashed.’
c. liv-tala pa ka vann (M; Bernabé 2003: 92)
book-DEM NEG PRES sell
‘That book isn’t selling.’
d. posõ-a twit (G; Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy 1972: 74)
fish-DEF cook
‘The fish is cooked.’
e. depi i tuŝe u, u ka tune tè (St. L; Carrington 1984: 106)
since 3s touch 2s 2s PRES turn earth
‘From the moment she touches you, you turn into earth.’
f. zerb-a ka boulé (G; Damoiseau 2003: 79)
grass-DEF PRES burn
‘The grass is burning.’
g. lø-la kase (L; Neumann 1985: 279)
egg-DEF break
‘The egg is broken.’
h. li ka plẽ ke dlo (K; Tobler 1983: 28)
3s PROG fill with water
‘It is filling with water.’
The subject in each of these ergative sentences has a theme role, and this
semantic role is a clear indication that the subject must be interpreted as the
object of the verbs. We also expect these verbs to have a transitive use in these
creoles, just like they do in the IOC. Example (54f) in Guyanese has the fol-
lowing transitive counterpart: Jozef ka boulè zerb-la ‘Joseph burnt the weed’
(Damoiseau 2003: 79).
8.3.3 Complex-transitive verbs
There is a class of transitive verbs which take not only a subject and an
object, as ordinary transitive verbs do, but also an additional constituent
which is either predicated of the subject or the object. Huddleston (1984:
194) refers to such verbs as complex-transitive verbs. The following examples
from English illustrate these verbs.
229
8 (55) a. John makes Mary angry.
Verbs b. They elected him mayor.
c. We washed the floor clean.
Looking at these sentences, notice that the additional constituent is generally

an adjectival phrase, and even ‘mayor’ in (55b), although a nominal element,
does not behave like an ordinary object, as Huddleston (1984: 195) notes. It
cannot, for instance, be an object to a transitive verb like meet: *We met
mayor (cf. We met John/the mayor). The adjectival phrases in these examples
are predicated of the object NP, so that in an example such as (55a) the
adjectival phrase and the object NP together form a constituent similar to the
copulative clause Mary is angry and in (55c) The floor is clean. We can
understand (55a) to mean ‘John brings about a situation which results in
Mary becoming angry’ and (55c) to mean that the action of cleaning resulted
in the floor becoming clean. In this latter case, clean functions as what Larson
(1991) calls a resultative secondary predicate, while angry in (55a) functions
as an object-oriented depictive predicate. It therefore seems reasonable to
take the complement of makes to be not Mary but Mary angry, what is
sometimes referred to as a ‘small clause’ (Chomsky 1981).
Like English, French too allows constructions in which the transitive verb
is followed not only by its direct object but also by a complement, an
object-oriented depictive predicate as in (56a–c) or a resultative predicate
as in (56d).
(56) a. Ils ont trouvé Jean coupable

‘They found John guilty.’
b. On croit Marie intelligente
‘They believe Mary intelligent.’
c. Ils estiment les candidats inaptes
‘They consider the candidates unsuitable.’
d. Elle a peint la porte verte
‘She painted the door green.’
Similar complex-transitive verbs can be found in the French creole languages.

The following are from the IOC. The complement of the verbs in (57a, b)
has an object-depictive predicate, while that of the verb in (57c, d) has a
resultative predicate.
(57) a. nu truv pomdamur ser

1p find tomato expensive
‘We find tomatoes expensive.’
b. li konsider zot kuyon
3s consider 3p stupid
230 ‘He considers them stupid.’
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c. li finn lav semiz la prop Verbs in the
3s PERF wash shirt DEF clean French creoles
‘He’s washed the shirt clean.’
d. nu finn taiy so zong kurt
1p PERF clip 3s nail short
‘We clipped his nails short.’
Similar examples of complex-transitive predicates also exist in the other cre-

oles, as shown in the following.
(58) a. . . . sa kaj fè u malad (St. L; Carrington 1984: 105)

that FUT make 2s sick
‘(If you eat ripe bananas when you are hot), it will make you sick.’
b. polis estimé bèf-la san dola (H; Valdman 1978: 246)
police value cow-DEF hundred dollar
‘The police valued the cow (at) a hundred dollars.’
c. Pyè fè Pòl ankò pli bèl (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 1245)
Peter make Paul still more beautiful
‘Peter made Paul even more beautiful.’
d. Pyè ran Pòl tèbè (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 1244)
Peter render Paul idiot
‘Peter made a fool of Paul.’
e. u le mo fé u mãmã jón? (K; Tobler 1983: 38)
2s want 1s make 2s mother young
‘Do you want me to make your mother young again?’
f. kite li gran ouvè (L; Klingler 2003: 288)
leave it wide open
‘Leave it wide open.’
The examples in (57)–(58) illustrate complex-transitive verbs in the French

creoles. In all of these, the two constituents following the main verb form a
small clause constituent which contains the object of the main verb and an
adjectival (sometimes nominal) predicate. The adjectival or nominal phrase
is predicated of the object noun phrase.
8.3.4 Raising verbs
Raising verbs, as was noted earlier, are verbs which can take an expletive
pronoun, e.g. it in English and il ‘it’ in French. Examples of such verbs are
seem and appear in English and sembler ‘seem’ and paraître ‘appear’ in
French. The following are illustrative.
(59) a. It seems/appears that John is rich

b. Il me semble/paraît que Jean est riche
‘It seems/appears to me that John is rich.’ 231
8 c. Il me paraît que la situation s’améliore
Verbs ‘It appears to me that the situation is improving.’
Raising verbs can also take a referential NP as their subject. We therefore

also find (60a–c) in English and French, which correspond to (59a–c).
(60) a. John seems/appears to be rich

b. Jean me semble/paraît être riche
‘John seems/appears to me to be rich.’
c. la situation me paraît s’améliorer
‘The situation appears to me to be improving.’
However, the subject NP in these examples, as was noted earlier, is also

understood as the subject of the complement clause, as shown in the structure
in (61), corresponding to the examples in (60a, b).
(61) [ [ ] seem/semble [John/Jean to be/être rich/riche]]
The French creoles have inherited the two French raising verbs, but not all
of them have retained both. In the IOC (e.g. MC), the typical raising verb
is paret (< Fr paraître ‘to appear’), but in the Atlantic creoles (e.g. Haitian
Creole) both sanm/sam/sanble (< Fr sembler ‘to seem’) and paret (< Fr
paraître ‘to appear’) are used. They have also retained the properties of
these verbs. Both the IOC and the Atlantic creoles use an expletive and a
referential subject in their raising constructions, as shown in the following,
but there are important differences in the way they use the referential
subject.
(62) a. li paret (ki) Zan malad (IOC)

it appear that John sick
‘It appears that John is sick.’
b. li paret (ki) lisjen la pe dormi (IOC)
it appear that dog DEF PROG sleep
‘It appears that the dog is sleeping.’
(63) a. Zan paret malad (IOC)

John appear sick
‘John appears to be sick.’
b. lisjen la paret pe dormi (IOC)
dog DEF appear PROG sleep
‘The dog appears to be sleeping.’
(64) a. li sanble Jan te malad (H; Lefebvre 1998: 226)

3s seem John PAST sick
232 ‘It seems that John has been sick.’
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b. Jan sanble li te malad (H; Lefebvre 1998: 266) Verbs in the
John seem 3s PAST sick French creoles
‘John seems to have been sick.’
(Lit. John seems as if he had been sick.)
One of these differences relates to the surface realisation of the embedded

subject in (63a, b) in the IOC and (64b) in Haitian Creole: in the former, the
subject is phonologically null (a ‘trace’ in generative transformational gram-
mar, Chomsky 1981), since it has been made the subject of the raising verbs.
In the latter, it is an overt pronoun co-referential with the subject in the main
clause (Massam 1989, Lefebvre 1998). It has been suggested that the subject
pronoun is simply an overt realisation of the null subject (i.e. trace) in (64b).
Constructions such as (64b) are not, however, possible in the IOC, just as
they are not in English or French.
(65) a. * Zan paret li move

John appear 3s naughty
b. * Zan paret li mizer
John appear 3s poor
(66) a. *John appears/seems he is naughty

b. *Jean semble qu’il est malade
‘John seems that he is sick.’
A further difference between the IOC and Haitian Creole with respect to
raising verbs is that they select a finite complement in the latter, as can be
inferred from the presence of the past tense marker te in (64), but a non-finite
complement in the former. It must be noted that the presence of the aspect
marker pe in (62b) and (63b) does not make the complement finite; rather, it
is interpreted as the non-finite present participle analogue of English present
participle -ing, as in We saw him leaving the room. One piece of evidence in
support of this comes from the fact that the complementiser ki, which intro-
duces the finite complement in (62), cannot occur in (63), as shown in (67).
(67) a. * Zan paret ki malad (IOC)

John appear that ill
‘John appears to be ill.’
b. * lisjen la paret ki pe dormi
dog DEF appear that PROG sleep
‘The dog appears to be sleeping.
Both these examples are grammatical without the complementiser.
Another observation which suggests that the complement clause in (63) is

non-finite in spite of having a pre-verbal aspect marker is that the sentence 233
8 becomes ungrammatical if it were to include a past tense or future tense
Verbs marker in the embedded clause.
(68) a. * Zan paret ti malad (IOC)

John appear PAST sick
b. * lisjen la paret pu dormi
dog DEF appear FUT sleep
On the basis of these differences between the IOC and Haitian Creole, it seems
reasonable to claim that the raising verb in the IOC is much closer to its French
analogue than the raising verb in Haitian Creole. Raising constructions in French,
just like those in the IOC, lack an overt embedded subject, and their complement
clause is non-finite. Lefebvre (1998: 268) sees Haitian Creole raising constructions
as being ‘marked’ constructions and claims they derive from its African substrate
Fongbe rather than French, as Fongbe has constructions similar to (64b).
Turning to the other French creoles, these too have selected the French verb
sembler ‘to seem’, although they sometimes also use paraître ‘to appear’, as
is the case in the Lesser Antillean creoles. The following, for instance, occur
in Martinican and Guadeloupean.
(69) a. Piè ka sanm i kanyan (M; Bernabé 2003: 47)

Peter PRES seem 3s sick
‘Peter seems sick.’
b. Pyè ka parèt i djòk/vidjò (Gu/M; Bernabé
Peter PRES appear 3s lively 1983: 1025)
‘Peter appears lively.’
c. (i) ka sanm Piè kanyan (M; Bernabé 2003: 47)
3s PRES seem Peter sick
‘It seems Peter is sick.’
d. sa ka sanm ou pa ka travay (M; Bernabé 2003: 56)
it PRES seem 2s NEG PRES work
‘It seems that you are not working.’
e. ou ka sanm ou pa ka travay (M; Bernabé 2003: 56)
2s PRES seem 2s NEG PRES work
‘You seem not to be working.’
(Lit. You seem as though you are not working.)
The similarities between Martinican and Guadeloupean raising constructions

and those in Haitian Creole are clear: the embedded complement clause can
have an overt subject pronoun, co-referential with the subject NP of sanm
‘to seem’ and paret ‘to appear’ in the main clause, as in (69a, b, e). Alterna-
tively, the complement clause can have a full NP or a pronoun as subject,
while the raising verbs take an expletive pronoun, as in (69c) and (69d).
234 Notice also that the complement clause can have a tense marker, as is
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clear from (69e). This suggests that the complement of sanm ‘to seem’ or Verbs in the
parèt ‘appear’ can be finite in Guadeloupean and Martinican, just as it is in French creoles
Haitian Creole. It should also be noted that there is no difference between
sanm ‘to seem’ and paret ‘to appear’ in these creoles. Thus (70a) can be
replaced with (70b) without any change in their truth value (Bernabé 1983).
(70) a. i ka sanm ou las (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 1028)

it PRES seem 2s tired
‘It seems that you are tired.’
b. i ka parèt ou las (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 1028)
it PRES appear 2s tired
‘It appears that you are tired.’
Bernabé (1983: 1025) points out that it is possible to have constructions

similar to (70b) in Martinican and Guadeloupean Pyè ka sanm djòk/vidjò
‘Peter seems vigorous’ (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 1025), but it is not a basilectal
structure. Rather it is ‘tout à fait tributaire du modèle fourni par le français’
(completely attributable to the French model), i.e. a calque from French. Not
surprisingly, Pyè ka parèt djòk/vidjò ‘Peter appears lively’ (Gu/M; Bernabé
1983: 1025) is judged ungrammatical.
St. Lucian Creole and Louisiana Creole also use sam/sanm ‘to seem’, as
shown in the following.
(71) a. i sam jo kaj desire i (St. L; Carrington 1984: 113)

it seem 3p FUT tear 3s
b. i sam mwè pa kaj wè u apre zòdi a (St. L; Carrington
it seem 1s NEG FUT see 2p after today DET 1984: 113)
‘It seems that I will not see you after today.’
c. an dire sanm kòm si inave en SIGN èn fwa (L; Klingler
one say seem as if be a sign one time 2003: 308)
‘One might say that it seems as if there was a sign there once.’
d. nonm-la te sanm . . . li te ga si sripann, . . . (L; Klingler
man-DEF PAST seem . . . 3s PAST get so surpris 2003: 395)
‘That man seemed . . . he looked so surprised, . . .’
The examples available in St. Lucian seem to suggest that it has only one kind
of raising construction. That is, the raising verb only selects a finite comple-
ment, and its subject remains in the embedded subject position. In other
words, it is never raised to become the subject of the raising verb. This posi-
tion is instead filled with the expletive pronoun i ‘it’. Louisiana Creole, on
the other hand, appears to be similar to the IOC and French in that it allows
both raising structures: one in which the subject of the complement becomes
the subject of the raising verb sanm, as in (71d), the other in which the subject 235
8 of the raising verb is an expletive pronoun, albeit a phonologically null one,
Verbs as in (71c). A structure like (71d) may not be available in St. Lucian since it
is absent or rare in the basilectal varieties of the other Atlantic creoles, par-
ticularly Maritinican and Guadeloupean.
8.3.5 Control verbs
Like raising verbs, control verbs are distinguished by the fact that their sur-
face subject can simultaneously function as the semantic subject of the verb
in their complement clause. The following from English and French illustrate
control sentences.
(72) a. John tried to build a bookshelf

b. John wants to go to the seaside
(73) a. Jean a essayé de réparer sa voiture

‘John tried to repair his car.’
b. Jean veut visiter ses parents
‘John wants to visit his parents.’
However, there is a difference between these two constructions. The

subject of the main clause in a raising construction is the grammatical
subject of the raising verb and the semantic subject of the verb in its
complement clause. The subject in a control construction, on the other
hand, is the semantic subject of both the main ‘control’ verb and the verb
in its complement clause. The other difference is that the subject position
in a raising construction, as we saw earlier, can be filled with an expletive
pronoun, but the subject position in a control construction cannot: *It
tried John to build a bookshelf (cf. It seems John will build a
bookshelf).
In control constructions such as those in (72) and (73), the understood sub-
ject of the verb in the complement is said to be ‘controlled’ by the subject of
the main ‘control’ verb. That is, it takes its reference from the subject of the
control verb, i.e. from its controller. However, the controller can also be the
object of the control verb, as shown in the following.
(74) a. We told John to bring oranges

b. Nous avons dit à Jean d’apporter des oranges
‘We told John to bring oranges.’
In these examples it is the object of the main ‘control’ verb which is also the
semantic subject of the complement clause.
236
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Control constructions such as those presented here also exist in French cre- Verbs in the
oles. These languages have clearly inherited their set of control verbs and French creoles
their attendant argument structures from their lexifier. The following are
examples of subject and object control verbs in the IOC.
(75) a. mo ti esey repar mo loto

1s PAST try repair 1s car
‘I tried to repair my car.’
b. li le vinn ar nu
3s want come with 1p
‘He wants to come with us.’
c. nu ti dir zot al lakaz
1p PAST tell 3p go home
‘We told them to go home.’
d. zot ti konsey nu pa returne
3p PAST advise 1p NEG return
‘They advised us not to return.’
The understood or null subject of the complement clause in (75a, b) is con-

trolled by the subject of the main clause, while that of the complement clause
in (75c, d) is controlled by the object of the main clause. Note that the
complement clause of these control verbs is non-finite, just like the comple-
ment clause of the control verbs in English and French in (72–74). The pres-
ence of either the complementiser ki ‘that’ or a tense marker should be
impossible in the complement of the sentences in (75). As the examples in
(76) show, this prediction is borne out.
(76) a. * nu ti dir zot ki al lakaz (IOC)

1p PAST tell 3p that go home
b. * zot ti konsey nu ki pa returne (IOC)
3p PAST advise 1p that NEG return
c. * nu ti dir zot ti al lakaz (IOC)
1p PAST tell 3p PAST go house
d. * zot ti konsey nu pa ti returne (IOC)
3p PAST advise 1p NEG PAST return
Examples of control verbs in the other French creoles are given here. The
following come from Haitian Creole.
(77) a. Jan vle kraze manchin-nan (H; Lefebvre 1998: 272)

John want destroy car-DEF
‘John wants to destroy the car.’
237
8 b. li vle l vini (H; Lefebvre 1998: 273)
Verbs 3s want 3s come
‘He wants to come.’
c. li vle pou l vini (H: Lefebvre 1998: 271)
3s want COMP 3s come
‘He wants to come’ or ‘He wants him to come.’
d. yo mande Mari pou i pati (H; Lefebvre 1998: 277)
3p ask Mary COMP 3s leave
‘They asked Mary to leave.’
The first thing to note concerning control verbs in Haitian Creole is that,
unlike those in the IOC and French, they can select not only non-finite
complements, as in (77a, b), but also a finite complement, as in (77c,
d). The evidence that the complement in (77c, d) is finite comes from
the fact that a finite pre-verbal marker and a nominative resumptive
pronoun ki (Sterlin 1988, Lefebvre 1998) can occur inside it, as shown
here.
(78) a. li vle pou l te vini (H: Lefebvre 1998: 274)

3s want COMP 3s PAST come
‘He wants him to have come.’
b. (se) ki moun li vle pou ki vini? (H; Lefebvre
it-is which man 3s want COMP who come 1998: 274)
‘Which man does he want to come?’
On the other hand, neither a tense marker nor the nominative resumptive
pronoun ki can occur in (77b), where the complement of the control verb vle
‘to want’ is non-finite.
(79) a. * li vle l te vini (H; Lefebvre 1998: 274)

3s want 3s PAST come
b. * (se) ki moun Jan vle ki vini? (H; Lefebvre 1998: 274)
it-is which man John want who come
A second observation is that the subject pronoun of the finite comple-

ment in (77c) can take its reference from the subject of the main clause
or from some other referent, as is clear from the English translations.
Note that examples such as (77b–d) are not grammatical in the IOC or
French.
Turning now to the other French creoles in the Atlantic, the following exam-
ples illustrate typical cases of control verbs in Martinican, Guadeloupean,
St. Lucian, Guyanese, Karipuna, and Louisiana Creole.
238
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(80) a. nou vlé/lé dòmi (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 1158) Verbs in the
1p want sleep French creoles
‘We want to sleep.’
b. es ou mandé yo pati? (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 1243)
es 2s ask 3p leave
‘Did you ask them to leave?’
c. Mari mandé Pyè *(i) pati (Gu/M; Gadelii 1997: 271)
Mary ask Peter 3s leave
‘Mary asked Peter to leave.’
d. se iŝ mwẽ te vle ale pòtwe (St. L; Carrington
it-is child 1s PAST want go pictures 1984: 135)
‘My children wanted to go to the pictures.’
e. i ka éséyé maché (G; Damoiseau 2003: 154)
3s PRES try walk
‘He tried to walk.’
f. mo ke dji bay mo muxe u le koze k-l (K; Tobler
1s PRES tell to 1s husband 2s want speak with-3s 1983: 37)
‘I’ll tell my husband that you want to talk with him.’
g. mo p ole gen plas si li p ole mo lò (L; Klingler
1s NEG want have place if 3s NEG want 1s there 2003: 323)
‘I don’t want to have a place (there) if he doesn’t want me there.’
h. li voule pale ave ye (L; Klingler 2003: 277)
3s want talk with 3p
‘He wanted to talk to them.’
Examples (80a, d, e, f, g, h) illustrate subject control, the control verb in all of

them being lé/vlé/ole/voule (< Fr vouloir ‘to want’), while examples (80b, c)
illustrate object control, the object of the main verb mandé (< Fr demander ‘to
ask’) controlling the reference of the unexpressed subject in the complement
clause. The IOC, as we saw earlier, also have the subject control verb le/ule, but
the object control verb corresponding to mandé (80b, c) is dir
(< Fr dire ‘to tell’), a verb of ordering in French when followed by a non-finite
clause, e.g. dire à ton ami de venir me voir ‘to tell your friend to come to see me’.
The IOC do have a verb, dimande, which derives from French demander, but it
selects only one complement. That is, unlike mandé in the other French creoles,
which are three-place predicates (i.e. can take three arguments, namely subject,
object, and a non-finite complement), dimande in the IOC has the sense of ‘tell’
and takes only two arguments (a subject and object). It should also be noted here
that the IOC and Louisiana Creole have another verb, anvi (< Fr avoir envie
‘desire’), which they use as a subject control verb, as shown in the following.
(81) a. li’ nn anvi dormi (IOC)

3s PERF desire sleep
‘He wants to sleep.’ 239
8 b. mo anvi dòrmi (L; Klingler 2003: 277)
Verbs 1s want sleep
‘I want to sleep.’
8.3.6 Existential verbs
The existential verb to be in English is translated into French by the verb

avoir ‘to have’ rather than être ‘to be’. The French existential verb avoir, like
its English analogue to be, takes an expletive third person singular pronoun
il ‘it’ as subject as well as an adverbial pro-form y ‘there’. The latter is obliga-
tory in order to stop the verb having a possessional meaning and the subject
functioning as an argument. Notice that the existential verb avoir, unlike its
English counterpart to have, does not vary in either gender or number.
(82) a. Il y a un homme sur la rue (French)

3s y have a man on the road
‘There is a man on the road.’
b. Il y a des hommes sur la rue (French)
3s y have some man on the road
‘There are some men on the road.’
The English translations in (82) make obvious the difference between French
and English in respect of agreement. In English, as we see, the verb displays
number agreement, importantly with the complement noun phrase a man
and men, and not the expletive subject. In French, by contrast, the verb is
always singular, agreeing, it seems, with the expletive subject.
The French creoles also have existential constructions. However, not all of
them derive their existential verb from the French avoir ‘to have’. In the IOC,
the existential verb is ena(n), possibly from French il y en a rather than il y
a, which, like French avoir, can also function as a possessional verb.
(83) a. mo ena enn lisyen kot mwa (IOC)

1s have a dog at 1s
‘I have a dog at home.’
(Fr: J’ai un chien chez moi.)
b. ena enn lisyen kot mwa
have a dog at 1s
‘There is a dog at my place.’
(Fr: Il y a un chien chez moi.)
Notice that the existential construction in (83b) lacks both the French adver-
bial clitic pronoun y ‘there’ and the expletive pronoun il ‘there’. So the
requirement that clauses have a subject is relaxed in these IOC existential
240 sentences, which, interestingly, is also the case in spoken French: (il) y a rien
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à faire ‘there is nothing to do’. In fact, if we were to insert the third person Verbs in the
singular pronoun li in (83b), the verb would cease to be existential; instead, French creoles
it would functions as a possessional verb, and the subject pronoun would no
longer be expletive but referential, as pointed out earlier.
(84) a. li ena enn lisyen kot li

3s have a dog at 3s
‘He has a dog at his place.’
b. li ena trwa frer dan lekip la
3s have three brother in team DEF
‘He has three brothers in that team.’
For the verb in (84) to have an existential meaning, the subject must neces-
sarily be omitted from the sentence. That is to say, it has to have a phonologi-
cally null form. The existential verb has an invariant base form just like its
source, i.e. the existential verb in French, but obviously for different reasons:
in the French creoles it is a consequence of the absence of inflectional mor-
phology; in French it follows from the fact that the verb strictly agrees with
the NP which precedes it, not the one which follows it.
In the Atlantic creoles, for instance in Haitian, Karipuna, and Guyanese, the
existential verb is not ena but gen/gã (< Fr gagner ‘to get/win’), a verb which
also has a possessive meaning (see (85c), (86b), and (87b)).
(85) a. gen yon pwoblem (H; Lefebvre 1998: 269)

have one problem
‘There is a problem.’
b. gen manje sou tab la (H; DeGraff 2007: 115)
have food on table DEF
‘There is food on the table.’
c. Jan gen yon liv (H; Lefebvre 1998: 269)
John have a book
‘John has a book.’
(86) a. te gã boku kaymã la lag (K; Tobler 1983: 57)

PAST get many alligators there lake
‘There were many alligators in the lake’
b. mo gã kat tximun (K; Tobler 1983: 26)
1s have four child
‘I have four children.’
(87) a. i gen moun? (G; Damoiseau 2003: 83)

3s have people
‘Is there someone?’ 241
8 b. mo gen dé timoun (G; Damoiseau 2003: 65)
Verbs 1s have two child
‘I have two children.’
The existential verb in Martinican and Guadeloupean, on the other hand, is

ni ‘to have’, phonologically comparable to the IOC ena (see (88)). However,
it is interesting to note that Guadeloupean additionally has a longer form of
this verb: tin/tini, possibly a contraction of the past tense te (< Fr été/était/
étaient) and ena (< Fr y en a) followed by changes to the vowels, or, as sug-
gested in Goodman (1964: 67), from French tenir or tenu in the sense of ‘to
have’, as illustrated in (89).
(88) a. pa ni timanmay ankò (M; Bernabé 2003: 172)

NEG have child still
‘There aren’t any more children.’
b. (i) té ni on fwa (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 1311)
3s PAST have one time
‘There was once.’
c. ni moun ki pa sav sa (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 1371)
have people who NEG know that
‘There are people who don’t know that.’
(89) a. tin/tini moun ki pa tandé sa (Gu; Bernabé 1983: 1371)

have people who NEG hear that
‘There are people who haven’t heard that.’
b. tin/tini onlo flè (Gu; Bernabé 1983: 1371)
have lot flower
‘There are lots of flowers.’
St. Lucian, like Martinican and Guadeloupean, also uses ni as its existential
verb, which can also express possession, just like ena in the IOC and gen/gã
in Haitian, Guyanese, and Karipuna.
(90) a. ès i kaj ni jõ lavẽj isi ò swè a? (St. L; Carrington

Q 3s FUT have a wake here tonight DEF 1984: 149)
‘Will there be a wake here tonight?’
b. mwẽ te ni tut lazã a (St. L; Carrington 1984: 145)
1s PAST have all money DEF
‘I had all the money.’
Turning now to Louisiana Creole: it also uses forms derived from the
French verb avoir. Some of these are similar to those we find in the IOC
existential sentences. The verb can appear in any of the following forms:
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ena/enan/ina/na/y ena/(en)nave/janave ‘to have’ (Klingler 2003). The fol- Verbs in the
lowing are illustrative. French creoles
(91) a. enan le moun nwa la? (L; Klingler 2003: 307)

have the man black there
‘Are there black people there?’
b. ena deu kalite biskwi (L; Klingler 2003: 307)
have two kind biscuit
‘There are two kinds of biscuits.’
c. y ena de trwa vyè fam (L; Klingler 2003: 307)
y have two three old woman
‘There are several old women.’
d. ina diferan maladi to ka gen (L; Klingler 2003: 307)
have different illness 2s PRES have
‘There are different diseases you can have.’
e. na pa aryen mo pa kònè fe (L; Klingler 2003: 307)
have NEG nothing 1s NEG know do
‘There’s nothing I don’t know how to do.’
We should note that when the existential verb surfaces as nave, ja, or janave,
it expresses not only existence but also past tense.
Louisiana Creole also uses the verb gen, which, as we saw earlier, is also used in
Haitian, Guyanese, and Karipuna to express existential meaning. Note that this
verb too can be used in a possessive sense in Louisiana Creole, as shown in (92c).
(92) a. i bije gen en trou andan li (L; Klingler 2003: 309)

‘There must be a hole in it.’
b. ye gen de kalite demi (L; Klingler 2003: 309)
3p have two kind berry
‘There are two kinds of berries.’
c. to gen to lamont ankò? (L; Klingler 2003: 335)
2s have 2s watch still
‘Do you still have your watch?’
Note that the verb ganje (< Fr gagner ‘to get/win’) also occurs in the IOC but
is never used as an existential verb. It has the same meaning as its French
source. It takes an object NP, as in (93a), or is used in a way similar to English
get in passive-like get beaten/get shouted at, as shown in (93b).
(93) a. li’ nn ganj lotri

3s PERF get lottery
‘She has won the lottery.’
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8 b. li’ nn ganj bate/kriye (ar so mama)
Verbs 3s PERF get beat/shout by 3s mother
‘He got beaten/shouted at (by his mother).’
Looking at existential constructions across the French creoles under consider-

ation, it is very clear that some of them have retained the French existential verb
avoir ‘to have’ in both its existential and possessional meaning but, not surpris-
ingly, in slightly different forms: ena/enan in the IOC, ena/enan/y ena/ina/na/
janave in Louisiana Creole, and ni in Martinican, Guadeloupean, and St. Lucian.
As was noted earlier, Guadeloupean also has tin/tini in addition to ni. A few of
the creoles, (e.g. Haitian, Guyanese, Karipuna and, to some extent, Louisiana
Creole) have recruited the French verb gagner ‘to get/win’ to function as an exis-
tential verb. Note that this verb, in its existential use, occurs without a subject, a
direct consequence of a semantic change. The IOC has also retained this verb but
never uses it as an existential. The use of French gagner rather than avoir as the
sole existential verb in three creoles (namely Haitian, Guyanese, and Karipuna)
thus raises the interesting question as to why it is not distributed more widely and
the question of what determined its selection in these creoles. The possibility that
there might have been some substratal African influence cannot be ruled out.
Finally, it is interesting to note that Tayo also uses verbs similar to those
found in the IOC and Louisiana Creole as existential verbs, but without the
initial vowel [e]: na/jana/ja/nave/janave. It also uses them in their possessional
sense, as shown in (94b).
(94) a. na dolo partu (T; Ehrhart 1993: 173)

have water everywhere
‘There is water everywhere.’
b. napa peti bude? (T; Ehrhart 1993: 195)
have=NEG little child
‘Don’t you have children?’
We may summarise the existential verbs in these different creoles as in

Table 8.1.
Table 8.1 Existential verbs in the French creoles
IOC H G K L M Gua St. L T
ena gen gen gã gen ni ni ni na

(e)na(n) tini jana
ina ja
y ena nave
janave janave
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8.3.7 Causative verbs Verbs in the
French creoles
French has two verbs which have a causative sense. These are faire ‘to make’
and laisser ‘to let’. Like control verbs, they are followed by non-finite comple-
ment clauses. Note the embedded subject follows the embedded verb with
faire and either follows or precedes it with laisser.
(95) a. Elle fait travailler les enfants

‘She made the children work.’
b. Elle fait boire le bébé
‘She makes the baby drink.’
c. Elle a fait reparer la machine à laver à son père
‘She had her father repair the washing machine.’
(96) a. Elle laisse les enfants dormir

‘She lets the children sleep.’
b. Elle laisse dormir les enfants
‘She lets the children sleep.’
These two same verbs surface in the French creoles with the same argument
structure. That is to say, they select a non-finite complement with a subject,
which may sometimes be implicit, as in this French causative sentence Cette
boisson fait dormir ‘this drink makes one sleep’. The following are examples
of causative constructions in the IOC.
(97) a. zot finn fer Zan plore

3p PERF make John cry
‘They’ve made John cry.’
b. mo ti fer li lav mo loto
1s PAST make 3s wash 1s car
‘I made him wash my car.’
(98) a. zot ti les bann zanfan la zwe dan zot lakur
3p PAST let PLU child DEF play in 3p yard
‘They let the children play in their yard.’
b. mo les zot travay trankil
1s let 3p work quietly
‘I let them work quietly.’
Unlike their French counterparts, causative constructions in the IOC have

the subject of their complement clause in a fixed position, i.e. in front of the
embedded verb. The following with the embedded subject following the
embedded verb are therefore ill-formed.
245
8 (99) a. * zot ti fer plore Zan
Verbs 3p PAST make cry John
b. * zot ti les zwe bann zanfan la dan zot lakur
3p PAST let play PLU child DEF in 3p yard
The embedded subject is also in a fixed pre-verbal position in the other cre-
oles, although Bernabé (1983: 1267) gives an example such as Pyè fè dòmi
Pòl (lit. Peter makes sleep Paul) but meaning ‘Peter makes Paul sleep’. He,
however, attributes this kind of structure to French influence.
Examples of causative constructions in the other creoles show that they also
make use of the French causative verbs faire ‘to make’ and laisser ‘to let’.
However, as we will see, some creoles (e.g. Martinican, Guadeloupe, St.
Lucian, and Louisiana) seem to use kite ‘leave/let’ instead of, or alongside,
lese ‘let’.
(100) a. rive Jan rive a fè manman li kòntan (H; Lefebvre

arrive John arrive DET make mother 3s happy 1998: 363)
‘The fact that John arrived made his mother happy.’
b. lésé mouen di ou (H; Valdman 1978: 227)
let 1s tell 2s
‘Let me tell you!’
(101) a. Pyè fè Pòl dòmi (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 1267)

Peter make Paul sleep
‘Peter makes Paul sleep.’
b. kité Misyé fè zafé’ y (M; Bernabé 1983: 1251)
let gentleman make thing-3s
‘Let the gentleman do his things.’
c. kitè Pyè mandé biten a’ y (Gu; Bernabé 1983: 1251)
let Peter ask thing to 3s
‘Let Peter ask whatever he wants.’
(102) a. se papa mwẽ ki fè mwẽ ale (St. L; Carrington

It-is father 1s that make 1s go 1984: 104)
‘It’s my father who made me go.’
b. kite mwẽ fè travay betsẽ a (St. L; Carrington
let 1s make work whiteman’s work 1984: 102)
‘Let me do the white man’s work.’
(103) a. i ka fè so fis travay (G; Damoiseau 2003: 157)

3s PRES make 3s son work
‘He makes his son work.’
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b. met-a lésé timoun-yan jwe (G; Damoiseau 2003: 156) Verbs in the
teacher-DEF let child-PLU play French creoles
‘The teacher let the children play.’
(104) a. li fé ye fãde bwa boku (K; Tobler 1983: 38)

3s make 3p chop wood much
‘He made them chop a lot of wood.’
b. lese mun thavay ka thavay (K; Tobler 1983: 59)
leave people work PRES work
‘Leave people alone to get on with their work.’
(105) a. . . . to fe li fe kek-ki-chòj. (L; Klingler 2003: 287)

2s make 3s do something
‘. . . you make him do something.’
b. . . . lès li vini jann jann . . . (L; Klingler 2003: 287)
let 3s become brown brown
‘ . . . Let it get very brown . . .’
c. to kite li vini eg (L; Klingler 2003: 288)
2s leave 3s become bitter
‘You let it ferment.’
What is clear from the examples presented here is that all the creoles under
consideration make use of the French verb faire ‘to make’ as a causative verb.
As for laisser ‘to let’, only a few creoles (e.g. the IOC, Guyanese, and Kari-
puna) seem to use it. The others (e.g. Martinican, Guadeloupean, and
St. Lucian) use or prefer kite (< Fr quitter ‘to leave’) instead, but with the
same causative meaning that laisser encodes. Louisiana Creole is alone in
using both lès (< laisser) and kite (< quitter) ‘to leave’ to express the causative
meaning of ‘to let’.
We can summarise the causative verbs in the French creoles as follows in
Table 8.2.
Note here that Martinican, Guadeloupean, and St. Lucian are the only cre-
oles which use kite for the French laisser ‘to let’. Interestingly, they are also
the only creoles which use the existential ni ‘have’. This suggests that they
may have experienced certain developments which the others have not.
Table 8.2 Causative verbs in the French creoles
IOC H M Gua St. L G K L
fer fè fè fè fè fè fé fe
lese lese lese lese lese
kite kite kite kite
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8 8.3.8 Serial verbs
Verbs
Serial verb constructions are constructions which contain two or more verbs
in a sequence without any coordinator or linker, and together they express a
single assertion in contrast to coordinated verbs, which necessarily contain
separate assertions. These are areal constructions, meaning that they are only
found in the languages spoken in certain geographical regions, for instance,
South East Asia (in languages such as Chinese, Vietnamese, Cambodian, and
so on), West Africa (in the Kwa languages), Australia (in the Austronesian
languages), and the Atlantic and Pacific (in the creole languages). Signifi-
cantly, they do not occur in the European languages.
As a construction type, serial verbs display distinctive syntactic properties:

(a) there generally is only one overt subject for both (or all) verbs in the
sentence; (b) negation is generally marked only once, on the first verb,
which gives it scope over the whole serial construction; (c) tense and agree-
ment are also generally marked only once on the first verb in the series; and,
(d) serial verbs tend to share the same object in the same way that they
share the subject (see Sebba 1987, Baker 1989, Bickerton 1989, Seuren
1991, Muysken and Veenstra 1995b, Aikhenvald 2006 for various defini-
tions of this phenomenon). However, it is not unusual to come across lan-
guages in which serial verb constructions display double tense and
agreement marking (i.e. on both first and second verb), as in (106a) from
Gā (Noonan 1985), or two overt subjects which are co-referential, as in
(106b) from McWhorter (1992), or two negative markers, as in (106c)
from Anyi-Sanvi (Aikhenvald 2006).
(106) a. minyé mìbà (Gā; Noonan 1985: 77)

be able (1SG PAST) come (1SG PAST)
‘I was able to come.’
b. mi-he noko mi-hā le (Gā; McWhorter 1992)
1s-buy something 1s-give 3s
‘I bought something for her.’
c. cùá ńjĭ ákɔ ń-ɪni (Anyi-Sanvi; Aikhenvald
dog NEG+catch+HAB chicken NEG-eat+HAB 2006)
‘The dog never eats chicken.’
French, English, and other European languages lack serial verb construc-
tions. However, they are attested in many of the European-based creoles. The
following are illustrative.
(107) a. e-l a bula bay (Papiamento; Muysken and

3s ASP fly go Veenstra 1995b: 289)
‘He flew away.’
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b. mi teki fisi seri (Sranan; Muysken and Verbs in the
2s take fish sell Veenstra 1995b: 294) French creoles
‘I sold the fish.’
c. ufa m faa di pau tue? (Saramaccan; Muysken and
how 1s fell the tree throw Veenstra 1995b: 297)
‘How did I fell the tree?’
Looking at the French creoles under consideration, most of them have serial
verb constructions. The exception here is Louisiana Creole. Although it
allows combinations of two verbs, the first of which is an action verb, either
vini ‘to come’ or kuri ‘to go’, such combinations do not function as a seman-
tic unit (proposition), as serial verb constructions normally do (see Neumann
1985: 268–270, Klingler 2003: 86).
(108) a. mo vini koze ave G. (L; Klingler 2003: 312)

1s come talk with G.
‘I came to talk with G.’
b. nou kouri moule nou koton . . . (L; Klingler 2003: 312)
1p run gin 1p cotton
‘We went to gin our cotton . . .’
The other creoles however have serial verbs, where the verbs do form a
semantic unit and express a single assertion. The following examples illus-
trate some of the common types: (109a–e) are benefactive serial verb con-
structions, (109f) is an example of instrumental serial verb construction, and
(108g–l) are directional serial verb constructions.
(109) a. Malis te pran yon flè bay Boukinet (H; DeGraff

Malis PAST take a flower give Boukinet 1993: 82)
‘Malis gave a flower to Boukinet.’
b. Jan pran krab la bay Mari (H; Lefebvre
John take crab DEF give Mary 1998: 300)
‘John gave the crab to Mary.
c. li pote sa bay mo (G; Muysken and
3s carry that give 1sg Veenstra 1995b: 289)
‘He brought that for me.’
d. Zan pran larzan donn so kamarad (IOC)
John take money give 3s friend
‘John gives money to his friend.’
e. Mari amenn manze donn so zanfan (IOC)
Mary bring food give 3s child
‘Mary brings food for her child.’
249
8 f. li pran lakle li uver larmwar (IOC)
Verbs 3s take key 3s open wardrobe
‘He opens the wardrobe with a key.’
g. mennen timoun yo vini (H; DeGraff 2007: 116)
lead child DEF-PLU come
‘Bring the children.’
h. menné sé zélèv-la vini (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 1299)
bring PLU pupil-DEF come
adan lakou-la/a
inside yard-DEF
‘Bring the pupils inside the yard.’
i. pwesõ a naze mõte lariviè (St. L; Carrington
fish DEF swim climb river 1984: 108)
‘The fish swam up the river.’
j. poté sa alé aka/lakay Pyè (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 1299)
bring that go at/house Peter
‘Take that to Peter’s house.’
k. voyé boul-la vini (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 1299)
send ball-DEF come
‘Throw the ball.’
The first verbs commonly used in these creole serial verb constructions are
pran (< Fr prendre ‘to take’), menné/amene (< Fr amener ‘to bring’), poté
(< Fr apporter ‘to bring’), voyé (< Fr envoyer ‘to send’). These combine with
one or more verbs in order to express a single assertion. And, when they
occur in a serial verb structure, they tend to function as a semantically ‘light’
verb, just like English take in take a nap, with very little or no meaning con-
veyed (see Aboh 2009). The other verb in the series, by contrast, contributes
fully to the interpretation of the serial construction. Thus in (109a, b, d) it is
bay and donn rather than pran which contribute the most semantically.
As far as the syntactic properties of serial verb constructions in these creoles

are concerned, it should be noted that there exist important differences
between those in the French creoles of the Atlantic and those in the IOC.
In the IOC, the constraint on the number of overt subject and negation and
tense markers can sometimes be violated: the subject, tense, and negative
marker which precede the first verb must be copied on the second verb, as
shown in the following.
(110) a. li pran larzan li donn so kamarad

3s take money 3s give 3s friend
‘He gives money to his friend.’
b. Zan ti pran larzan ti donn so kamarad
John PAST take money PAST give his friend
250 ‘John gave money to his friend.’
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c. Zan pa pran larza pa donn so kamarad Verbs in the
John NEG take money NEG give 3s friend French creoles
‘John doesn’t give money to his friend.’
Without the copies, (110a–c) are ungrammatical. Example (109a), it should

be noted, shows that each verb can have its own subject, but this is only pos-
sible if the first subject is a pronoun. The two subject pronouns must be co-
referential. However, if the first subject is a non-pronominal NP, as in ((110b, c),
the second must be null. The examples in (111) are ungrammatical.
(111) a. * Zan pran larzan li donn so kamarad

John take money 3s give 3s friend
b. * bann zanfan la ti pran zot zuzu
PLU child DEF PAST take 3p toy
zot ti zet dan pubel
3p PAST throw in bin
Copying of the higher subject pronoun and the higher functional elements
(tense and negation) on the lower verb is also obligatory in the IOC. The
following are therefore ungrammatical.
(112) a. * li pran larzan donn so kamarad

3s take money give 3s friend
b. * Zan ti pran larzan donn so kamarad
John PAST take money give 3s friend
c. * Zan pa pran larzan donn so kamarad
John NEG take money give 3s friend
Note also that when it comes to tense or aspect marking, the tense or aspect
marker must encode the same tense and aspect. Failure to do that results in
these sentences being ungrammatical.
(113) a. * Zan ti pran larzan pu (OK if pu is purposive)

John PAST take money FUT
donn so kamarad
give 3s friend
b. * Zan finn pran larzan pe donn so kamarad
John PERF take money PROG give 3s friend
Serial verb constructions like those in (110a) can also be found in Karipuna,
although the presence of a comma after the object NP in (114) may suggest
that it is not really a serial verb construction. However, it looks strikingly
similar to the IOC example in (110a).
(113) li phã so sab, li kupe-l (K; Tobler 1983: 47)

3s take 3s machete 3s cut-3s
‘He took his machete (and) he cut it.’ (i.e. with his machete) 251
8 Serial verb constructions in the other French creoles (e.g. Haitian for instance)
Verbs do not, however, require copying of the higher subject pronoun, tense, or
negative marker. This led Bickerton (1989) to claim that the second verb in
such constructions must be non-finite. Thus, although these creoles use the
same lexical resources (same verbs), they nevertheless differ as to what they
allow in front of the second verb. That is to say, they differ in terms of
whether or not they allow a copy of the subject, tense marker, or negation
marker in front of the second verb. It could be argued that such differences
are not limited to the creole languages. As we saw earlier, some non-creole
languages (e.g. Gā) require subject copying.
The differences observed between serial verb constructions in the Atlantic

and those in the Indian Ocean may not be accidental. They may be traced
back to the influence that their substrates may or may not have had in the
creation of these constructions. While it is generally accepted that serial con-
structions in Haitian and the other Atlantic creoles have their origin in the
serial verb constructions of West African languages (e.g. Niger Congo lan-
guages, see Lefebvre 1998, DeGraff 2007), there is little evidence that those
in the IOC come from the same source (see Bickerton 1989, Syea 2013b).
Bickerton (1989) argues that they are the result of language creation guided
by an innate bioprogram and motivated by the need to compensate for some
missing prepositions in the creoles. Syea (2013b), however, argues that they
were modelled on French imperative constructions and were the result of
internal linguistic changes. Their absence in Louisiana Creole and Réunion
Creole (Indian Ocean) inevitably presents a problem for such an explanation,
although it has to be said that these two languages have come under greater
French influence than any of the other French creoles. This may have discour-
aged the development of serial verb constructions in these creoles.
This chapter has surveyed some of the commonest types of verbs in the
French creoles. The typology includes transitive, ditransitive, unaccusative,
unergative, ergative, existential, raising, control, causative, and serial verbs.
Aside from serial verbs, all the other types can be said to have their origin in
French. It should be mentioned that, unlike French active verbs, French creole
active verbs are generally not passivisable. Examples of passive verbs in the
French creoles are often mentioned, for instance in Martinican (Bernabé
2003: 48), Guyanese (Damoisean 2003: 79), or St. Lucian (Carrington 1984:
110–111), but these verbs do not have a passive form as such. One might
argue that there is a passive-type structure in these creoles in the sense that
the theme object is placed in subject position and is therefore the grammatical
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subject, but the verb itself retains its active (base) form. That aside, what is Concluding
truly remarkable is that the verbs in the French creoles have generally retained remarks
the meaning and argument structure that they inherited from French. One
important difference, however, is the existence of double object construc-
tions. This, just like serial verbs, represents a significant departure from
French. Double object constructions may be the result of some independent
internal language change, as argued in Syea (2011, 2013b), while the exis-
tence of serial verbs may have been influenced by substrate languages, or it
may be attributed to internal changes.
253
Chapter 9
Tense, mood, and aspect
9.0 Introduction
This chapter focuses on how the French creoles express tense, mood, and
aspect. After a brief outline of tense, mood, and aspect in English and French,
it examines the different pre-verbal markers which the French creoles have
developed in order to express their temporal, modal, and aspectual meanings.
It also examines the relation of tense and aspect to definiteness and specificity
in a few of these creoles. The position of these markers in relation to the verb
in a sentence and in relation to each other is also discussed.
9.1 General
Tense is the grammaticalisation of the semantic concept of time. It is a deic-

tic element, and its function is to locate a situation (e.g. an event) as taking
place or obtaining at a particular point in time in relation to the moment of
speech or a reference point. Thus John had a drink at home and John had a
drink before he left refer to an event which took place in the past. In the first
example, however, the event of drinking occurred before the moment of
speech, whilst in the second, the event of drinking occurred prior to the
event of leaving (the reference point), and both events (i.e. drinking and
leaving) occurred before the moment of speech or utterance moment. A situ-
ation (event, action, or state) can also be contemporaneous with the moment
of speech, and this is a situation which takes place or obtains in the present.
This is the habitual present e.g. John smokes cigars and John hates noise.
This becomes clearer when we change the verb form to past tense John
smoked cigars, which entails he no longer does, and John hated noise, which
means he no longer does. A situation can also occur or obtain following the
254 moment of speech, i.e. at some specific time in the future, e.g. John leaves
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in the morning and John will leave in the morning. Here both the present General
tense form of the verb in the first sentence and the compound tense in the
second indicate that the action denoted by the verb is posterior to the
moment of speech. In John will leave after breakfast the action of leaving
follows the moment of speech, but, importantly, it also follows the action
of eating breakfast (the reference point). Similarly, in John will leave as soon
as his mother arrives, the action of leaving follows not only the moment of
speech but also the event of his mother arriving (the reference time), i.e. the
time of leaving is relative not only to the time of speech but also to the time
of John’s mother arriving. Tense, then, has the function of indicating whether
a situation happens or obtains in the past, present, or future. Accordingly,
a verb in English may display a past tense form, a present tense form, or a
future tense form.
Mood is the grammaticalisation of the semantic concept of modality and has

the function of expressing the speaker’s attitude towards the situation (event,
action, state) described in a sentence, i.e. whether he or she thinks the situa-
tion possible, probable, necessary, obligatory, and so on. John may stay the
night, for example, expresses a possibility, It will rain in the afternoon
expresses a probability, John must see his doctor expresses a necessity, while
All students shall attend lectures expresses an obligation. These types of
semantic information are additional to the basic or unmarked meaning
expressed in a factual or declarative sentence. They can be signalled lexically,
as in the examples just given, morphologically, as in French Il devrait arriver
à six heures ‘He ought to arrive at six o’clock’, or phonologically (intonation-
ally). Different languages may use one or several of these ways of encoding
the speaker’s attitude to the action or state expressed in a sentence.
Modality, on the other hand, is expressed by a small set of modal verbs,

including can, must, will, may, shall, and so on. With the exception of must,
the others in this list can also display a past tense form without implying past
time; John might be in his office (possibility), John could be there any time
now (possibility), John would help if he is asked (probability), John should
leave (obligation). A distinction is often made between two types of modality,
namely epistemic and deontic. The former is based on what is known or can
be inferred, usually from contexts, John may be in his room (epistemic pos-
sibility) and the latter on speaker’s control or authority John may take two
books (deontic permission). Similarly, we could distinguish between epistemic
necessity/obligation, John must be clever, and deontic necessity/obligation,
John must tell his parents. The semantic difference between the last two exam-
ples is clear when they are negated, for instance. While not can be added to
the second sentence without altering its modality, John must not tell his par-
ents (still deontic necessity/obligation), the same is not possible with the first,
as it necessarily leads to a change in meaning and a rather impossible
255
9 construction: John must not be clever. Rather, the negation of the epistemic
Tense, mood, sense of must requires the modal verb cannot: John cannot be clever.
and aspect
Aspect serves to indicate whether the situation is in progress (incomplete) or
completed. John is watering his flowers is about a situation which is in progress
(i.e. incomplete) at the moment of speech, and this aspect is expressed with the
use of the compound tense is watering. By contrast, John has watered his flow-
ers describes a situation which at the moment of speech is already complete.
Verbs which encode progressive aspect are verbs which are dynamic (non-
stative). Aspect thus describes the internal unfolding of an event or process
(Comrie 1976). Stative verbs, however, are incompatible with the progressive
aspect *John is knowing the answer or *John is liking the film or *The house
is belonging to Mary. Note that the sentence John has watered his flowers
describes an event which is already complete (i.e. in the past) but has relevance
to the present time (including the moment of speech). By contrast, John had
watered his flowers describes an event as being complete at a point in the past.
Thus, over and above the meaning that a verb and its arguments contribute
to the meaning of a sentence, there is another layer of meaning which relates
to the time at which an event denoted by the verb takes place, to the aspectual
nature of that event (whether it is ongoing or completed), and to its modality
(whether the speaker thinks it possible, obligatory, and so on).
9.2 Tense, mood, and aspect in French
Like English verbs, French verbs express not only their cognitive or diction-
ary meaning but also temporal, modal, and aspectual information, and this
is achieved mostly through inflection. The following examples illustrate the
differences in meaning expressed via inflection, while the cognitive/dictionary
meaning remains unchanged.
(1) a. Nous mangeons

‘We are eating.’
b. Nous mangions
‘We were eating.’
c. Nous mangerons
‘We will eat.’
The inflectional ending -ons of the verb in (1a) indicates that the action of
eating is temporally located in the present and is contemporaneous with the
moment of speech. The -ions ending on the verb in (1b) tells us that the event
of eating was in progress (imperfective aspect) and is located at a time previ-
ous to the moment of speech (i.e. past time). The -rons ending on the verb in
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(1c) places the action of eating at some time in the future following the Tense, mood,
moment of speech (future time). and aspect in
French
Tense in French, like tense in English, locates a situation (event, action, state)
relative to the moment of speech as well as relative to a reference point. Thus
nous mangions quand ses parents sont arrivés ‘We were eating when his parents
arrived’ locates the event of eating relative to the moment of speech and the event
of his parents arriving relative to the moment of eating. Likewise, in nous man-
gerons quand ses parents arrivent ‘We’ll eat when his parents arrive’ the action
of eating is relative not only to the moment of speech but also to the moment of
his parents arriving (i.e. it will happen following the arrival of his parents).
Present tense is used in French, as in English, to signal that an event or action
or state exists at the moment of speech. This is its core function. Additionally,
it can be used, again as is the case in English, to refer to a situation which is
(a) habitual, Elle écrit à sa mère chaque semaine ‘She writes to her mother
each week’, (b) universally true, L’huile flotte sur l’eau ‘Oil floats on water’,
or (c) posterior to the moment of speech rather than contemporaneous with
it, Elle arrive ce soir ‘She arrives tonight’.
Past tense in French can be expressed in three different ways, namely (a) with
a compound past tense form where the verb combines with an auxiliary, as
in (2a), or (b) with a simple past tense form, as in (2b), or (c) an imperfect
aspect form, as in (2c).
(2) a. J’ai mangé

‘I have eaten.’
b. Je mangeai
‘I ate.’
c. Je mangeais
‘I was eating.’
The compound tense in (2a) signals an action which was complete at a point
in the past but has, from the speaker’s perspective, relevance to the present
time. The simple past tense in (2b) similarly signals an action completed in the
past but, importantly, with no relevance to the present time. Its use is also
restricted to written and formal speech. The imperfect in (2c) also says that the
action took place in the past but with no indication of a beginning or ending.
Future tense, as noted earlier, is expressed with verbal inflection: Quand elle
arrivera, elle lui donnera quelque chose à boire ‘when she arrives, she will
give him something to drink’. However, future tense can also be indicated
with the use of aller ‘to go’ followed by the infinitive form of a verb: Quand
elle arrivera, elle va lui donner quelque chose à boire ‘when she arrives, she
will (is going to) give him something to drink’. Linked to the future tense is
the conditional, as both express irrealis (an event or action which is posterior 257
9 to the moment of speech): Il viendrait te voir s’il t’aimait ‘He would come to
Tense, mood, visit you if he loved you’. The conditional, like the future, is signalled by the
and aspect
verbal ending, in this case by the -ait in viendrait and aimait.
As was noted earlier, mood conveys a speaker’s attitudes concerning a situation

(event, action, state) in a sentence and the participants in that situation. It is infor-
mation which is additional to the cognitive or dictionary meaning denominated
by the verb in the sentence. French, like English, uses inflection or modal verbs
such as pouvoir ‘can’, devoir ‘must’, falloir ‘must’, and savoir ‘know’ to express
different nuances of modal meaning such as possibility, obligation, and so on.
(3) a. C’est Pierre

‘It’s Peter.’
b. C’est peut-être Pierre
‘Maybe it’s Peter.’
c. C’est probablement Pierre
‘It’s probably Peter.’
d. Ce sera Pierre
‘That will/must be Peter.’
The sentence in (3a) does not have a modal interpretation. It is a straightfor-

ward factual statement. The sentences in (3b–c), however, have a modal mean-
ing in addition to the meaning expressed by the verb, and it stems directly from
the presence of the adverbs peut-être ‘perhaps’ and probablement ‘probably’.
The modality expressed in (3d) comes from the form that the verb displays. In
all three sentences (3b–c) the modality expressed is of the epistemic type. The
following examples illustrate deontic modality, as expressed by the modal
verbs devoir ‘have to’, falloir ‘should’, and savoir ‘can/being able to’.
(4) a. Tu dois rentrer chez toi

‘You must go back home.’
b. Il faut qu’ils partent
‘They must leave.’
c. Il sait conduire la voiture
‘He can (knows how to) drive the car.’
Unlike English, French does not therefore always require a modal verb to
convey a speaker’s attitude, i.e. modality; it sometimes uses verbal inflection.
9.3 Tense, mood, and aspect in the French creoles
One of the defining properties of creole languages is that lexical items such as
nouns and verbs surface in a bare (dictionary) form. This means that there is
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no inflection to indicate number and gender in the case of count nouns, and Tense, mood,
no inflection to indicate tense, mood, and aspect or person and number agree- and aspect in
ment in the case of finite verbs. Nouns, as shown in (5) and as we saw in the French
creoles
chapter 2, have an invariant form whether they are singular or plural. Similarly,
verbs, as shown in (6), have an invariant form regardless of the time at which
the event or action they denominate took place (present, past, or future),
regardless of whether the action is complete or incomplete at the moment of
speech, and whether the subject is first, second, or third person and singular
or plural.
(5) a. enn lakaz

‘one house’
b. trwa lakaz
‘three houses’
(6) a. mo travay
1s work
‘I work.’
b. to travay
2s work
‘You work.’
c. nu travay
1p work
‘We work.’
In the absence of verbal inflection in creole languages, the question naturally

arises as to how tense, mood, and aspect are expressed. As the following
examples from the IOC illustrate, past and future tense are indicated by the
presence of specific pre-verbal markers, whilst present tense is signalled by
their absence.
(7) a. li ti travay
3s PAST work
‘She worked.’
b. li pu travay
3s FUT work
‘She will work.’
c. li travay
3s work
‘She works.’
Similarly, the aspectual nature of the event or action (that is to say, its internal
make-up) is marked with a pre-verbal marker, as illustrated in the IOC exam-
ples in (8).
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9 (8) a. li pe travay
Tense, mood, 3s PROG work
and aspect
‘She is working.’
b. zot finn travay tut lanwit
3p PERF work all night
‘They have worked all night.’
The pre-verbal marker pe signals that the action denoted by the verb is
incomplete or ongoing at the moment of speech, whilst the marker finn sig-
nals that the action is complete at the moment of speech.
Like tense and aspect, mood is also lexically marked by a pre-verbal mor-
pheme, independently of the verb, as shown in the IOC examples in (9).
(9) a. mo pu ale
1s FUT go
‘I will go.’
b. mo va ale
1s FUT go
‘I might go.’
All these examples show that the verb occurs in its bare (dictionary) form
and has only its dictionary meaning to contribute to the meaning of the sen-
tence. It has the same form regardless of the temporal location of the event
or action it denotes and regardless of the internal constituency of the event
or action, or indeed its mood. These different nuances of meaning, which are
additional to the meaning expressed by the verb, are encoded in the free-
standing morphemes placed between the subject and the verb. The pre-verbal
marker pu signals not only future tense but also a definite future time. In
contrast, va also signals future tense, but of an indefinite kind. Interestingly,
these pre-verbal markers, like the verbs they precede, also have an invariant
(inflection-less) form, which is to be expected in the absence of inflectional
morphology. The three basic concepts of time (i.e. past, present, and future)
are lexicalised in the IOC and, as we will see, in the other French creoles quite
independently of the verb, with free-standing morphemes. These morphemes,
as we will see later, historically derive from lexical prepositions and verbs.
Looking across the French creoles, it is remarkable that the pre-verbal mark-
ers they use form a very small set of items, which includes ti, te, ape/ap/pe,
ka, ava/va/a, ale, pu/pou, ke/ kay, and fini/finn/inn. The morphemes ti and te
mark past tense, ape and its variants ap and pe as well as ka mark progressive
aspect, whilst fini and its variants inn/n mark completive aspect. The mor-
phemes pu/pou, ke/kay, and ava and its variants encode irrealis mood
(futurity/conditionality). In some of these creoles, a few of these markers can
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express slightly different meanings. A question which arises with this set of Tense, mood,
markers is, why were they, and not other words, selected to encode informa- and aspect in
tion conveyed by verbal inflection or compound tenses (auxiliaries and inflec- the French
creoles
tion) in French?
Close examination of their history reveals that most of them have their source
in lexical items belonging to two main word classes, namely verb and
preposition – i.e. non-nominal – categories. Thus, fini/finn/inn comes from
French finir ‘to finish’, ava/va/a/ale and k’ay from aller ‘to go’, and te/ti from
the auxiliary être ‘to be’. The morpheme ape/pe/ap, however, comes from the
preposition après ‘after’ in the expression être après à ‘to be in the process
of’ from popular French, whilst pu/pou from the preposition pour ‘for’. As
for the origin of ke, it may have derived from a contraction of k’ay, which
itself may have derived from a contraction of ka and ale (Jourdain 1956:
145). Note that k’ay can also be used as a full verb O’la u k’ay? ‘Where are
you going?’ As far as ka itself is concerned, its historical source seems to be
shrouded in mystery. However, note that neither ka (e.g. Martinican mwẽ ka
maje ‘I am eating’) nor ke/kay (e.g. Martinican mwẽ ke maje ‘I shall/will eat’)
exists outside the French creoles of the Atlantic and the Americas. There is
no evidence of these markers having ever been present in the IOC, which
suggests that their development was probably influenced by substrate lan-
guages or the result of some internal linguistic development.
The choice of these verbs and prepositions to encode temporal, aspectual, and
modal information is probably not surprising, since they already express simi-
lar information in French. Thus finir ‘to finish’ has a completive meaning when
it occurs with the auxiliary avoir ‘to have’, which, interestingly, has not been
retained in any of the creoles as an auxiliary. Notice that both avoir and finir
have the same completive interpretation: J’ai mangé ‘I have eaten’ and J’ai fini
de manger ‘I have finished eating’. The selection of ti and te to express past
tense is also not surprising, since French été/étais/était/étaient (different forms
of être ‘to be’) has a past meaning (J’étais là ‘I was there’, Elle a été élue ‘she
was elected’, all phonetically represented as [ete]). The selection of the preposi-
tion après ‘after’ is also understandable, since when used in the expression être
après ‘to be about to’ – Elle est après manger (literally she is after eat) ‘she is
eating’ in popular French or Il (est) après manger ‘He is eating’ in Cajun French
(Papen and Rottet 1997: 102) – it has a progressive (or durative) aspect.
Turning next to ava/va/a and ale (the latter in Louisiana Creole), it is again
not surprising that this verb and its variant forms were selected to express
prospective or irrealis meaning, since they can be used in a similar way in
French (Il va manger ‘He’s going to eat’ or ‘he will eat’). The selection of
pu/pou to express irrealis need also not surprise us either. In French the
preposition pour ‘for’ is used not only as a preposition to express a particular
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9 thematic role (e.g. benefactive) but also as an infinitive marker, e.g. Pour faire
Tense, mood, une omelette on a besoin desoeufs ‘To make an omelette, one needs eggs’,
and aspect
Pour descendre il faut passer par là ‘To go down you must go this way’, or
in some varieties of French eux-autres i sont pas pour sortir ‘They won’t go
out’ (Chaudenson 1995: 86). However, pour is also used in some varieties of
French to signal an imminent action (i.e. something about to happen) e.g.
J’sus pour partir ‘I am about to leave’ or A’mnait pour partir ‘She was about
to leave’ in Cajun French (Papen and Rottet 1997: 102). The word pu/pou
is also used in the French creoles as an infinitive marker, e.g. kisennla ti dir
u pu fer sa? ‘Who told you to do that?’ (IOC) or mo di li pu asit ‘I told him
to sit down’ (Louisiana Creole; Neumann 1985: 208). But it is also used as
a marker of the definite future in some creoles, e.g. the IOC. Note that pu/
pou is also used in Haitian to express different modalities which are expressed
in English by may, should, and must (Lefebvre 1998: 119).
Thus, with the exception of ka/ke, it is possible to trace the inventory of

tense, mood, and aspect markers in the French creoles back to their French
sources. It is also not surprising to see why the pre-verbal tense, aspect, and
mood markers express the meanings that they express in the French creoles.
Note that the verbs and prepositions which have been grammaticalised into
pre-verbal markers have retained their original category and function. Thus,
both finn ‘have’ (< fini ‘to finish’) and fini ‘to finish’ can co-occur in the same
sentence, as in this example from the IOC mo finn fini manze ‘I have finished
eating’.
In what follows tense, aspect, and mood markers in each of the creoles will
be considered. It is remarkable that they all seem to have recruited the same
set of words in order to express those meanings which, in the lexifier lan-
guage, are expressed with verbal inflection alone or compound tense (i.e. the
combination of auxiliaries and verbs). It is interesting to note that some of
the tense marking features of the French creoles also exist in some varieties
of French. Papen and Rottet (1997: 96) notes that ‘there is a tendency to
reduce most verbs to one invariant uninflected form per tense’ in Cajun
French. French nous mangeons ‘we are eating’ for example is expressed in
Cajun French as (nous-autes) on mange. Similarly, the present tense second
person plural ending -ez is often left out, e.g. Qui vous-autes veut? ‘What do
you [plu] want?’ (cf. IOC ki zot le? ‘What do you want?’). The other creole
feature that Cajun French appears to have is the use of va (aller ‘go’) to
express future tense, e.g. Je va aller ‘I’ll go’ (cf. IOC mo va ale ‘I’ll go’). Note
the use of va (third person singular present tense) rather than French vais
(first person singular present tense). Papen and Rottet (1997) see in these
expressions a kind of levelling towards the third person form of verbs. It is
tempting to suggest that a variety of French similar to Cajun French may have
been the input to the French creoles.
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9.3.1 Tense in the French creoles Tense, mood,
and aspect in
the French
Tense, as remarked earlier, is the grammaticalisation of the semantic concept
creoles
of time. That is, an event or process is temporally located. It may occur
simultaneously with the moment of utterance (present), anterior to the
moment of utterance (past), or posterior to the moment of utterance (future).
This tripartite division, clearly based on Latin and the European model of
tense and time, is not one to which every creolist subscribes (see Valdman
1978, Bernabé 1983). Rather, a bipartite split is preferred between past and
non-past, where non-past obviously includes present and future. Still, a tri-
partite system will be assumed in the discussion that follows.
9.3.1.1 Present tense

As noted earlier, the present tense generally indicates that an action or state
denominated by a verb is simultaneous with the moment of speech. This
action or state can be habitual or iterative or it can hold true generally.
Regardless of the nature of this action or state, present tense in the French
creoles is signalled by using a bare verb without an accompanying pre-verbal
marker. In other words, it could be said that present tense is indicated by a
zero marker in contrast to past and future tenses, which are indicated by
overt pre-verbal markers. The following examples are illustrative.
(10) a. li travay dan lotel (IOC)

3s work in hotel
‘He works in a hotel.’
b. li pa konn personn isi (IOC)
3s NEG know nobody here
‘He doesn’t know anyone here.’
c. Mari vann sat (H; DeGraff 2007: 103)
Mary sell cat
‘Mary sells cats.’
d. m’ kõnẽ-l (H, Taylor 1963: 806)
1s know-3s
‘I know him.’
e. mwẽ sav (M; Taylor 1963: 805)
1s know
‘I know.’
f. žodla li gẽ soléy (G; Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy
today 3s have sun 1972: 114)
‘Today it’s sunny.’
g. mo le gade-l (K; Tobler 1983: 58)
1s want keep-3s
‘I want to keep it.’ 263
9 h. li po ole mo marche tro (L; Klingler 2003: 252)
Tense, mood, 3s NEG want 1s walk much
and aspect
‘He doesn’t want me to walk too much.’
i. la di ke la pa mwaje (T; Ehrhart 1993: 160)
3s say that 3s NEG means
‘He/She says that he/she can’t.’
Although all the French creoles allow sentences without a pre-verbal marker,
their tense interpretation is not the same in all of them. The absence of a
pre-verbal marker in a finite clause in the IOC indicates that the action or
state denoted by the verb holds at the moment of speech (i.e. is in the pres-
ent). In Louisiana Creole, however, such a sentence may be interpreted as
being either in the present or the past, depending on whether an absolute time
marker is present or an appropriate context is available.
(11) a. mo ramase koton tou lete (L; Klingler 2003: 240)

1s pick cotton all summer
‘I pick cotton every summer.’
b. mo ramase koton lanmen pase (L; Klingler 2003: 240)
1s pick cotton year last
‘I picked cotton last year.’
The difference in tense interpretation in (11) must be attributed to the pres-

ence of the absolute time marker tou lete, which indicates present habituality
or iterativeness, and lanmen pase, which clearly points to a time in the past.
The equivalent of (11b) in the IOC is clearly ill-formed. This is because the
present time signalled by the zero marker is incompatible with the past time
encoded in the temporal adverbial phrase. Such a construction is only possible
in the IOC if an overt marker of past time, namely ti, is present: mo ti ramas
koton lane pase ‘I picked cotton last year’ but not *mo ramas koton lane pase.
In Haitian Creole, a similar unmarked or bare sentence (i.e. one without a

pre-verbal marker) can be interpreted as being either in the present or the past
tense, but this time the interpretation is contingent not on an absolute time
marker, as was the case in Louisiana Creole, but on the (non)-specific nature
of the direct object (DeGraff 2007: 103). If the direct object has a specific
interpretation, as in (12a), the sentence is read as being about an event or state
which occurred in the past. However, if the object has a non-specific (indefi-
nite) reading, as in (12b), the sentence has a present generic interpretation,
and it means that the process denominated by the verb holds in general.
(12) a. Bouki vann chat la (H; DeGraff 2007: 103)

Bouki sell cat DEF
‘Bouki sold the cat.’
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b. Bouki vann chat (H; DeGraff 2007: 103) Tense, mood,
Bouki sell cat and aspect in
‘Bouki sells cats.’ the French
creoles
The tense difference between (12a) and (12b) clearly stems from the difference
in the nature of the direct object. In a few creoles, then, an action denoted by
a verb without an overt pre-verbal marker lends itself to a temporal interpreta-
tion, but it is determined by other factors, e.g. the presence or absence of an
absolute time marker, as in Louisiana Creole, or the semantic nature of the
direct object (specific or non-specific), as in Haitian Creole.
In Karipuna the process or state denominated by a verb without a pre-verbal

marker in a finite sentence also appears to be open to a present tense or past
tense interpretation. This time, though, the key factor is not the presence or
absence of an absolute time marker or the specific or non-specific nature of
a direct object. Rather, it crucially depends on the semantics of the verb, that
is, whether the verb is stative or non-stative (i.e. dynamic).
(13) a. li gã de mét (K; Tobler 1983: 57)

3s have two meter
‘He has two meters.’
b. mo vin (K; Tobler 1983: 56)
1s come
‘I came.’
(14) a. li pa-õkó save si li k-ale osue p-k-ale

3s NEG-yet know if 3s PROG-go or NEG-PROG-go
‘He doesn’t know yet whether he’s going or not.’
(K: Tobler 1983: 39)
b. li pa dji si-l ka fé isi-la osue fé la wót bó
3s NEG say if-3s PROG make here or make there other side
‘He didn’t say if it would be held here or over there.’
(K; Tobler 1983: 39)
Tense is in the present in (13a) and (14a) but in the past in (13b) and (14b).
This difference correlates with gã ‘to have’ and save ‘to know’ being stative,
whilst vin ‘to come’ and dji ‘to say’ being non-stative. There are, however,
examples in Tobler (1983) which suggest that the situation may not be as
clear-cut as this. The verb hete ‘stay’ in (15a), for example, has a past tense
reading even though it is clearly stative, whilst the verb vãde ‘to sell’ in (15b)
is non-stative and yet has a present tense reading.
(15) a. li hete majine (K; Tobler 1983: 58)

3s stay think
‘He thought for a while.’ 265
9 b. pu kõbyã u vãde wun bóm? (K; Tobler 1983: 42)
Tense, mood, for how much 2s sell one tin
and aspect
‘For how much do you sell one tin?’
Nevertheless, the semantic distinction made seems valid in some cases and
enables us to capture the tense difference noted in (13) and (14). This distinc-
tion also seems relevant in Martinican and Guyanese although, it relates
more to the interpretation of aspect than tense. Thus, in Guyanese, stative
verbs such as anvi ‘to wish’, gen ‘to have’, save ‘to know’, and so on have a
present tense incompletive interpretation when they occur without a pre-
verbal marker (see (16a, b)). By contrast, a non-stative (dynamic or process)
verb which also occurs without a pre-verbal marker, as in (16c, d) has a
present tense but completive interpretation.
(16) a. mó save (G; Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy 1972: 80)

1s know
‘I know.’
b. mó gẽ (G; Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy 1972: 80)
1s have
‘I have.’
c. Iv travay ounlo: i las (G; Damoiseau 2003: 98)
Yves work much 3s tired
‘Yves has worked a lot: he’s tired.’
d. mó mãžé (G; Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy 1972: 77)
1s eat
‘I have eaten.’
It is interesting to note, however, that the equivalents of these sentences in the

IOC have the same aspect, namely incompletive. Examples such as (16c) and
(16d) mean ‘Yves works a lot: he gets tired’ and ‘I eat’ respectively. The difference
between Guyanese and the IOC here is much clearer when an example such as
(16c) is translated into French. The Guyanese sentence will be translated as Yves
a beaucoup travaillé: il est fatigué ‘Yves has worked a lot: he is tired’ whilst the
IOC equivalent Iv travay buku: li fatige will be translated as Yves travaille beau-
coup: il est fatigué ‘Yves works a lot: he is tired’. The difference, as can be seen,
lies in the use of the completive or accomplished ‘passé composé’ a travaillé in
French to translate the verb in the Guyanese sentence but the habitual incomplete
simple present to translate the same verb in the IOC sentence.
The present tense is also indicated in Martinican by the absence of a pre-

verbal marker (or the presence of a zero marker), and here, as in Guyanese,
the absence of such pre-verbal marker indicates not only temporal but also
aspectual meaning. The stative verbs in (17a–c) have an incompletive read-
266 ing, whilst the non-stative verbs in (17d–f) have a completive reading.
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(17) a. man pa konnet zot (M; Bernabé 2003: 133) Tense, mood,
1s NEG know 3p and aspect in
‘I don’t know them.’ the French
creoles
b. pa rété pen adan sak-la (M; Bernabé 2003: 29)
NEG remain bread in bag-DEF
‘There is no bread in the bag.’
c. sé timanmay-la pa ni ayen pou manjé . . .
PLU child-DEF NEG have nothing to eat . . .
‘The children have nothing to eat . . .’
(M; Bernabé 2003: 54)
d. nou pòkò pati (M; Bernabé 2003: 146)
1p NEG-yet go
‘We haven’t left yet.’
e. sé timanmay-la lévé a uitè (M; Bernabé 2003: 134)
PLU child-DEF wake=up at eight
‘The children have woken up at eight.’
f. Piè glinsé (M; Bernabé 2003: 45)
Peter slip
‘Peter has slipped.’
This difference in aspect aside, tense remains invariant, i.e. present tense in
all these sentences. It should be noted, however, that Guyanese and Martini-
can (as well as the other Caribbean creoles such as Guadeloupean, St. Lucian,
and Dominican) also have a pre-verbal present tense marker ka, which con-
tributes an incompletive meaning to the sentence.
(18) a. Iv ka travay (G; Damoiseau 2003: 99)

Yves ka work
‘Yves is working.’ or ‘Yves works.’
b. timanmay-la ka pléré (M; Bernabé 2003: 133)
child-DEF ka cry
‘The child is crying.’ or ‘The child cries.’
The difference between (17d–f) and (18a, b), all with non-stative verbs,
lies in their aspectual meaning, not in their tense. In the former the non-
stative verbs have a completive meaning, in the latter they have an incom-
pletive meaning. Bernabé (2003: 140) assumes that in such sentences as
(18) the morpheme ka indicates aspect only, while tense is signalled by a
zero marker (or the absence of a tense marker). Put differently, the present
tense zero marker and the incompletive aspect marker are both present in
examples such as (18). As the English translations in (18) show, sentences
with ka can mean that an action or state is either in progress at the
moment of utterance (Yves is working; the child is crying) or habitual or
iterative (Yves works; the child cries). However, such ambiguity does not 267
9 always arise whenever ka and a zero marker co-occur, as shown in the
Tense, mood, following.
and aspect
(19) a. yo ka benyen adan lariviè-a touléjou (M; Bernabé 2003: 46)
3p ka bathe in river-DEF everyday
‘They bathe in the river everyday.’
b. yo ka pentiré kay-la chak lanné (M; Bernabé 2003: 93)
3p ka paint house-DEF each year
‘They paint the house every year.’
The absolute time markers touléjou and chak lanné in examples such as (19a)
and (19b) respectively suggest an action or process which is habitual or itera-
tive and therefore incompatible with the progressive aspect. Nor does it arise
in sentences with certain types of verbs (e.g. a raising verb such as sanm
(< Fr sembler ‘to seem’) and parèt (< Fr paraître ‘to appear’)) or with sen-
tences with a generic meaning such as (20c).
(20) a. i ka sanm Piè kanyan (M; Bernabé 2003: 47)

3s ka seem Peter sick
‘It seems that Peter is sick.’
b. Piè ka parèt sa ki las (M; Bernabé 1983: 1026)
Peter ka appear that tired
‘Peter appears tired.’
c. dlo pa ka chayé an panyen (M; Bernabé 2003: 93)
water NEG ka carry in basket
‘Water isn’t carried in a basket.’
Aspectual ka is generally incompatible with stative verbs, a point which

Damoiseau (2003: 99) makes, although he also points out that these can co-
occur where the state denominated by the verb/adjective is iterative. See the
examples in (21) as well as the examples in (20a) and (20b).
(21) a. parfwé i ka pè (G; Damoiseau 2003: 100)

sometimes 3s PRES afraid
‘Sometimes she is afraid.’
b. touléjou i ka légliz (G; Damoiseau 2003: 101)
everyday 3s PRES church
‘Everyday she is at church.’
Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy (1972: 81) also notes the possibility of ka occur-

ring with stative verbs such as save (< Fr savoir ‘to know’) or konèt (< Fr
connaître ‘to know’) in Guyanese.
(22) a. mó ka save (G; Saint Jacques-Fauquenoy 1972: 81)

1s PRES know
268 ‘I’m beginning to know.’
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b. mó ka konèt (G; Saint Jacques-Fauquenoy 1972: 81) Tense, mood,
1s PRES know and aspect in
‘I’m getting to know.’ the French
creoles
There is a sense in examples such as (21a) and (22) that some kind of progres-
sion is involved. Examples (22a, b) can be construed as situations in which
the acquisition of the knowledge of something is underway at the moment
of speech. That is to say, they describe a growing realisation or awareness.
The use of ka with such verbs yields an inchoative meaning (see also Valdman
1978: 219). It is interesting to note that sentences corresponding to (22a, b)
in the IOC make use of the aspectual marker pe, as shown in (23).
(23) mo pe konn mo tab aster

1s PROG know 1s table now
‘I’m beginning to know my tables now.’
The French creoles, thus, appear to vary in the way they exploit the absence
of a pre-verbal marker in a sentence for the purpose of interpreting an event
denominated by a verb. In most of them, the IOC excepted, the interpretation
seems to be sensitive to three things: (a) the semantic distinction between
stative and non-stative, (b) the specificity and non-specificity of an object NP,
and (c) contextual or pragmatic information. In the IOC, an event denomi-
nated by a verb without a pre-verbal marker in a finite clause is always
temporally located in the present.
9.3.1.2 Past tense

The past tense is expressed with an overt pre-verbal marker, ti in the IOC
and te/té/ete in the French creoles of the Atlantic and the Americas. It
should be noted that the past tense in the IOC was also te at one time but
later changed to ti. The variants te and ti have their origin, as was noted
earlier, in one of the forms of the French verb être ‘to be’, e.g. the past
participle été or the imperfect étais, était, étaient, both of which express
some form of anteriority. The word-initial vowel in [ete], as we see, has
been elided, resulting in [te], and this then changed to [ti]. The following
examples illustrate the use of ti and te to mark the past tense in the differ-
ent French creoles.
(24) a. zot ti al bazaar (IOC)

3p PAST go market
‘They went to the market.’
b. Mari te wè volè a (H; Lefebvre 1998: 116)
Mary PAST see thief DEF
‘Mary saw the thief.’
269
9 c. timanmay-la té kanyan yè (M; Bernabé 2003: 140)
Tense, mood, child-DEF PAST sick yesterday
and aspect
‘The child was sick yesterday.’
d. nou té rivé (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 1055)
1p PAST arrive
‘We had arrived.’
e. konbé zanfan ou té tini? (G; Valdman 1978: 220)
how many child 2s PAST hold
‘How many children did you have?’
f. mwẽ te ni mòso tè garã (St.L; Carrington 1984: 119)
1s PAST have piece land Garrand
‘I had a piece of land in Garrand.’
g. mo te kõtã (K; Tobler 1983: 57)
1s PAST happy
‘I was happy.’
h. mo kwa li te dehanche so janm . . . (L; Klingler
1s believe 3s PAST dislocate 3s leg 2003: 253)
‘I think it has dislocated its leg.’
Although the IOC and the Atlantic creoles (including Louisiana Creole) use
the same morpheme (te/ti) to express past tense, there is nevertheless an
important difference between them in the way they exploit this morpheme.
Importantly, in the Atlantic creoles, te expresses not only past tense but also
past-in-past (i.e. pluperfect), but this depends crucially on the semantics of
the verb, i.e. whether the verb is stative or non-stative. If the verb is stative,
as in (25a), te expresses past time relative to the moment of utterance; if the
verb is non-stative, as in (25b), then the temporal meaning expressed by te is
past-before-past (Taylor 1963, Klingler 2003, DeGraff 2007). That is to say,
the event took place before the reference point, and both (the event and the
reference point) are construed as preceding the moment of utterance.
(25) a. Bouki te konn respons lan (H; DeGraff 2007: 103)

Bouki PAST know answer DET
‘Bouki knew the answer.’
b. Bouki te ale (anvan Boukinèt vini) (H; DeGraff 2007: 103)
Bouki PAST go before Boukinet arrive
‘Bouki had left before Boukinet arrived.’
In (25b) the reference point is Boukinèt’s arrival and the event time precedes
this reference point, and both the event time and the reference time in turn
precede the moment of utterance. Similar use (i.e. past-in-past or pluperfect)
is made of the past tense marker in Louisiana Creole and Martinican/
Guadeloupean Creole, as illustrated here.
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(26) a. mo te kwa zòt te gen vini plu bonnè Tense, mood,
1s PAST believe 2p PAST get come more early and aspect in
‘I thought you were coming earlier.’ the French
creoles
(L; Klingler 2003: 253)
b. mo kwa li te dehanche so janm . . . (L; Klingler
1s believe 3s PAST dislocate his leg 2003: 253)
‘I think he had dislocated his leg.’
(27) a. mwẽ te sav (M; Taylor 1963: 805)

1s PAST know
‘I had known.’
b. mwẽ te vini (M; Taylor 1963: 805)
1s PAST come
‘I had come.’
Although the ti of the IOC and the te of the Atlantic creoles and Louisiana
Creole both express past tense, there is an important difference between
them. Unlike te, ti only indicates that an event took place prior to the moment
of speech – in other words, it only expresses the simple past and not the past-
in-past (pluperfect) meaning. The translations of (25b), (26b), and (27b) in
the IOC illustrate a simple past tense interpretation of the events denomi-
nated by the verbs. These are respectively Bouki left before Boukinet arrived,
I think he dislocated his leg, and I came.
(28) a. Bouki ti ale (avan Boukinet vini) = 25b (IOC)

Bouki PAST go before Boukinet come
‘Bouki left before Boukinet arrived.’
b. mo kwar li ti deranz so lipie = 26b (IOC)
1s believe 3s PAST dislocate 3s foot
‘I think that he dislocated his foot.’
c. mo ti vini = 27b (IOC)
1s PAST come
‘I came.’
Note that the past tense marker is also used in most of the French creoles to
express a conditional meaning. The usual context in which such conditional
meaning becomes available is the counterfactual (if-clause).
(29) a. si to ti vini nu ti kapav al lamer (IOC)

if 2s PAST come 1p PAST can go sea
‘If you had come, we could have gone to the seaside.’
b. si Marie ti ena larzan li ti pu aste enn loto (IOC)
if Mary PAST have money 3s PAST IRR buy a car
‘If Mary had some money, she would buy a car.’
271
9 c. si ou te renmen m, ou t a vini av m (H; DeGraff
Tense, mood, if 2s PAST love 1s 2s PAST FUT come with 1s 2007: 103)
and aspect
‘If you loved me, you would come with me.’
d. si kaj la pa te fèt ã bwa, i pa te kaj brile
if house DEF NEG PAST make in wood, 3s NEG PAST FUT burn
‘If the house were not made of wood, it would not have burned.’
(St. L; Carrington 1984: 119)
e. mô té ké pati si mô té save (G; Saint-Jacques-
1s PAST IRR go if 1s PAST know Fauquenoy 1972: 84)
‘I would have left if I had known.’
f. si yich li té vini i té kay vini (M; Damoiseau
if child 3s PAST come 3s PAST IRR come 1984: 25)
‘If her children had come, she would have come.’
g. si mo te konnen li te la, mo se pa vini (L; Klingler
if 1s PAST know 3s PAST there 1s IRR not come 2003: 261)
‘If I had known he was here, I would not have come.’
All the French creoles, thus, make use of the morpheme te/ti/ete, historically
from a form of the French verb être ‘to be’, in order to temporally locate an
event or state at a time anterior to the moment of utterance. It encodes the
meaning of perfectivity, for instance, in the case of an action. In counterfactual
contexts, it has a conditional tense meaning. However, this is available in the
Atlantic creoles and in Louisiana Creole but not in the IOC. It can also be
interpreted as an expression of pluperfect (past-in-past) provided it is embed-
ded in an appropriate context.
9.3.1.3 Future tense

As the examples in (30) show, the future (posterior or irrealis) tense in the
IOC, Haitian Creole, and Louisiana Creole stems from the second or third
person present tense form of the French verb aller ‘to go’, i.e. va(s) [va]. In
the IOC it surfaces in one of these phonological variants: va, ava, or a. In
Haitian Creole it takes the form of a, av, va, or ava (Valdman 1978: 217),
whilst in Louisiana Creole it is a and va (Neumann 1985: 214, Klingler 2003:
258). These are illustrated in (30).
(30) a. zot ava/va ale plitar (IOC)

3p FUT go later
‘They’ll go later.’ (= ‘they could go later’)
b. nu a/va/ava manze sizer (IOC)
1p FUT eat six o’clock
‘We’ll eat at six.’ (= ‘we could eat at six’)
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c. m a ba ou anpil lajan (H; Valdman 1978: 217) Tense, mood,
1s FUT give 2p lot money and aspect in
‘I’ll give you a lot of money.’ the French
creoles
d. sa sé va gwo nouvèl (H; Valdman 1978: 217)
that be FUT big news
‘That will be great news.’
e. l a kòmanse lekòl lanmen ki vyen (L; Klingler
3s FUT start school year that come 2003: 258)
‘She’ll start school next year.’
Additionally, Louisiana Creole has another marker of the future tense,

namely sa, as shown in (31). It is interesting that none of the other creoles
uses it to express future tense.
(31) a. li sa la pou nev è (L; Klingler 2003: 259)

3s FUT here for nine o’oclock
‘He’ll be here at nine o’clock.’
b. mo swat mo sa la (L; Klingler 2003: 206)
1s hope 1s FUT here
‘I hope I’ll be here.’
Martinican, Guadeloupean, Guyanese, St. Lucian, and Karipuna, however,

have a different future (posterior) marker. This is ke or k’ay/kai, as shown
in (32).
(32) a. mo ké travay dimen (G; Damoiseau 2003: 102)

1s FUT work tomorrow
‘I’ll work tomorrow.’
b. mwẽ k’ay mãje (M; Taylor 1963: 806)
1s FUT eat
‘I will eat.’
c. mwẽ kaj duvã le u kaj ŝaŝe mwẽ (St. L; Carrington
1s FUT infront when 2s FUT search 1s 1984: 118)
‘I will be in front of you when you look for me.’
d. mo ke ale (K; Tobler 1983: 56)
1s FUT go
‘I will go.’
Like Louisiana Creole, the IOC also has a second future (posterior) marker,
namely pu, as shown in (33a–c). Unlike a/va/ava, this marker expresses the
definite future, e.g. li pu manze taler ‘He will eat later’ in opposition to li a/
(a)va manze taler ‘He could/might eat later’, which expresses an indefinite
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9 future. Haitian Creole also has a phonologically similar marker (pou), as
Tense, mood, shown in (33d–e), but it is used to express the subjunctive mood rather than
and aspect
the future tense (Lefebvre 1998: 112). However, it would not be unreason-
able to interpret it as a future marker in an example like (33e) (see Valdman
(1978: 217)). Nevertheless, both pu in the IOC and pou in Haitian Creole
point to an irrealis time/meaning.
(33) a. zot pu amenn twa lamer (IOC)

3p FUT take 2s sea
‘They will take you to the seaside.’
b. li pu dir twa ki zot manze (IOC)
3s FUT tell 2s what 3p eat
‘He will tell you what they eat.’
c. Bondje pu protez u (IOC)
God FUT protect 2p
‘God will protect you.’
d. Dye pou proteje u (H; Lefebvre 1998: 118)
God IRR protect 2p
‘May God protect you.’
e. m pou kouri vit si pou lapli pa mouyé mouen
1s FUT run quickly if for rain not wet me
‘I will run quickly so that I don’t get wet.’
(H; Valdman 1978: 217)
Haitian, additionally, has ap, a marker which expresses definite future in

contradistinction to the indefinite future expressed by a/va/ava/av.
(34) a. m p ap ba ou anpil lajan (H; Valdman 1978: 217)

1s not FUT give 2p lot money
‘I will not give you a lot of money.’
b. Bouki ap konn leson an (H; DeGraff 2007: 104)
Bouki FUT know lesson DET
‘Bouki will know the lesson.’
From the data presented here, it seems that we can separate the French
creoles into three groups as far as the future (posterior) tense is concerned.
The IOC, Haitian, and Louisiana Creole have recruited the second or third
person present tense of the French verb aller ‘to go’, i.e. va(s), and the prepo-
sition pour ‘for’, i.e. pu/pou, to realise future tense. Additionally, pou in
Haitian Creole also expresses the subjunctive (irrealis) mood (Lefebvre
1998). The other creoles, e.g. Martinican, Guadeloupean, St. Lucian, Guya-
nese, and Karipuna, use ké or k’ay/kai to express future (irrealis) time. Also
note that Tayo uses va/wa/a as its marker of the future, e.g. la va mor (lit.
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he/she go die) ‘He/She will die’ (Ehrhart 1993: 171). The use of va (or its Tense, mood,
variants) to express future (posterior) tense may have come directly from and aspect in
the French use of periphrastic va + infinitive verb (e.g. va faire) instead of the French
creoles
the synthetic fera ‘will do’ to express the future, as is the case in Cajun
French (Papen and Rottet 1997: 100–101). Likewise, the use of pour ‘for/
to’ may have come from an expression such as ‘est pour + verb’, e.g. Jean
est pour partir ‘John is about to go’ (see Chaudenson 1995: 86, Lefebvre
1998: 113) in popular French and J’sus pour partir ‘I’m about to leave’ in
Cajun French (Papen and Rottet 1997: 102). The source of kay/kai, a
marker of the future, according to Jourdain (1956: 145, cited in Taylor
1963: 806), is a fusion of the incompletive ka and ale (< Fr aller ‘to go’).
See also Bernabé (2003: 143).
9.3.2 Aspect in the French creoles
Aspect, according to Comrie (1976: 3), is concerned with the internal tem-
poral constituency of a situation. That is to say, it indicates whether an
action denominated by a verb is incomplete (i.e. in progress) or completed.
In the IOC this distinction is marked by the morpheme (a)pe (< Fr être après
‘be after’) to indicate an action in progress and (f)inn for an action which is
complete at the moment of utterance, as illustrated in the following
examples.
(35) a. mo (a)pe manze (IOC)

1s PROG eat
‘I’m eating.’
b. mo (f)inn manze (IOC)
1s PERF eat
‘I’ve eaten.’
Haitian and Louisiana Creole also make use of the same morpheme to
express the progressive nature of an action: ap/ape/pe (in Haitian) and
ape/e/ap (in Louisiana Creole). It is interesting to note that Cajun French still
uses the periphrastic phrase être après followed by an infinitive verb to
express incomplete or progressive aspect e.g. Il (est) après manger ‘He is eat-
ing’ (Papen and Rottet 1997: 102).
Those creoles identified in Goodman (1964) as the KA dialects (or the

Lesser Antillean creoles), namely Martinican, Guadeloupe, St. Lucian,
Guyanese, and Karipuna, use ka rather than (a)pe, ap, or e to express an
event in progress or incomplete. Tayo is unique in using atra de (< Fr en
train de ‘in the process of’) for this purpose, e.g. ta atra de fe kwa (lit. you
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9 in the process of doing what?) ‘What are you doing?’ (Ehrhart 1993: 161).
Tense, mood, The phrase en train de and être après can sometimes be found in similar
and aspect
contexts (Grevisse 1975: 646, cited in Lefebvre 1998: 113). The following
examples illustrate how the progressive or incomplete aspect is expressed
in these French creoles.
(36) a. Mari ap manje krab la (H; Lefebvre 1998: 120)

Mary PROG eat crab DET
‘Mary is eating the crab.’
b. L ap boukannen manioc-la (H; Valdman 1978: 216)
3s PROG cook manioc-DET
‘He’s cooking the manioc.’
(37) a. ape rakonte de kont (L; Klingler 2003: 256)

PROG tell PLU story
‘(He) is gossiping.’
b. ka moun e parle franse . . . (L; Klingler 2003: 256)
when people PROG speak French
‘When people are speaking French . . .’
c. m ap repõn (L; Valdman and Klingler 1997: 125)
1s PROG answer
‘I’m answering.’
(38) a. mo ka blãsi (G; Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy 1972: 33)

1s PROG wash
‘I’m washing.’
b. i la ka fote batam-li (M; Valdman 1978: 220)
3s here PROG rub bottom-3s
‘He’s there rubbing his bottom.’
c. Sa Danyel ka fe? i ka manje (M; Klingler
what Daniel PROG do? 3s PROG eat 2003: 266)
‘What is Daniel doing? He’s eating.’
d. bõdie! fukã vit! Polis ka vini (St. L; Carrington
my God! move quick! police PROG come 1984: 118)
‘My God! Hurry up! The police are coming.’
e. li ka lave so ko (K; Tobler 1983: 54)
3s PROG wash 3s body
‘He’s washing himself.’
Aspect, as it was noted earlier, indicates whether an event is incomplete at

the moment of utterance (i.e. progressive) or complete. As we have just seen,
all the French creoles have a morpheme which they use to signal that an event
is still in progress. This could be an event in progress at the moment of
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utterance (now), as in these examples, or it could be an event which was in Tense, mood,
progress (more precisely without a starting or ending point) at a time anterior and aspect in
to the moment of speech (i.e. in the past (then)). In the latter case, the French the French
creoles
creoles combine their progressive morpheme with their past tense marker, as
shown in the following examples.
(39) a. mo ti pe dormi (ler zot ti vini) (IOC)

1s PAST PROG sleep when 3p PAST come
‘I was sleeping (when they arrived).’
b. li ti pe koz ar so kamarad (IOC)
3s PAST PROG talk to 3s friend
‘He was talking to his friend.’
(40) a. l t ap boukannen maniòk-la (H; Valdman

3s PAST PROG cook manioc-DET 1978: 216)
‘He was cooking the manioc.’
b. nu té ka maze (G; Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy 1972: 33)
1p PAST PROG eat
‘We were eating.’
c. mote-a té ka tounen tro vit (M; Bernabé
engine-DEF PAST PROG spin too fast 2003: 140)
‘The engine was spinning too fast.’
d. . . . i te ka dõmi adã jõ ti kaz . . . (St. L; Carrington
3s PAST PROG sleep in a small house 1984: 119)
‘. . . he was sleeping inside a little hut . . .’
e. li ale la kote ye teka bhiga (K; Tobler 1983: 50)
3s go there where 3p PAST.PERF fight
‘They went where they were fighting.’
f. mo te e danse (L; Klingler 2003: 258)
1s PAST PROG dance
‘I was dancing.’
g. la te atra de mwaƒe (T; Ehrhart 1993: 161)
3s PAST PROG eat
‘He/She was eating.’
An event may also be seen as being in progress at a time posterior to the

moment of utterance, as in this English sentence: They will be having their
dinner this time tomorrow. This is expressed in the French creoles by combin-
ing their progressive marker with their future or irrealis marker.
(41) a. zot va pe dormi sa ler la (IOC)

3p FUT PROG sleep DEM time DEF
‘They will be sleeping at this hour.’
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9 b. eske ou kwè y av ap dòmi lè n a rive
Tense, mood, Q 2p think 3p FUT PROG sleep when 1p FUT arrive
and aspect
‘Do you think they will be sleeping when we arrive?’
(H; DeGraff 2007: 108)
c. Yon lè kon da démen, mouen ké ka travay an jaden mouen
this time like tomorrow 1s FUT PROG work in garden 1s
‘This time tomorrow, I will be working in my garden.’
(D; Valdman 1978: 220)
d. mo sa e viv? (L; Klingler 2003: 259)
1s FUT PROG live
‘Will I (still) be living?’
e. kõ t’ a vini demẽ, li s’ ape dormi
when 2s FUT come tomorrow 3s FUT PROG sleep
‘When you come tomorrow, he will be sleeping.’
(L; Neumann 1985: 219)
Such a combination, as pointed out by Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy (1972: 84),

is, however, not possible in Guyanese, and presumably in the French creoles
which use ka to express progressive, except in the conditional, as shown in
(42a) from Martinican (Bernabé 2003: 111) and (42b) from Guadeloupean
(Ludwig et al. 1990: 27).
(42) a. si to té vini pi bonnò, nou té ké ka manjé

if 2s PAST come more early, 1p PAST FUT PROG eat
‘If you had come earlier, we could be eating.’
b. si an pa té vin, ou té ké ka malpalé-mwen
if 1s NEG PAST come 2s PAST FUT PROG criticize-1s
‘If I hadn’t come, you would have been speaking ill of me.’
This prompts the question as to what lies behind this restriction. One
possibility is that ka, as used in these creoles, encodes not only the pres-
ent progressive but also a habitual present (Goodman 1964), as in this
Lesser Antillean example: mwẽ ka pale patwa suvã ‘I often speak Patois
(i.e. Creole)’ (Goodman 1964: 83), or in the following example from St.
Lucian (Carrington 1984: 118): ŝak bõmatẽ, i ka leve, i ka mote ã žadẽ
a ‘every morning, he gets up and goes up to his garden’. In this use, ka
differs from the progressive marker ape , pe , ap of the other creoles,
which cannot be used to express the habitual present but only the pro-
gressive aspect. It may thus be that ke/ké (future) cannot combine with
ka because of this additional habitual present tense meaning that it con-
veys. However, where there is a past tense marker, as in (42), such a
combination does not seem problematic. It may be noted here that the
origin of ka and ke , as Goodman notes, remains rather obscure, even
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though different hypotheses have been proposed to explain it (see Goodman Tense, mood,
1964: 84). and aspect in
the French
Turning now to the completive aspect, an interesting difference exists this time creoles
between the IOC and the other French creoles. All the French creoles have inher-
ited the French verb finir ‘to finish’ or its participle form fini, as seen in this
example from Karipuna li fini fé khukhu la tut ‘he completely finished making
the basket’ (Tobler 1983: 84) or in this Louisiana example kõ bal-la fini, n’a
partaze larzõ-la ‘When the ball is finished, we’ll share the money’ (Neumann
1985: 214). However, only the IOC and possibly Haitian, Karipuna, and Louisi-
ana Creole (see these examples) have grammaticalised it into completive marker.
(43) a. mwen fin bati kay la (H; DeGraff 2007: 106)

1s PERF build house DET
‘I have finished building the house.’
b. nu finn ranpli tu barik (IOC)
1p PERFfill all barrel
‘We have filled all the barrels.’
c. way! lonton konm sa, mo te fini oubliye sa
wow longtime like this 1s PAST PERF forget that
‘Wow! (it’s been) such a long time, I’d (completely) forgotten that.’
(L; Klingler 2003: 285)
Like some of the other pre-verbal markers mentioned, the completive aspect
marker also displays variant surface forms, finn/inn/n ‘have’, and, as expected,
it precedes verbs including the verb finir/fini, its historical source, as shown
in the following.
(44) a. zot finn/inn fini zot travay (IOC)

3p PERF finish 3p work
‘They’ve finished their work.’
b. mo’ n fini apre zot (IOC)
1s PERF finished chase 3p
‘I’ve finished chasing them away.’
It should be noted that the completive aspect, as noted in Lefebvre (1998:

134), can be expressed in Haitian without having to use a completive marker.
However, other factors appear to be implicated in arriving at a completive
interpretation of an event. For example, the object or the subject of the verb
has to be definite.
(45) a. Mari prepare pat la (H; Lefebvre 1998: 134)

Mary prepare dough DEF
‘Mary has prepared the dough.’
279
9 b. mayi a ba nou bon garanti (H; Bentolila 1987: 107)
Tense, mood, corn DEF give 1p good profit
and aspect
‘The corn has brought us good money.’
Sentences corresponding to the examples in (45) in the IOC require the comple-
tive fini/inn/n marker, as shown in (46). Without it, (46a) is ungrammatical. To
be grammatical, it requires an overt marker (e.g. tense ti (past) or pu (future)
or the incompletive aspect marker pe). The example in (46b), by contrast, is
well-formed without the completive marker, but it has a present habitual
(incompletive) or generic interpretation ‘The corn/Corn brings us good money.’
(46) a. Mari finn prepar lapat la (IOC)

Mary PERF prepare dough DET
‘Mary has prepared the dough.’
b. maij (la) finn fer nu gagn buku larzan (IOC)
corn DET PERF make 1p get lot money
‘The corn has brought us good money.’
The interaction between aspect and definiteness seen in the Haitian examples
in (45) does not seem to obtain in the IOC. The completive interpretation in
the IOC, it seems, stems directly from the presence of the completive marker
finn.
The Haitian examples show with great clarity that a completive aspectual
interpretation can be arrived at in the absence of a completive marker. Interest-
ingly, this is also the case in the other French creoles. Additionally, there does
not appear to be any need for any argument of the verb (i.e. subject or object)
to be definite. However, contexts or the presence of certain adverbs. e.g. deza
‘ever’, as seen in (47a), seems implicated in generating a completive meaning.
(47) a. To mõz sevrœj? To deza mõze sa? (L; Neumann 1985: 206)
2s eat roe 2s ever eat DEM
‘Do you eat roe? Have you ever eaten that?’
b. li pati (G; Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy 1972: 33)
3s go
‘He’s gone.’
c. mwẽ mãje (M; Taylor 1963: 805)
1s eat
‘I’ve eaten.’
d. mwẽ vini (M; Taylor 1963: 805)
1s come
‘I’ve come.’
The absence of a pre-verbal marker in these creoles gives a sentence a comple-

280 tive aspectual or past tense interpretation, particularly when the verbs are
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non-stative, as we see in (47). In the IOC the equivalent of the subsequent Tense, mood,
question in (47a) is impossible unless the completive finn is inserted. This and aspect in
suggests that neither adverbs nor contexts can compensate for the absence of the French
creoles
a completive marker. The translations of (47a) and (47b) in Mauritian Creole
are (48a) and (48b), respectively.
(48) a. to manz sevreil? To’nn deza manz sa?/*To deza manz sa?
2s eat roe 2s PERF ever eat DEM (IOC)
‘Do you eat roe?’ ‘Have you ever eaten that?’
b. li’ nn ale
3s PERF go
‘He’s gone.’
If translated into French, the examples corresponding to (47b) and (47c)

will show a compound tense (ẽtre/avoir) followed by the past participle
form of the verb, e.g. Il est parti (47b) and J’ai mangé (47c), which clearly
identifies an event as completed at the moment of utterance and with
direct relevance to the present, which is what the completive marker finn
signals.
Like the incompletive or progressive aspect, the completive aspect can com-
bine with tense markers. Together, they can indicate that an event was com-
pleted in the past (with no relevance to the present, i.e. ‘then’) or will be
completed in the future. Among the French creoles, however, only the IOC,
Haitian, and possibly Louisiana Creole (see example (43c)) appear to com-
bine finn with their past tense marker ti/te.
(49) a. si zot ti finn pran loto zot ti pu finn arive (IOC)

if 3p PAST PERF take car 3p PAST FUT PERF arrive
‘If they had taken the car, they would have already arrived.’
b. si nou ti finn ale aler, nou ti a’ n arive
if 1p PAST PERF go on-time 1p PAST FUT PERF arrive
‘If we had left on time, we would have arrived.’
(IOC; Papen 1978: 341)
c. mwen te fin bati kay la (H; DeGraff 2007: 107)
1s PAST PERF build house DEF
‘I (had) finished building the house.’
The other French creoles lack the completive marker finn, and they convey
the completive aspect with a zero morpheme (Damoiseau 2003: 104–105),
as shown in (50a, b). They also combine té with this zero morpheme to signal
an event that has been completed in the past, as shown in (50c, d). It is inter-
esting to note that Louisiana Creole also uses the zero marker to signal
completive aspect, even though it has fini, as we saw in (43c).
281
9 (50) a. mo we sa fam ki te vini pase fét isi la
Tense, mood, 1s see that woman who PAST come pass holiday here DEF
and aspect
‘I saw that woman who had come to spend the holiday here.’
(K; Tobler 1983: 50)
b. apre li te vini, nu bwa kafe (L; Neumann 1985: 202)
after 3s PAST come, 1p drink coffee
‘After he had arrived, we had coffee.’
c. Iv te travay (G; Damoiseau 2003: 105)
Yves PAST work
‘Yves had worked.’
d. mó té mãnžé (G; Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy 1972: 85)
1s PAST eat
‘I had eaten.’
As of the completive in the future, it seems that only the IOC and Louisiana
Creole are able to grammaticalise this interaction between completive aspect
and future tense. Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy (1972) mentions a non-completive
future in Guyanese but not a completive future. Similarly, DeGraff (2007: 107)
rules out the combination of completive aspect and future tense in Haitian.
The following examples illustrate the completive in the future in the IOC and
Louisiana. Note the use of sa to indicate the future in (51c).
(51) a. zot pu finn manze kan nu arive (IOC)

3p FUT PERF eat when 1p arrive
‘They will have eaten when we arrive.’
b. li va finn ranz so lakaz dan enn de zan (IOC)
3s FUT PERF build 3s house in one two year
‘He will have built his house in a few years.’
c. kõ t’ a vini demẽ mo sa dezã parti
when 2s FUT come tomorrow 1s FUT already leave
‘When you arrive tomorrow I will have already left.’
(L; Neumann 1985: 219)
Table 9.1 summarises the tense, mood, and aspect markers in the French
creoles.
A few brief comments on this table. All the creoles use ti/te to mark past tense
(i.e. anteriority) and show that an action or state is anterior to the moment
of speech (then). However, there is an important difference between the ti in
the IOC and the te in the other creoles. The IOC ti expresses simple past mo
ti manze ‘I ate’ or mo ti ale midi ‘I went at noon’, whilst the te in the other
creoles expresses a past in the past, as in this example: mó té mãžé ‘I had
eaten’ (Guyanese; Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy 1972: 77). When translated into
French, the IOC example is rendered as j’ai mangé ‘I ate’, whilst the same
282 example is rendered as j’avais mangé ‘I had eaten’ in Guyanese.
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Table 9.1 Inventory of tense, mood, and aspect markers in the French creoles Tense, mood,
and aspect in
Tense Mood (irrealis) Aspect the French
creoles
IOC zero (habitual pu (definite future) ava/ (a)pe (imperfect)
present) va/a (indefinite future) finn/inn/n (perfect)
ti (past)
H te (past) ap (definite future) ap (imperfect)
a/va (indefinite future) fin (perfect)
pou (subjunctive)
M/Gu ka (present) kay (immediate future) ka (imperfect)
té (past) ké (future) zero (perfect)
St. L ka (present) kaj (future) ka (imperfect)
te (past) zero (perfect)
G ka (present) kay (immediate future) ka (imperfect)
té (past) ké (future) zero (perfect)
K te (past) ke (future) ka (imperfect)
zero (perfect)
L te (habitual past) a/sa (future) ape/ap/e (imperfect)
va (future)
T te/ete (past) va/wa/a (future) atra de (imperfect)
fini (perfect)
The equivalent of the IOC mo ti manze in Guyanese and other Atlantic cre-
oles is mó mãžé ‘I ate’, with a zero past marker. But with a zero marker, a
past tense reading is only possible if the verb is non-stative, as in mó mãžé ‘I
ate’ (Guyanese), nou ale koucha a mènui ‘we went to bed at midnight’
(L; Klingler 2003: 260). If the verb is stative, a zero marker has a present
tense reading, as in mó savé ‘I know’ (G; Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy 1972: 81),
nou vlé/lé on/an zannanna ‘we want a pineapple’ (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983:
1166), Piè enmen Eliza ‘Peter loves Eliza’ (M; Bernabé 2003: 157), or to
konnen ‘you know’ (L; Klingler 2003: 252). In the IOC, by contrast, present
tense is marked with a zero marker regardless of the semantics of the verb,
i.e. whether it is stative mo konen ‘I know’ or non-stative mo manze ‘I eat’.
In the Atlantic French creoles, the present tense is signalled with ka, the same
marker which is used to mark incomplete aspect: Pol ka travay lapos ‘Paul
works/Paul is working at the post-office’ (G; Damoiseau 2003: 21), papa-
mwen ka travay adan garaj-la ‘my father works in the garage’ (M; Bernabé
2003: 152), and ŝak bõmatẽ, i ka leve, i ka mote ã žadẽ a ‘every morning, he
gets up and goes up to his garden’ (St. L; Carrington 1984: 118). Notice that
ka is only possible with non-stative verbs: Pol ka travay ‘Paul works/is work-
ing’ but not *Pol ka enmen Eliza (lit. Paul PRES love Eliza) ‘Paul loves Eliza’.
The morpheme ka, thus, has two functions: (a) it can signal incompletive
aspect and (b) it can be used to mark (habitual) present. In creoles which use
this morpheme, the zero marker has a past tense interpretation except when
the verb is stative, in which case it is read as expressing present tense. 283
9 The incomplete aspect in the IOC, Haitian, and Louisiana Creole is realised
Tense, mood, by a form derived from the French preposition après ‘after’, i.e. ape/pe/e/ap.
and aspect
Only the IOC, Haitian, and Tayo have a completive aspect marker fin(n) (<
Fr finir ‘to finish’). The IOC, Haitian, Louisiana, and Tayo use a/ava/va as
markers of the irrealis (future). The IOC and Haitian also use a/ava/va, but
they also have pu/pou. However, pu/pou functions differently in these lan-
guages. In the IOC it expresses definite future, while in Haitian it expresses
the subjunctive mood. Haitian and Louisiana Creole, unlike the IOC, also
have one other marker of the future each. In the former it is ap (definite
future) and in the latter it is sa. The remaining creole languages (i.e. the Lesser
Antillean creoles and a few of the Caribbean creoles) use ke (future) and kay/
kaj (immediate future).
9.3.3 Modality in the French creoles
Modality, like mood, also contributes to the meaning of a sentence. In the

main, it describes the speaker’s attitude toward the event or state denomi-
nated by the verb. In English and French, as was pointed out earlier, there is
a small set of verbal elements (i.e. modal verbs) which enable a speaker to
make clear whether, in his or her view, an event is likely to happen, should
happen, and so on.
As far as the French creoles are concerned, it makes more sense to talk in
terms of modality rather than mood if mood is more of a morphologically
related phenomenon. Modality in the French creoles is expressed in very
much the same way as it is in English – that is to say, with the use of modal
pre-verbal markers. In the IOC, these markers are bizen ‘must’ (< Fr besoin
‘need’), kapav ‘can/may’ (< Fr être capable ‘be capable/be able to’), fode/fale
‘must/should’ (< Fr faut/falloir ‘must’), and devet ‘may’ (< Fr doit/devoir être
‘must’). The modal marker bizen can be used to express deontic obligation
as in (52a) or epistemic/logical necessity as in (52b). Notice that it can also
be used as a verb on its own (52c).
(52) a. li bizen pey so dett, sanfwa li pu al prizon (IOC)

3s must pay 3s debt otherwise 3s will go prison
‘He must pay back his debt, otherwise he will end up in prison.’
b. li bizen pe dormi (IOC)
3s must PROG sleep
‘He must be sleeping.’
c. li bizen enn dimunn pu fer sa (IOC)
3s need a person for do that
‘He needs someone to do that.’
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The modal marker kapav expresses epistemic possibility as in (53a), deontic Tense, mood,
ability as in (53b) or deontic permission as in (53c). and aspect in
the French
(53) a. li kapav pe dormi (IOC) creoles
3s may PROG sleep
‘He may be sleeping.’
b. to kapav repar mo bisiklet? (IOC)
2s can repair 1s bicycle
‘Can you repair my bike?’
c. to kapav ale kan to fini to travay (IOC)
2s may go when 2s finish 2s work
‘You can go when you have finished your work.’
Note that bizen, which derives from the French noun besoin ‘need’, functions
as both a verb, as in (52c), and a modality marker, as in (52a, b); however,
kapav, which derives from the French adjective capable, functions as a
modality marker, not an adjective.
The modal fode/fale, like bizen, can be used to express some kind of (moral)
obligation or necessity, as in (54), and devet to express epistemic possibility/
likelihood, as in (55).
(54) a. li fode travay pu gagn larzan (IOC)

3s should work to get money
‘He should work to get money.’
b. fale zot aprann ler-la zot pu pase (IOC)
must 2p study then 2p FUT pass
‘You should study in order to pass.’
(55) a. zot devet pe dormi (IOC)

3p might PERF sleep
‘They are probably sleeping.’
b. devet zot pe dormi (IOC)
might 3p PROG sleep
‘Perhaps they are sleeping.’
These modal markers can combine with each other, as shown in (56), and
with the tense, aspect, and mood markers, as shown in (57).
(56) a. zot bizen kapav fer li (IOC)

3p must can do 3s
‘They ought to be able to do it.’
b. zot fode kapav fer li (IOC)
3p must can do 3s
‘They must be able to do it.’
285
9 c. zot fode bizen kapav fer li (IOC)
Tense, mood, 3p must must can do 3s
and aspect
‘It must be that they are able to do it.’
d. bizen fode manze pu gagn lafors (IOC)
must must eat for get strength
‘You must eat to be strong.’
(57) a. zot ti bizen return lakaz pu get zot mama (IOC)

3p PAST must return home to care 3p mother
‘They had to go back home to look after their mother.’
b. zot pa finn kapav ale (IOC)
3p NEG PERF able go
‘They weren’t able to go.’
c. zot pe bizen al get zot mama (IOC)
3p PROG must go see 3p mother
‘They are having to go and see their mother.’
The combination of fode and bizen (56c) and bizen and fode in (56d) is
interesting. The interpretation of fode bizen in the former is epistemic modal-
ity, while that of bizen fode in the latter is deontic modality.
The IOC appear to have recruited lexical items from French periphrastic modal-
ity markers, e.g. Fr besoin in avoir besoin ‘to need’ > bizin, Fr capable in être
capable ‘to be able’ > kapav, and sometimes fusing a modal verb and an auxil-
iary, as in Fr doit être > devet ‘must’, or simply borrowing a whole modal verb,
Fr faudrait/fallait > fode/fale, in order to express a range of modal meanings.
In Louisiana Creole the set of modal markers include bezwẽ/bezɔn (< Fr

besoin) ‘must/have to’, dwat (< Fr devoir) ‘should/ought to’ (obligation),
kapab/kab/ka (< Fr capable), puve/pe/pø (< Fr pouvoir) ‘can/able to’ (capabil-
ity or permission), which does not exist in the IOC, and fo/fale/fodre (< Fr
falloir) ‘should’ (necessary). The following examples illustrate their use in
this creole.
(58) a. to bezɔn gete li (L; Valdman and Klingler 1997: 127)

2s must watch 3s
‘You must/have to watch him.’
b. li dwat kɔne pasø li ʒa bat ase (L: Valdman and
3s must know because 3s PERF fight enough Klingler 1997: 127)
‘He ought to know because he’s fought enough.’
(59) a. mun ka aprɔn (L; Valdman and Klingler 1997: 128)

people can learn
‘People can learn.’
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b. se ziŝ twa kapab ede nuzot (L; Neumann 1985: 224) Tense, mood,
3s just 2s can help 1p and aspect in
‘It’s only you who can help us.’ the French
creoles
c. to pø pa galope avek mwa (L; Valdman and
2s can not run with 1s Klingler 1997: 128)
‘You can’t run with me.’
d. to pe fe sa si t-ole (L; Neumann 1985: 226)
2s can do that if 2s-want
‘You can do that if you want.’
(60) a. fo pa to fe sa! (L; Neumann 1985: 274)

should NEG 2s do that
‘You shouldn’t do that.’
b. fale to truve to BASKET (L; Neumann 1985: 274)
should 2s find 2s basket
‘You should have found your basket.’
c. fodre mo gon (L; Neumann 1985: 274)
should 1s go
‘I should be going.’
The examples presented so far on modality marking show that both the IOC
and Louisiana Creole make use of the French words besoin, devoir, capable
to express obligation, possibility, and capability. However, only Louisiana
Creole also makes use of the French verb pouvoir to express capability. These
modality markers, just like those in the IOC, can combine with tense markers
to express modalities at different times. The tense markers precede the modal-
ity markers, as shown in the following examples.
(61) a. mo te kab kuri travaye dõ klo (L; Neumann 1985: 224)

1s PAST can run work in field
‘I could go and work in the field.’
b. to te pø py mele ek le piti blõ (L; Neumann
2s PAST can no longer mix with the little white 1985: 225)
‘You could no longer play with the white children.’
c. mo se pe gẽ sa, si mo s’ ole (L; Neumann 1985: 226)
1s PAST can get that if 1s PAST want
‘I could have got that if I wanted.’
Turning to the Atlantic French creoles, Haitian has the modal markers dwe
(< Fr devoir ‘must/might’), which expresses both deontic obligation and epis-
temic likelihood, as in (62), mèt (< Fr mettre ‘put’), which expresses permis-
sion and possibility, as in (63), and kapab/ka (< Fr capable ‘can’), which
indicates possibility and capability, as shown in (64).
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9 (62) a. Bouki dwe vini (H; DeGraff 2007: 108)
Tense, mood, Bouki ought to come
and aspect
‘Bouki ought to come.’
b. Bouki dwe vini (H; DeGraff 2007: 108)
Bouki might come
‘It is likely that Bouki has come.’
(63) a. žan mèt maže si l vle (H; Magloire-Holly 1982: 99)

John can eat if 3s want
‘John can eat if he wants.’
b. li mèt touyé-m (H; Valdman 1978: 225)
3s can kill 1s
‘He could have killed me.’
(64) a. ti gasõ ã ka malad ki fé l pa vini

little boy DEF can ill what do 3s not come
‘The boy may be ill, which is why he hasn’t come.’
(H; Magloire-Holly 1982: 100)
b. sa m kapab di? (H; Magloire-Holly 1982: 100)
DEM 1s can say
‘What can I say?’
c. lò u ka travay u a vini (H; Magloire-Holly
when 2p can work 2p FUT come 1982: 110)
‘When you can work, you can come.’
Haitian also has a modality marker pou which, like dwe, expresses deontic
obligation: se Bouki ki pou te vini ‘it’s Bouki who had to come’. Note also
that the modality markers in Haitian, just like those in the IOC, can co-occur
in a single clause, and they can also combine with tense and aspect markers.
The following examples are illustrative. Notice that example (65a) illustrates
possibility, whilst (65b) illustrates an eventuality/threat.
(65) a. l dwe kapab ale (H; Magloire-Holly 1982: 102)

3s must can go
‘He must be able to go.’
b. u mèt kab kõdyi u pa prale (H; Magloire-Holly
2p can can drive 2p not go 1982: 102)
‘You must be able to drive, (otherwise) you won’t go.’
c. Žã ap ka vini (H; Magloire-Holly 1982: 103)
John FUT can come
‘John will be able to come.’
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d. Žã te dwe vini (H; Magloire-Holly 1982: 103) Tense, mood,
John PAST must come and aspect in
‘John should have come.’ the French
creoles
In the other French creoles of the Atlantic, fodha (< Fr faut/falloir) and puve
(< Fr pouvez/pouvoir) are also used as modality markers, as shown in the
following examples from Karipuna. The examples in (66) express obligation/
necessity, meaning ‘it is necessary that’. Those in (67) express both capability
and permission. Notice that Karipuna also uses modality markers such as
pitét (< Fr adverb peut-être ‘perhaps’) and djivet (< Fr doit être ‘possibly’),
as shown in (68), to express dubitative. However, these perhaps function
more like adverbials by virtue of their position inside the clause.
(66) a. ke sa kalite mun fodha gã pasiẽs (K; Tobler 1983: 52)

with that quality people must have patience
‘With that type of person one has to have patience.’
b. fodha u bwé, mãmã (K; Tobler 1983: 45)
must 2s drink mother
‘You have to drink it, mother.’
(67) a. li fwé ki li pa puve phóx (K; Tobler 1983: 59)

3s cold that 3s not able near
‘He was (so) cold he almost could not (do anything).’
b. li pa puve pase li malad (K; Tobler 1983: 13)
3s not able because 3s ill
‘He cannot because he is ill.’
c. ale dumãde mãmã si u puve ale (K; Tobler 1983: 38)
go ask mother if 2s able go
‘Go and ask your mother if you may go.’
(68) a. pitét mo ke puve ale (K; Tobler 1983: 41)

perhaps 1s FUT able go
‘Perhaps I will be able to go.’
b. djivét li gã thaw ane (K; Tobler 1983: 41)
maybe 3s have three year
‘Maybe (probably) he is three years old.’
Martinican also has a modality marker dwèt (< Fr devoir ‘must’) alongside pou
(< Fr pouvoir ‘can’) and andwa (< Fr devoir ‘need/must’, perhaps the result of a
fusion of on doit) to express obligation. The following examples are illustrative.
(69) a. sé zouvriyé-a dwet travay pou risivrè lajan (M; Bernabé

PLU worker-DEF must work for receive money 2003: 142)
‘The workers must work in order to receive money.’
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9 b. ou pou pé travay (M; Bernabé 1983: 1202)
Tense, mood, 2s must can work
and aspect
‘You must be able to work.’
c. ou ké andwa rimet li lajan-I (M; Bernabé 2003: 143)
2s FUT must return 3s money-3s
‘You must give him his money back.’
Possibility, however, is indicated by the modal morpheme pé, also from

French pouvoir ‘can’. Note that the same morpheme is used to express deon-
tic capacity/ability, as in (70a), and epistemic possibility, as in (70b). Notice
also that the difference stems from the position of the modal verb in relation
to the negative marker. If it follows the negative marker, it signals capacity/
ability. If it precedes it, it signals possibility.
(70) a. Piè pa pé lévé woch-la (M; Bernabé 2003: 143)

Peter NEG can lift rock-DEF
‘Peter cannot lift the stone.’
b. Piè pé pa janmen rivé (M; Bernabé 2003: 143)
Peter can NEG never arrive
‘It is possible that Peter will never arrive.’
The pé in Martinican conveys the same semantic meaning (modality) as

kapav in the IOC, and both their meanings are dependent on their position
in relation to the negator: Zan pa kapav sorti ‘John can’t go out’ (ability/
capacity/permission) versus Zan kapav pa sorti ‘it’s possible that John does
not go out’. On this latter reading the modality marker is outside the scope
of the negative particle.
It should also be noted here that Martinican and Gaudeloupean use dwet to
express not only obligation (see also (69a)) but also probability (Bernabé
1983: 1183), as shown in the following examples.
(71) a. sé bèf-la dwèt sòti an hat/pak-la

PLU ox-DEF must leave in park-DEF
‘The oxen must leave the park.’
b. sé bèf-la dwèt sòti an hat/pak-la
PLU ox-DEF must leave in park-DEF
‘The oxen must have come from the park.’
(= ‘It is probable that the oxen have come from the park.’)
Modality markers can co-occur, as we saw in example (69b), with pou and
pé, both stemming from French pouvoir ‘can’, but there are restrictions. For
instance, deontic obligation, dwet ‘must’, and epistemic possibility, pé ‘can’,
cannot co-occur (Bernabé 1983: 1202), e.g. *Piè dwet pé ka domi. However,
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epistemic possibility/probability dwet ‘must’ and deontic capacity/ability pé Tense, mood,
can, e.g. Pyè dwet pé dòmi ‘It is possible that Peter is able to sleep.’ See and aspect in
Bernabé (1983: 1202–1203) for further detailed discussion of these the French
creoles
restrictions.
Likewise, modality and tense markers can co-occur, but again there are
restrictions. For example dwèt (deontic obligation) can occur with habitual
ka but not with progressive ka. However, dwèt (epistemic probability) can
occur with progressive ka, as shown in (72c).
(72) a. Piè dwet ka réponn lè nou ka pale ba’ y

Peter must HAB reply when 1p ka speak with 3s
‘Peter must reply whenever we speak to him.’
(Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 1186)
b. *Piè dwet ka palé (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 1186)
Peter must PROG speak
c. Piè dwet ka domi alè/apwèzan (Gu/M; Bernabé
Peter must PROG sleep now 1983: 1189)
‘Peter must be sleeping now.’
Likewise the modal pé (epistemic possibility) and ka (progressive) can

co-occur.
(73) a. Pyè pé ka domi alè/apwèzan (Gu/M; Bernabé

Peter can PROG sleep now 1983: 1196)
‘Peter may be sleeping now.’
(= It is possible that Peter is sleeping now.)
b. Pyè pé la ka atann vou/ou (Gu/M; Bernabé
Peter can here PROG wait 2s 1983: 1197)
‘Peter may be here waiting for you.’
Both dwet and pé can occur with tense markers: ké (future) and té (past), as
shown here, although note that only the non-epistemic pé is allowed to com-
bine with ké.
(74) a. Pyè dwet ké pati (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 1189)

Peter probable FUT leave
‘It is probable that Peter will leave.’
b. sé kabrit-la dwèt té janbé baye-la (Gu/M; Bernabé
PLU goat-DEF must PAST run barrier-DEF 2003: 1191)
‘The goats must have run over the barrier.’
(75) a. Pyè ké pè pati (Gu/M; Bernabé 2003: 1195)

Peter FUT can leave
‘Peter will be able to leave.’
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9 b. Pyé pé té vini/vini (Gu/M; Bernabé 2003: 1198)
Tense, mood, Peter can PAST come
and aspect
‘Peter might have come.’
St. Lucian Creole also has a modal marker pe (< Fr pouvoir) which can
express epistemic possibility, deontic permission, and deontic ability.
(76) a. i te pe ã žadẽ a (Carrington 1984: 121)

3s PAST can in garden DEF
‘He could have been in the garden.’
b. u pe mete i la (Carrington 1984: 121)
2s may put 3s there
‘You may put it there.’
c. mwẽ pe kaj fè i (Carrington 1984: 121)
1s can FUT do 3s
‘I may be able to do it.’
The other modal marker that St. Lucian has is sa, which encodes deontic ability/
capability, as shown in (77), and epistemic possibility, as shown in (78).
(77) a. mwẽ sa naže (Carrington 1984: 120)

1s can swim
‘I can swim.’
b. mãde papa u, i kaj sa fè i (Carrington 1984: 120)
ask father 2s 3s FUT can do 3s
‘Ask your father, he will be able to do it.’
(78) a. i sa ã žadẽ i (Carrington 1984: 121)

3s may in garden 3s
‘He may be in his garden.’
b. i te sa bò baza a (Carrington 1984: 121)
3s PAST can by market DEF
‘She may have been at the market.’
Notice that these modality markers can combine with tense markers, as we
see in (77b) and (78b), where sa (ability) and sa (possibility) can combine
with the future and past markers, respectively.
Guyanese, finally, appears to have only two modality markers, e.g. puvé
(< Fr pouvoir), as in mo puvé ‘I can’, and divèt (< Fr doit être), as in mó divèt
‘I must’.
Table 9.2 tabulates the modality markers in the French creoles. Notice that
they are small in number and most of them stem from the small set of modal
auxiliaries which exists in French: devoir, falloir, pouvoir, and savoir.
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Table 9.2 Summary of modality markers in the French creoles Tense, mood,
and aspect in
French devoir ‘must’ Falloir ‘must’ pouvoir ‘can’/ savoir the French
‘ought to’ ‘may’ ‘know’ creoles
IOC devet/bizen fode/fale kapav
H dwe/bézouen fòk/ifo/fò mèt/kapab/a
M/Gu dwet pé/pou sa
St. L pe sa/sav
G divèt puvé
K djivet fodha puve/pitet
L dwat/ fo/fale/fodre pø/pe/pu
devre/bezòn ka/kapab/kab
T dwa/beswa fo mwaja kone
Looking at the data in this table, it is very clear that the French creoles have
not only used the French modal auxiliaries devoir, falloir, pouvoir, and
savoir to express different modality meanings but also created new modality
markers by recruiting other categories which encode some sense of modality
(e.g. obligation and possibility) as part of their meaning. The IOC, Haitian,
and Louisiana Creole have used the noun besoin ‘need’, for instance, to
express deontic obligation and epistemic possibility. Interestingly, these same
three creoles have recruited the adjective capable to express deontic ability
and permission as well as epistemic probability. These are the modality mean-
ings conveyed by the French modal auxiliary pouvoir, which neither the IOC
nor Haitian appears to have retained as a modality marker. Instead, Haitian
makes use of mèt (< Fr mettre à ‘to start’) to express the permission meaning
of pouvoir, as in ou mèt rété ‘you can stay’ (Valdman 1978: 225), and
kapab/ka to express the ability and possibility meaning of pouvoir. The IOC,
in contrast, uses kapav to express all three meanings of pouvoir: ability,
permission, and possibility.
As far as the French modal falloir is concerned, it is absent in the Lesser

Antillean French creoles, particularly Martinican, Guadeloupean, St. Lucian,
and Guyanese. The other creoles, i.e. the IOC, Haitian, Karipuna, and Loui-
siana Creole, do use it in order to express obligation. This meaning of falloir
is conveyed by dwet (< Fr devoir) in the Lesser Antillean French creoles: ou
tè dwèt ja pati ‘You should/ought to have already left’ (Bernabé 1983: 1187).
Turning to the French modal devoir, it seems to be the one that most of the
creoles have successfully acquired. However, in the IOC and Karipuna, it
functions more like a modal adverb than a modal auxiliary by virtue of its
distribution. Unlike other modality markers, devet/djivet can occur immedi-
ately before or immediately after the subject: devet li pe dormi ‘Perhaps he is
sleeping’ and li devet pe dormi ‘He is perhaps sleeping’. In the absence of this 293
9 French modal word in these two creoles, its deontic obligation and epistemic
Tense, mood, probability meaning are conveyed by bizin/bezouen/bezõn. Notice that Loui-
and aspect
siana Creole makes use of bezõn (also pronounced bezwẽ) to express obliga-
tion even though it also uses devre (< Fr devoir): to te devre mene ta soer ‘you
should have brought your sister’.
The French modal auxiliary savoir (meaning ‘know how to’) appears only in
the Lesser Antillean Creoles. It has the form sa or sav, e.g. es ou sa travay?
mé wi mwen sa travay ‘Do you know how to work? Yes, of course, I know
how to work’ (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 1174); es u sa pale patwa? ‘Can you
speak patois’ (St. L; Carrington 1984: 101); or i pa kaj sav fè i ‘He won’t
know how to do it’ (St. L; Carrington 1984: 108); and ou ba sa vini? ‘You
can’t come? and i sav fè i ‘He knows how to do it’, from Grenada and
Dominican French creoles, respectively (Valdman 1978: 224). This meaning
is also expressed in some of the creoles by the lexical verb kone ‘to know how
to’, e.g. mo konn naze ‘I know (how to) swim’ or ‘I can swim’ (IOC), to kone
dose? we, mo kone ‘Do you know how to dance? Yes, I know’ (L; Neumann
1985: 238). Finally, of the French creoles, Haitian and Louisiana appear to
be the languages with the most modality markers, whilst St. Lucian and
Guyanese are the languages with the fewest such markers. The absence of
dwet (< Fr devoir) in St. Lucian means that its obligation meaning is expressed
with the modal marker oblize ‘to have to/to be obliged to’, as in u oblize bwè
glo sa a ‘You have to drink that water’ (St. L; Carrington 1984: 109).
9.4 Order of tense, modal, aspect markers
The semantic concepts of time, modality, and duration in the French creoles
are never realised on the verb, as the examples presented so far have shown.
Rather, they are lexicalised by free-standing morphemes, which are invariant
in form just like the bare verb they accompany. They all occupy a pre-verbal
position. The fact that they occur pre-verbally need not be surprising for the
simple reason that the modal auxiliaries from which they stem also occur
pre-verbally in French. Likewise, the fact that they co-occur should not cause
surprise because tense and modal auxiliaries also co-occur in French, as in
the following: elle aurait dû finir écrire la lettre ‘She should have finished
writing the letter’. In this example tense auxiliary aurait is placed first, followed
by modal auxiliary dû (past participle of devoir), which is then followed by
a lexical verb. The position of tense and modal markers in the French creoles
appears to have been modelled on the position of auxiliaries in French. Alter-
natively, this strict ordering might have been independently determined: the
ordering of the pre-verbal markers in relation to the verb follows from the
fact that French creoles are SVO languages, and in SVO languages, auxilia-
294 ries must precede verbs (Lehmann 1978).
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The preverbal markers, however, are not only fixed in their position in rela- Order of
tion to the verb but also in relation to each other. Tense markers precede tense, modal,
mood markers, and these in turn precede aspect markers. This ordering seems aspect
markers
to hold not only in the French creoles but also in most creoles (Bickerton
1981, 1984). A possible explanation for it is that tense marking takes prece-
dence over mood and aspect because it locates a whole event (including its
modality and aspectual information) temporally. Tense is also selected by
predicate-taking verbs (i.e. some verbs select a finite complement, e.g. say in
English, whilst others select a non-finite complement, e.g. prefer in English).
If tense markers head these complements, as is assumed in generative studies
(Chomsky 1993), the predicate-taking verbs can be said to select them, and
that is why they have to have linear precedence over the other pre-verbal
markers. The position of aspect markers can also be said to be determined
independently in the same manner. Aspect markers provide information on
the internal make-up of events denominated by verbs. They can therefore be
said to select verb phrases as their complements. The relation between them
is evident particularly in the case of stative and non-stative verbs. The pro-
gressive marker, for example, only selects non-stative verbs. Likewise, the
inflectional -ing and -en/-ed endings on English verbs are also determined by
the aspect markers that immediately precede them. The proximity of aspect
markers to verbs is therefore expected. With the leftmost and rightmost posi-
tion of tense and aspect markers being independently determined, modality
markers have only one position where they can occur, namely between the
tense and aspect markers.
The following examples illustrate some of the combinations of pre-verbal mark-

ers and their position in relation to each other in the different French creoles.
(79) a. zot ti pu finn arive la si zot ti ale boner (IOC)

3p PAST FUT PERF arrive now if 3p PAST go early
‘They would have arrived by now if they had left early.’
b. li te fin dòmi (H; Magloire-Holly 1982: 94)
3s PAST PERF sleep
‘He had finished sleeping.’
c. mo te ap prepar pat (H; Lefebvre 1998: 114)
1s PAST FUT prepare dough
‘I would have prepared dough.’
d. m’ap ap sòti (H; Lefebvre 1998: 112)
1s FUT PROG go-out
‘I will be going out.’
e. eskè ou kwè l t av ap danse? (H; DeGraff
Q 2s believe 3s PAST FUT PROG dance 2007: 108)
‘Do you think he would be dancing?’
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9 f. nou té ka domi (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 1033)
Tense, mood, 1p PAST PROG sleep
and aspect
‘We were sleeping.’
g. lè ou ké rivé, nou ké ka domi (Gu/M; Bernabé
when 2s FUT arrive 1p FUT PROG sleep 1983: 1033)
‘When you arrive, we will be sleeping.’
h. Pyè té ké ja pati (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 1065)
Peter PAST FUT already go
‘Peter would already have gone.’
i. i te ka sere dèè pie bwa sa a (St. L; Carrington
3s PAST PROG hide behind tree wood DEM DEF 1984: 119)
‘He used to hide behind that tree.’
j. tã sa a mwẽ te kaj kjuraso (St. L; Carrington
time DEM DEF 1s PAST FUT Curaçao 1984: 119)
‘At that time I must have been in Curaçao.’
k. mó té ka mãzé (G; Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy 1972: 74)
1s PAST PROG eat
‘I was eating.’
l. mó té ké dãsé ké tó (G; Saint-Jacques-
1s PAST FUT dance with 2s Fauquenoy 1972: 84)
‘I would dance with you.’
m. si – l te hive, mo te ke koze ke-l (K; Tobler
if 3s PAST arrive 1s PAST FUT talk with-3s 1983: 49)
‘If he had come, I would have spoken to him.’
n. li dji li te ka koze ke Bõdje (K; Tobler 1983: 51)
3s say 3s PAST.PERF talk with God
‘He said he was talking with God.’
o. mo te e danse (L; Klingler 2003: 258)
1s PAST PROG dance
‘I was dancing.’
p. li t’ ap zue kõ mo vini (L; Neumann 1985: 210)
3s PAST PROG play when 1s come
‘He was playing when I came.’
q. mo sa p’ ape travaje demẽ swar, to kapab vini
1s FUT NEG PROG work tomorrow night, 2s can come
‘I will not be working tomorrow night, you can come.’
(L; Neumann 1985: 219)
r. Lapẽ di li t’ ale prõ ẽ NAP (L; Neumann 1985: 218)
rabbit say 3s PAST FUT take a nap
‘Rabbit said he was going to take a nap.’
s. la te atra de mwaƒe (T; Ehrhart 1993: 161)
3s PAST PROG eat
‘He/She was eating.’
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These examples show with great clarity that both past and future tense Concluding
(mood) must precede aspect, and past must precede future. remarks
With respect to the position of tense markers and modality markers, the
former precede the latter. However, we should note that their position in
relation to each other may sometimes change, as shown in these examples.
(80) a. li kapav ti fer li (IOC)

3s can PAST do 3s
‘It is possible that he did it.’
b. sé kabrit-la dwèt té janbé bayè-la (M/Gu; Bernabé
PLU goat-DEF must PAST run barrier-DEF 1983: 1191)
‘The goats must have jumped over the fence.’
(= It is probable that the goats had jumped over the fence.)
c. žã dwe te mãže (H; Magloire-Holly 1982: 104)
John must PAST eat
‘John must have eaten.’
(= It is possible that John had eaten.)
Such re-ordering is, however, only possible with epistemic modality, which suggests
that modality markers are not all placed in the same position. Their syntactic posi-
tion may well be determined by their semantics (see Syea 2013a: 133–135 for dis-
cussion of this ordering in MC). Finally, there is also the possibility of the tense
marker in the Lesser Antillean creoles (Martinican and Gaudeloupean) to occur
twice in a sentence, in front of and after the modality marker, as in the following.
(81) i té dwèt té vini (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 1040)

3s PAST must PAST come
‘He should have come.’
This chapter has provided a survey of the pre-verbal markers in the French
creoles under consideration. These pre-verbal markers are free standing mor-
phemes, and they grammaticalise the semantic concepts of time, modality,
and duration. They can occur on their own or in combination with each other
in order to express a range of nuances of meaning relating to time, modality,
and duration. The French creoles, as we have seen, have borrowed the aux-
iliaries of their lexifier to encode some of these meanings. However, they have
also recruited elements from other word classes which share some of the
semantic modalities of the French auxiliaries. These include the noun besoin
‘need/must’ to express deontic obligation and epistemic probability; the
adjective capable ‘able/capable’ to express deontic ability/capability/permission
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9 and epistemic possibility; the verb finir ‘to finish’ to express completive
Tense, mood, aspect, although only in the IOC, Haitian, and Tayo; and the preposition
and aspect
après ‘after’ to express incompletive aspect in the IOC, Haitian, and Louisi-
ana Creole. The Lesser Antillean Creoles use ka to mark incompletive aspect.
However, its origin remains unclear. These markers, as we have seen, can
combine with each other to express more complex temporal, modal, and
aspectual meanings, but these combinations are only allowed if the markers
are ordered in such a way that tense comes first, then mood, and then aspect.
This ordering holds not only in the French creoles but also in the other
European-based creoles, an observation which led Bickerton (1983) to pro-
pose a universal base for them: ‘Most important, there is strict order that
must be followed in all creole languages when more than one of these mark-
ers is present in a sentence. The particle for tenses precedes the particle for
modality, and the particle for modality precedes the particle for aspect’ (Bick-
erton 1983: 66). However, Ehrhart (1993: 159) notes that the tense, mood,
and aspect system in Tayo may not fit in with Bickerton’s proposal.
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Chapter 10
Negation
10.0 Introduction
This chapter investigates negation across the French creoles. After a brief
outline of negation in English and French, it surveys the negative sentences
in the different French creoles. It examines the French creoles’ negative
marker, pa ‘not’, in relation to the French negative adverb pas, particularly
the difference in their syntax, i.e. the different positions they occupy in the
clause. It also discusses another interesting difference between the French
creoles and French with respect to negation. In the former, the negative
marker can occur with negative words such as personn ‘nobody’ and rien
‘nothing’, in the latter it cannot. Such a combination results in ungrammati-
cal double negation constructions in French but in permissible negative con-
cord constructions in the French creoles.
10.1 General
Negation is expressed in English with the negative particle not, which is

placed between an auxiliary and a verb: John will not win the race, John does
not like cooking, and Don’t stop! The presence of not in a finite clause requires
the presence of an auxiliary: *John not likes/liked cooking. Where a clause is
in the infinitive, not is placed in front of the infinitive marker to and the verb:
John tried not to laugh and Not to arrive on time will put the whole expedi-
tion in jeopardy. Not can sometimes occur after a main verb, I hope not, but
here it is being used in its anaphoric sense, similarly to so, as seen when I hope
not/so is used in reply to the question Is the President going to resign? The
negative marker is an adverb in terms of its word class and is often analysed
as being adjoined to the verb phrase when it follows an auxiliary or adjoined
to a projection of tense where it precedes the infinitive marker to. 299
10 The presence of not in a finite clause in English has an effect not only on the
Negation presence of auxiliaries (recall that it forces the obligatory presence of an
auxiliary) but it also has an effect on the presence of other negative words
(N-words) such as nobody, nothing, nowhere, and so on. Examples such as
I didn’t see nobody and John didn’t eat nothing are only grammatical if they
are followed by I saw Mary and John ate fish, respectively. What this suggests
is that the occurrence of another negative word is generally excluded, at least
in Standard English, whenever not is present, because their co-occurrence
leads to the phenomenon of double negation. In the context of the negative
particle, any-words rather than N-words are acceptable.
In these examples, it is clear that not is functioning as a marker of sentence

negation, taking scope over the whole sentence (proposition). Accordingly, a
sentence such as John does not like cooking can be given the logical representa-
tion (not (John like cooking)). Additionally, the negative not can also function
as a marker of constituent negation – Not every economist saw the economic
downturn, Not everyone likes cooking, Not a single student turned up for class –
where its scope is restricted to the NP it immediately precedes. In other words,
what is being negated in this last example is just the nominal constituent a single
student and not the whole proposition. Similarly, the sentence Not everyone
likes cooking has an interpretation where not has scope only over everyone.
This is clear from the fact that not fails to negate an entailment of this sentence:
Not everyone likes cooking has the same entailment as the positive sentence
Someone likes cooking. The negative particle therefore interacts with other ele-
ments in a sentence in a way that many other elements of the sentence do not.
It generally has scope over constituents of the predicate including an auxiliary,
but there are cases when such constituents, which it precedes, can fall outside
its scope. This is true for example with quantifiers such as many or one in
examples such as John didn’t see many mistakes in Bill’s paper or John didn’t
see one mistake in Bill’s paper, where the ambiguity which is present results
from the scope relation between not and the quantifiers: (many/one mistake(s)
(John didn’t see x)) and (not (John see many/one mistake(s)). The quantifying
phrase ‘many mistakes’ and ‘one mistake’ have a specific reading in the former
and a non-specific one in the latter.
Such scope ambiguity also arises with modality (or modal verbs): The Presi-
dent may not resign before the election. This has one interpretation in which
not takes scope over the verb phrase resign before the election but not over
the modal verb. Accordingly, the sentence has the meaning ‘It is possible that
the President will not resign before the election’, and here may has an epis-
temic reading. The other interpretation arises from not taking scope not only
over the verb phrase but also the modal verb may and can thus be read as
‘The President is not permitted to resign before the election’, in which case
may takes on a deontic meaning. Such ambiguity does not arise with all
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modal verbs. In The President must not resign before the election the negative Negative
marker only scopes over the verb phrase, meaning that ‘It is necessary that sentences in
the President does not resign before the election’. French
10.2 Negative sentences in French
Negation is expressed in French with a discontinuous marker ne . . . pas.

Ne has a clitic-like status since it is unstressed. Like other clitics in French,
it cliticises to an auxiliary or verb when the latter is placed in front of the
subject, as in questions such as N’avez-vous pas lu le document? ‘Haven’t
you read the document?’ and Ne dînez-vous pas chez nous ce soir? ‘Aren’t
you having dinner with us tonight?’ Pas, on the other hand, is an adverb
and one of a small set of negative words which can form a discontinuous
morpheme with ne, e.g. ne . . . plus ‘no longer’, ne . . . jamais ‘never’, ne . . .
point ‘not’, ne . . . guère ‘hardly’, ne . . . rien ‘none’, ne . . . personne ‘no
one’, and so on.
(1) a. Il ne regarde pas la télévision

‘He doesn’t watch television.’
b. Il ne regarde plus la télévision
‘He no longer watches television.’
c. Il ne regarde jamais la télévision
‘He never watches television.’
d. Il ne lit guère les journaux
‘He hardly reads the newspapers.’
e. Il ne voit rien
‘He doesn’t see anything.’
Another characteristic of ne is that it is optional in popular and less formal

French. The following are all acceptable.
(2) a. C’ est pas facile

‘It isn’t easy.’
b. Ça marche plus
‘That doesn’t work anymore.’
c. Nous l’avons pas bu
‘We didn’t drink it.’
It is interesting to note here that ne is completely absent in some varieties of

French, e.g. Cajun French (see Papen and Rottet 1997: 92).
(3) a. Tu iras pas (Papen and Rottet 1997: 101)

‘You will not go!’ 301
10 b. Tape nous-autes pas (Papen and Rottet 1997: 85)
Negation ‘Don’t hit us.’
As for its position in the sentence, ne is always placed in a pre-auxiliary or

pre-verbal position.
(4) a. Il n’a pas lu le journal

‘He hasn’t read the paper.’
b. Je ne dors jamais la journée
‘I never sleep during the day.’
Note that if an object clitic pronoun is present, ne then precedes not only the
auxiliary or the verb but also the object pronoun. It thus occupies a position
from which it has scope over the rest of the sentence.
(5) a. Je ne les ai jamais vus au café

‘I have never seen them in the café.’
b. Nous ne lui parlons plus
‘We don’t speak to him anymore.’
While the position of ne is fixed in the clause, that of pas, plus, rien, and
jamais, the adverbs of negation, is somewhat flexible. They follow verbs, for
instance when these are finite, as in (4b) and (5b), but precede them when
they are non-finite, as in (4a) and (5a). They also precede verbs or auxiliaries
when these are in the infinitive, as in (6), although with infinitive auxiliaries,
as shown in (7), they can either precede or follow them.
(6) a. Elle souhaite ne plus voir ses amies

‘She doesn’t wish to see her friends anymore.’
b. Il espère ne rien avoir laissé dans la machine à laver
‘He hopes that he hasn’t left anything in the washing machine.’
c. Ne jamais avoir vu la mer, c’est triste
‘Not to have ever seen the sea is sad.’
(7) a. Il espère n’avoir rien laissé dans la machine à laver

‘He hopes that he hasn’t left anything in the washing machine.’
b. N’avoir jamais vu la mer, c’est triste
‘Not to have ever seen the sea is sad.’
Two other negative words, but of the nominal type, also occur with ne to
express negation: personne ‘nobody/no-one’ and aucun(e) ‘any(thing)/
any(one)’.
(8) a. Je (ne) vois personne

302 ‘I see no one.’
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b. Ils (n’) ont trouvé aucun(e) Negative
‘They haven’t found any.’ sentences in
French
These negative words can also occur as subject, which again brings out its
nominal character.
(9) a. Personne (ne) dort ce soir

‘Nobody sleeps tonight.’
b. Aucun(e) (ne) lui plaît
‘None pleases him.’
c. Rien (ne) lui fait peur
‘Nothing frightens him.’
Note that even though the negative words which occur with ne belong to dif-
ferent word classes (some nominal and others adverbial), they are surprisingly
mutually exclusive. As shown in the following, the adverb pas cannot occur
with the nominal negative words personne ‘nobody’, aucun(e) ‘any’ or rien
‘nothing’, regardless of whether these words are in object or subject
position.
(10) a. * Je (ne) vois pas personne

‘I can’t see anyone.’
b. * Elle (n’) a pas trouvé aucune(e)
‘She hasn’t found any.’
c. * Il (ne) fait pas rien
‘He doesn’t do anything.’
(11) a. * Personne (ne) dort pas ce soir

‘Nobody sleeps tonight.’
b. * Aucun(e) (ne) lui plaît pas
‘Nothing pleases him.’
c. * Rien (ne) lui fait pas peur
‘Nothing frightens him.’
The ungrammaticality of (10) and (11) shows that French does not allow
negative concord, a possibility which exists in most of the Romance lan-
guages, Spanish and Portuguese, for instance. The possibility also exists in
the French creoles, as we will see later.
(12) a. no he visto a nadie (Spanish)

not have see to nobody
‘I haven’t seen anybody.’
b. não vi ninguem (Portuguese)
not see nobody
‘I haven’t seen anybody.’ 303
10 (13) a. nadie no he visto a Juan (Spanish)
Negation nobody not have see to Juan
‘Nobody has seen Juan.’
b. ninguem não vi Maria (Portuguese)
nobody not see Maria
‘Nobody saw Maria.’
The incompatibility noted in (10) and (11) is, however, limited to the adver-
bial pas ‘not’. It is interesting to note in this connection that this restriction
does not apply in some varieties of French. For example, Cajun French allows
pas and negative words such as jamais ‘never’ or rien ‘nothing’ to co-occur
(Papen and Rottet 1997: 92). However, although pas cannot occur with
negative words in formal/standard French, negative adverbs such as jamais,
plus, and so on can, particularly with negative nominals such as personne
and aucun(e), as shown here.
(14) a. Il (ne) parle jamais à personne

‘He never speaks to anyone.’
b. Ça (ne) plaira jamais plus personne
‘This will not please anyone anymore.’
c. Il (n’) a jamais plus rien dit
‘He has never said anything anymore.’
The optionality of ne in informal French presents an interesting question as

to what it contributes, if anything, to the meaning of a negative sentence. Since
its occurrence with negative words does not result in double negation, we may
infer that, unlike pas, it does not have any negative meaning. It is perhaps no
more than a formal marker of the scope of negation in a sentence.
There are, however, a few negative constructions in which pas rather than ne
is optional. The verbs in such constructions are followed by an infinitive and
they tend to be more like auxiliaries than lexical verbs.
(15) a. Il ne cesse de parler de son nouveau livre

‘He can’t stop talking about his new book.’
b. Il ne sait comment lui dire ce qui est arrivé
‘He doesn’t know how to tell him what has happened.’
c. Il ne pouvait accepter notre offre
‘He couldn’t accept our offer.’
If ne is nothing more than a scope marker of negation in negative sentences,

it might be argued that the absence of pas in examples such as (15) is simply
a surface phenomenon, a case of pas not being overtly realised.
The examples discussed so far are all examples of sentence negation with the
304 logical representation [ne . . . pas [il regarde la télévision]] for a sentence like
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(1a). However, as was made clear earlier, it isn’t only sentences or proposi- Negative
tions that can be negated but also constituents smaller than the sentence. The sentences in
following examples illustrate constituent negation. Notice that in such cases the French
creoles
pas occurs without ne.
(16) a. Pas même un élève en classe cette semaine

‘Not even a single student in class this week.’
b. C’était pas son frère qui l’avait fait, c’était son père
‘It wasn’t his brother who did it, it was his father.’
c. Nous travaillons pas loin du marché
‘We work not very far from the market.’
An example such as (16c) is a positive sentence even though it has the nega-
tive marker pas. The positive reading is available because pas only negates
the adverbial phrase loin du marché and not the whole proposition.
10.3 Negative sentences in the French creoles
Sentence negation is expressed in the French creoles with the negative

marker pa ‘not’, which historically stems from the French adverb pas. The
negative scope marker ne has not survived, but evidence of its use in the
IOC, for instance, can be seen in such fused elements as napa (< ne . . . pas)
‘not’, nepli (< ne . . . plus) ‘no longer’ and nek (< ne . . . que) ‘just’: napa tus
sa ‘don’t touch that’, nu nepli travay avek zot ‘we no longer work with
them’, and zot nek zwe ‘they do nothing but play’. Note that napa has long
been reduced to pa and is only rarely heard in the speech of a few older
speakers. It is, however, still in use in some of the other French creoles, e.g.
Tayo (see Ehrhart 1993).
The loss of the unstressed French ne in the French creoles is not in the least
surprising. It is well known that it was the sole exponent of negation in Old
French but had in Middle French become dependent on negative words such
as pas (Price 1971, Ashby 1976, Harris 1978). Thus the negative meaning,
initially expressed by a free morpheme ne in Old French, gradually began to
be marked by pas, a change which resulted in the eventual optionality of ne
in spoken or less formal French and its loss in some varieties of French (e.g.
Cajun French) and the French-based creoles. Its loss arguably reflects the end
of the Jespersen cycle (Jespersen 1917), a process whereby an element which
used to be a free morpheme in Old French became a clitic in an unstressed
pre-verbal position. It also became dependent on a negative word in order to
express negation before finally disappearing. Its optionality in popular/
spoken French suggests that it has in fact become an expletive grammatical
form, possibly, as noted earlier, indicating nothing more than the scope of the 305
negative meaning expressed by pas.
10 French creoles (but see later comments on Louisiana Creole) express sen-
Negation tence negation by placing pa in the same syntactic position which ne occu-
pies in French negative clauses, i.e. in pre-auxiliary and pre-verbal position.
As was noted earlier, ne and pas or ne and plus became fused into single
morphemes napa and nepli, but such fusion, it seems, could only have been
possible if these two elements occurred linearly adjacent in the input during
early interactions between French speakers and non-French speakers. With
French creole pa occurring in the same position as ne in French negative
sentences, it precedes not only the verb but also all the tense, mood, and
aspect markers, as well as any adverb inside the verb phrase. In other words,
it has scope over the whole proposition, just like ne. The distribution of pa
is not, however, all that straightforward in Louisiana Creole. Here the nega-
tive marker can sometimes be placed after a verb or a tense marker, which
is impossible in all the other French creoles. The following examples illus-
trate the position of pa in negative sentences where it precedes everything
except the subject. It precedes verbs in (17) and tense markers in (18).
(17) a. li pa konn zot (IOC)

3s NEG know 3p
‘He doesn’t know them.’
b. nou pa konnen jan bagay-la va yé (H; Valdman
1p not know how thing-the will be 1978: 233)
‘We don’t know how this thing is going to be.’
c. I pa sa pale kréyol (M: Bernabé 2003: 105)
3s NEG know speak creole
‘He can’t speak creole.’
d. mwen pa konnet moun-lasa (Gu; Damoiseau 2012: 29)
1s NEG know person-DEF.DEM
e. jo pa gãe pies bataj isi (St. L; Carrington 1984: 156)
3p NEG win any battle here
‘They won no battle here.’
f. mo pa konnet sa moun-an (G; Damoiseau 2012: 29)
1s NEG know DEM person-DEF
g. li pa le bwé, li xo (K; Tobler 1983: 12)
3s not want drink it hot
‘He didn’t want to drink (it), (because) it was hot.’
h. pouki to pa monje to GUMBO? (L; Klingler 2003: 321)
why 2s NEG eat 2s gumbo
‘Why didn’t you eat your gumbo?’
i. vye chyen, ye jis parl pa, se tou (L; Klingler
old dog 3p just speak NEG that all 2003: 321)
306 ‘Old (hunting) dogs, they just don’t talk.’ (They can understand
human speech.)
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(18) a. li pa ti travay ar nu (IOC) Negative
3s NEG PAST work with us sentences in
‘He didn’t work with us.’ the French
creoles
b. m pa té gen senk kòb (H; Valdman 1978: 264)
1s not PAST get five cents
‘I did not have five cents.’
c. lè ou rive, man pa té la, an (M; Bernabé
when 2p arrive 1s NEG PAST there, no 2003: 62)
‘When you arrived, I wasn’t there.’
d. nou pa té pé sòti . . . (Gu; Damoiseau 2012: 57)
1p NEG PAST can go out
‘We couldn’t go out (because it was raining heavily).’
e. mamaj la pa te vle (St. L; Carrington 1984: 155)
child DEF NEG PAST want
bwè rimèd la
drink medicine DEF
‘The child did not want to take the medicine.’
f. an te sav i pa té ké vini (G; Damoiseau
1s PAST know 3s NEG PAST FUT come 2012: 102)
‘I knew that she would not come.’
g. li pa te bõ (K; Tobler 1983: 58)
3s not PAST good
‘It wasn’t good.’
h. li te pa kante kant (L; Klingler 2003: 324)
3s PAST NEG tell stories
‘He didn’t tell stories.’
i. mo te p e fe aryen (L; Klingler 2003: 324)
1s PAST NEG PROG do nothing
‘I couldn’t do anything.’
The interesting development regarding negation in the French creoles is that,

firstly, pa has become the sole marker of negation. This is also the case in
popular French, Il va pas manger chez lui ce soir ‘He won’t eat at home
tonight’, and in some varieties of French, e.g. Cajun French Alle est pas aussi
grande comme lui ‘She isn’t as tall as he’ (Papen and Rottet 1997: 91). Sec-
ondly, its position in the French creoles, Louisiana Creole excepted, is fixed
in relation to the verb and any tense morpheme, as was noted earlier. In
contrast, the position of French pas varies with the finiteness of the verb and
the auxiliary. If they are finite, the negative marker follows them. If they are
non-finite, it precedes them or, in some cases, follows them.
Concerning the distribution of pa in Louisiana Creole, it seems somewhat vari-

able or less rigid than it is in the other creoles. Although exceptions exist, the
general rule seems to be that verbs which display variant forms (i.e. end with
a vowel or without it) precede pa when they surface without a vowel (i.e. they 307
10 have the short form) and follow it when they surface with a vowel (i.e. they have
Negation the long form) (Neumann 1985: 320, Klingler 2003: 321).
(19) a. mo mõz pa diri (L; Neumann 1985: 320)

1s eat NEG rice
‘I don’t eat rice.’
b. vye chyen, ye jis parl pa, se tou (L; Klingler
old dog they just talk not, that all 2003: 321)
‘Old (hunting) dogs, they just don’t talk, that’s all.’
c. Pale dousman. Pa pale fò konm sa (L; Klingler
speak softly. Not speak loudly like that 2003: 321)
‘Speak softly. Don’t speak loudly like that.’
However, with verbs which have an invariant form, the position of pa is deter-
mined by their tense: it follows them if they are in the present tense (habitual
or generic), as shown in (20a), a recent innovation under the influence of Cajun
French, according to Neumann (1985: 321). In such cases the distribution of
pa is similar to that of pas in French. If, on the other hand, the verbs are in
some other tense or aspect, pa precedes them, as shown in (20b, c).
(20) a. Jennès-ye to kone ye fe pa sa (L; Klingler

young-plu 2s know they do NEG that 2003: 321)
‘The young people, you know, they don’t do that.’
b. mo pa fe zariko (L; Klingler 2003: 321)
1s not raise bean
‘I didn’t raise a single bean.’
c. na lõtõ mo pa wa li (L; Neumann 1985: 321)
be long time 1s NEG see 3s
‘It’s been a long time since I saw him.’
The position of pa in relation to the verb in Louisiana Creole is clearly useful
in determining the tense of the sentence: the verb is thus read as being in the
present tense if pa occurs after it (21a) or being in the past if pa precedes
it (21b).
(21) a. mo bwa pa divẽ (L; Neumann 1985: 322)

1s drink NEG wine
‘I don’t drink wine.’
b. mo pa bwa divẽ (L; Neumann 1985: 322)
1s NEG drink wine
‘I didn’t drink wine.’
However, the distribution of pa is somewhat more complicated than that

since it also varies in accordance with the mood of the sentence. Thus the
verb precedes it in declaratives but follows it in interrogatives, provided the
308
verb is in the present tense.
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(22) a. li bwa pa (L; Klingler 2003: 321) Negative
3s drink not sentences in
‘He doesn’t drink.’ the French
creoles
b. kòmon to pa bwa? (L; Klingler 2003: 322)
how 2s not drink
‘Why aren’t you drinking?’
With a few other verbs, however, the distribution of pa in Louisiana Creole

seems more straightforward. These verbs include modal verbs such as bizòn
‘must’, kapab ‘can’, konnen ‘know’, ole ‘want’, and possibly fini ‘finish’ and gen
‘get’, and the negative marker pa always precedes them (Klingler 2003: 323),
see (23a–c). Neumann (1985: 324) notes, however, that with modal verbs such
as pǿ ‘can’ and vǿ ‘want’, pa is placed after them (see (23d, e)). It should be
noted that Louisiana Creole may not be alone in placing the negative pa after
a modal verb like pø ‘can’; St. Lucian Creole too appears to allow such ordering,
as shown in mwẽ pe pa ba u sak guvèné (lit. I can not give you each governor)
‘I cannot give you (the name of) each governor’ (Carrington 1984: 81).
(23) a. to pa bizòn gen en madanm (L; Klingler 2003: 322)

2s not need get a wife
y ena sitan
there be many
‘You don’t need to get a wife, there are so many (women).’
b. mo pa gen piti (L; Klingler 2003: 323)
1s not get child
‘I don’t have children.’
c. mo p ole gen plas si (L: Klingler 2003: 323)
1s not want get place if
li p ole mo lò
3s not want 1s there
‘I don’t want to have a place (there) if he doesn’t want me there.’
d. to pǿ pa galope avek mwẽ (L; Neumann 1985: 324)
2s can NEG run with me
‘You can’t run with me.’
e. to vǿpa ye kone to parle kreol (L; Neumann
2s want. NEG 3p know 2s speak creole 1985: 325)
‘You don’t want them to know you speak Creole.’
With a few other verbs, the position of pa is, however, completely variable:
it can either precede or follow them, with no change in the tense which these
verbs express. Neumann (1985: 320) lists kone ‘know’ and krwa ‘believe/
think’ (see (24a)). Interestingly, in the IOC, krwar ‘believe/think’ and panse
‘think’ can also precede pa, although this ordering seems to occur in what
might be described as fixed expressions and is not therefore the result of some
productive rule, e.g. verb raising (see (24b)). 309
10 (24) a. je pa kone parle kreole/je kone pa parle kreole
Negation 3p NEG know speak creole (L; Neumann 1985: 320)
‘They can’t speak Creole.’
b. mo pa krwar li la/mo krwar pa li la (IOC)
1s NEG believe 3s there
‘I don’t believe he is there.’
Concerning the position of pa in relation to pre-verbal tense and aspect mark-

ers, Louisiana Creole again behaves differently from other French creoles. It
places pa after the past tense te and the conditional se, as in (25a, b), but in
front of the progressive ape, as (25c, d).
(25) a. li te pa kante kant (L; Klingler 2003: 324)

3s past not tell stories
‘He didn’t tell stories.’
b. ye se pa seye blèse pœrsonn (L; Klingler 2003: 324)
3p would not try hurt nobody
‘They wouldn’t try to hurt anyone.’
c. li p’ ape mõze (L; Neumann 1985: 323)
3s NEG PROG eat
‘He isn’t eating.’
d. li te p’ ape garde ke (L; Neumann 1985: 323)
3s PAST NEG PROG look
kote li t’ ale, . . .
where 3s PAST go
‘He wasn’t looking where he was going.’
It should be evident from examples such as (25a) that pa in Louisiana Creole

does not always take scope over the whole cluster of tense and aspect mark-
ers. In all the other creoles, it does, as shown in (26).
(26) a. li pa ti pe travay (IOC)

3s NEG PAST PROG work
‘He wasn’t working.’
b. Jan pa t’ av ale nan mache (H; Lefebvre
John NEG PAST FUT go in market 1998: 208)
‘John would not have gone to the market.’
c. an tan-tala, timanmay pa (M; Damoiseau 2012: 99)
in time-that child NEG
té ka alé lékol
PAST PROG go school
‘In those days, children were not going to school.’
d. an sa tan-an, timoun pa (G; Damoiseau 2012: 99)
in that time-DEF child NEG
310
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té ka alé lékol Negative
PAST PROG go school words in
‘In those days, children were not going to school.’ the French
creoles
e. . . . i pa te kaj brile (St. L; Carrington 1984: 119)
3s NEG PAST FUT burn
‘(If the house were not made of wood), it would not have burned.’
f. xé pa te le ale ke li (K; Tobler 1983: 60)
dog NEG PAST want go with 3s
‘The dog did not want to go with him.’
10.4 Negative words in the French creoles
The other interesting development which separates French creoles from

French is the use of pa with inherently negative quantifying words such as
personn (< Fr personne ‘nobody’), naryen (< Fr (ne) rien ‘nothing’), okenn
(< Fr aucun ‘none’), and ditu (< Fr du tout ‘none at all’). The combination of
pa and these negative words occurs in the same clause without yielding a
double negation reading. In French, as we saw earlier, such a combination
results in ungrammatical sentences. The following examples show pa occur-
ring with negative words in the French creoles.
(27) a. nu pa konn personn (IOC)

1p NEG know nobody
‘We don’t know anyone.’
b. li pa di anyen (H; Valdman 1978: 265)
3s NEG say nothing
‘She didn’t say anything.’
c. man pa konnet pèsonn isi-a (M; Bernabé 2003: 89)
1s NEG know nobody here
‘I don’t know anyone here.’
d. si ou pa ni aryen (M; Bernabé 2003: 89)
if 2p NEG have nothing
pou fè, vini endé mwen
to do, come help 1s
‘If you don’t have anything to do, come and help me.’
e. pa ni pèsonn an lékòl? (M/Gu; Bernabé 1983: 573)
NEG have nobody in school
‘Is there nobody in the school?’
f. mo pa kónét ayẽ (K; Tobler 1983: 16)
1s NEG know nothing
kõsi mo hive ãfẽ
as=if 1s arrive stupid
‘I didn’t know anything, as if I had become stupid.’ 311
10 g. mo te p ef er aryen (L; Klingler 2003: 224)
Negation 1s PAST NEG PROG do nothing
‘I wasn’t doing anything.’
Note that the negative marker precedes the negative words in these examples.
However, it can also follow them, as in the following, again without yielding
a double negative meaning.
(28) a. personn pa konn li (IOC)

nobody NEG know 3s
‘Nobody knows him.’
b. okenn pa bon (IOC)
none NEG good
‘None is good.’
c. pèsonn pa oué li (H; Valdman 1978: 265)
nobody NEG see 3s
‘Nobody saw him.’
d. pèsonn pa ékri mwen (M; Bernabé 2003: 88)
nobody NEG write 1s
‘Nobody writes to me.’
e. anyen pa ka fet san fòsé (M; Bernabé
nothing NEG PROG do without effort 2003: 89)
‘Nothing is done without effort.’
f. pèsòn pa te kwè i... (St. L; Carrington
nobody NEG PAST believe 3s 1984: 156)
‘Nobody believed him (when he made them know what he
would have done).’
g. ajẽ pa pli gro pase lefã (St. L; Carrington
nothing NEG more big than elephant 1984: 156)
‘Nothing is bigger than the elephant.’
h. pies moun pa ka pale pou li (G; Damoiseau
no person NEG PRES speak for 3s 2003: 68)
‘Nobody can speak for her.’
i. pèrsòn trakas pa li (L; Klingler 2003: 438)
nobody worry NEG 3s
‘Nobody bothers him.’
The example in (27a), for instance, cannot be interpreted as we know some-

one. Instead the combination of pa and one of these negative words in (27)
or (28) yields what is known as negative concord (Labov 1972) in which the
two negative elements (the negative marker and the negative word) partici-
pate in expressing a single negative meaning. It is obvious that this holds
regardless of the syntactic position of the negative words – they can be either
in object position, as in (27), or subject position, as in (28), thus displaying
312 what is known as symmetric negative concord.
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Note that it is also possible to combine pa with two negative words while Negative
still expressing a single negative meaning, i.e. negative concord, as shown in words in
the following. the French
creoles
(29) a. personn pa truv naryen bon (IOC)
nobody NEG see nothing nice
‘Nobody finds anything nice.’
b. naryen pa finn ariv personn (IOC)
nothing NEG PERF happen nobody
‘Nothing has happened to anyone.’
c. . . . pèsonn pa di pèsonn anyen (H; DeGraff 1993: 69)
nobody NEG tell nobody nothing
‘. . . nobody told no one anything.’
d. pèsòn pòkò di jo ajẽ (St. L; Carrington 1984: 156)
nobody not-yet tell 3p nothing
‘Nobody has yet told them anything.’
e. e pèrsòn fe pa mo aryen (L; Klingler 2003: 438)
and nobody do NEG 1s nothing
‘And no one does me (harm).’ (lit. no one does anything to me)
It should be noted that a negative word cannot occur independently of the

negative marker. Examples such as those in (30) are ungrammatical in the IOC.
(30) a. * li konn personn (IOC)

3s know nobody
b. * personn konn li (IOC)
nobody know 3s
However, there are at least three creoles in which a negative word does not
always require the presence of the negative marker. These are St. Lucian,
Haitian (for some speakers only – see Deprez 1999: 3 footnote 3), and Loui-
siana Creole, as shown in (31) and (32).
(31) a. pèsòn vini (St. L; Carrington 1984: 156)

nobody come
‘Nobody came.’
b. ma ni ajẽ pu viv (St. L; Carrington 1984: 85)
1s have nothing for live
‘I have nothing with which to live.’
c. m ap mande si okenn moun ap vini (H; Deprez
1s PROG ask if any person FUT come 1999: 3)
‘I wonder if anyone will come.’
(32) a. avon mo di aryen (L; Klingler 2003: 326)
before 1s say nothing
‘Before I say anything . . . ’ 313
10 b. SHIT, to fe aryen ave (L; Klingler 2003: 326)
Negation SHIT 2s do nothing with
deprum-ye, kite ye manje
plum-PLU, leave 3p eat
‘SHIT, you don’t do anything with the plums, let them eat (them).’
In this respect, St. Lucian, Haitian, and Louisiana Creole pattern with French,
where such negative nominals as rien ‘nothing’ and personne ‘nobody’ occur
without pas. In fact, they must occur without pas, otherwise the sentence is
ungrammatical.
(33) a. Il ne connaît personne

‘He knows nobody.’
b. * Il ne connaît pas personne
3s ne know NEG nobody
(34) a. Personne ne lui connaît

‘Nobody knows him.’
b. *Personne ne lui connaît pas
nobody ne 3s know NEG
We should point out, however, that in St. Lucian the negative marker is only
optional in the context of a negative word if this word is the subject of a short
sentence (see Carrington 1984: 156).
The fact that pa is generally obligatory in the French creoles whenever a negative
word is present suggests that it not only encodes negation but also has a formal
licensing role whereby its presence sanctions the presence of a negative word.
The rare optionality of the negative marker in such a context in St. Lucian, Hai-
tian, and Louisiana Creole may be attributed to decreolisation. However, there
is one context in which a negative word not only can but also must occur without
the negative marker. This is in replies to questions, as shown here.
(35) a. kisenn-la ti vini? b. personn (IOC)

who PAST come nobody
‘Who came?’ ‘Nobody.’
a. ki to pe fer? b. naryen
what 2s PROG do nothing
‘What are you doing?’ ‘Nothing.’
(36) a. ki moun ki vini? b. pèsonn (M; Bernabé 2003: 88)

who that come ‘nobody’
‘Who came? ‘Nobody.’
a. kisa ou ka è la? b. ayen (M; Bernabé 2003: 89)
what 2p PRES do there nothing
314 ‘What are you doing there?’ ‘Nothing.’
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This possibility also exists in French. One could perhaps explain this excep- Negative
tional behaviour of the negative words by assuming that when they occur in words in
isolation, as in (35) and (36), they are inherently negative and therefore self- the French
creoles
licensing. By contrast, when they occur inside a sentence, for instance as
subject or object, they are more like the negative polarity item anyone or
anything in English in that their presence in a sentence requires a negative
marker.
Note that the licensing relation between pa and a negative word is strictly
local. They both have to be inside the same clause, as shown in the following
examples from the IOC.
(37) a. * mo pa kruar zot ti truv personn (IOC)

1s NEG believe 3p PAST see nobody
‘I don’t believe they saw anyone.’
b. mo kruar zot pa ti truv personn
1s believe 3p NEG PAST see nobody
‘I believe that they didn’t see anyone.’
(38) a. * personn kruar mo pa ti truv zot (IOC)

nobody believe 1p NEG PAST see 3p
‘Nobody believes I saw them.’
b. personn pa kruar mo ti truv zot
nobody NEG believe 1p PAST see 3p
‘Nobody believes I saw them.’
However, the dependency between a negative word and the negative marker
may not be local in other creoles. In Haitian, for instance, the following
examples seem acceptable (see Deprez 1999).
(39) a. m pa kwè Mari di Jan (H; Deprez 1999: 12)

1s NEG believe Mary say John
pale ak pèsonn
speak with nobody
‘I don’t believe Mary said that John spoke with anyone.’
b. m pa te mande Mari ki kote (H; Deprez 1999: 13)
1s NEG PAST ask Mary where
pèsonn ale
nobody go
‘I didn’t ask Mary where anyone went.’
This is unexpected, since in most of the other French creoles the dependency
which obtains between the two negative elements is strictly local, i.e. they
have to occur in a single clause. The only contexts in which this requirement
may be violated, as Deprez (1999: 16) observes, are modal verbs derived
315
10 from French modals such as pouvoir ‘can’, restructuring verbs such as vouloir
Negation ‘want’, causative verbs such as faire ‘make’ or laisser ‘let’, small clauses, and
so on. The following examples from the IOC illustrate this possibility.
(40) a. mo pa finn kapav fer naryen

1s NEG PERF can do nothing
‘I haven’t been able to do anything.’
b. li pa le personn ale
3s NEG want nobody go
‘She doesn’t want anyone to go.’
c. mo pa ti les/fors personn sorti
1s NEG PAST let/force nobody leave
‘I didn’t let/make anyone leave.’
d. li pa truv naryen bon
3s NEG find nothing good
‘He does not find anything good.’
A non-local relation between the negative marker and the negative words is
allowed in such exceptional contexts. In any other contexts, the relation is
strictly local, i.e. the negative marker and the negative word must occur
within the same clause.
All the French creoles use the negative marker pa (< Fr pas) to express both
sentence and constituent negation. None of them has retained the French
unstressed ne, although there is evidence from the fusion of ne and pas/plus
that it was available in the input. According to Rickard (1974: 114–115),
these two parts of French negation came to be used adjacent to each other in
the context of a following infinitive verb by the eighteenth century, so that a
pre-verbal object pronoun was placed after them rather than between them.
So instead of pour ne le pas voir ‘for not to see it’ (lit. for ne it not see) we
find pour ne pas le voir (lit. for ne not it see). The linear adjacency of these
two morphemes was also in evidence in other structures, e.g. in imperatives
ne pas prendre le soir ‘not to be taken at night’ and phrases such as pour ne
pas que in common or uneducated speech.
French creoles have in fact simplified the marking of negation from a discon-
tinuous morpheme ne . . . pas/plus (i.e. expletive clitic . . . negation adverb)
to just the negation adverb. It could reasonably be argued that the develop-
ment of pa in the French creoles marks the end of the Jespersen cycle (1917),
whereby it started as an optional emphasiser of a semantically weakened
316 negative marker ne and then became the main exponent of negation. The
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particle ne, which in Old French was in itself sufficient as a marker of nega- Concluding
tion (Rickard 1974), was downgraded to an optional clitic element, particu- remarks
larly in popular French, with no contribution to make to sentence negation
before finally disappearing completely in some varieties of French (e.g. Cajun
French) and the French creoles. As the main marker of negation in the French
creoles, pa has also become a grammatical morpheme, unlike its antecedent
pas, which continues to function as a lexical adverb. One could argue that it
is the same grammaticalisation process (Meillet 1912) which gave us the
grammatical tense and aspect markers from French lexical items: fini > finn
(perfect), après > ape > pe (progressive), ete > te > ti (past), pour > pu/pou
(future), and the like in the IOC and a few other creoles. It is also reasonable
to claim that as a grammatical morpheme the negative marker pa now func-
tions as a grammatical head, just like the tense and aspect markers. Its dis-
tribution in Louisiana Creole, again through the influence of Cajun French,
suggests, however, that it sometimes behaves like its French antecedent, i.e.
the adverb pas. That is to say, although it patterns with the pa in the other
creoles, it can sometimes function like the pas in French (i.e. a non-head ele-
ment) as it can occur post-verbally, particularly when the verb is in the pres-
ent tense. As far as its canonical pre-verbal position in the French creoles is
concerned, it seems to be reasonably similar to the position occupied by ne
in French: that is, a position from which they both take scope over the string
of words on their right in a clause – ne has scope over the auxiliaries and the
VP in the clause in French, while pa similarly has scope of the tense and
aspect markers and the VP in the French creoles. In terms of its formal status,
pa can therefore be said to be more like ne, but from a semantic point of view,
it remains like its source pas, both encoding negative meaning. It is also more
like ne in being able to occur with a negative word (for instance personn
‘nobody’) without giving rise to double negation.
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Chapter 11
Clause structure
and word order
11.0 Introduction
This chapter surveys the different types of sentences in the French creoles,
their structure, and the order of major constituents (namely subject, verb,
and object) inside the clause. It also discusses the different types of null sub-
jects and null objects which are possible in some of these creoles.
11.1 General
Most languages have the following types of sentences: declarative, interroga-

tive, imperative, and exclamative. The following illustrate this typology in
English: Bill was reading a book (declarative), What was Bill reading? or Was
Bill reading a book? (interrogative), Read a book! (imperative), and What
an interesting book! (exclamative). Declaratives are used to make assertions
and they can be affirmative, as the declarative example Bill was reading a
book, or negative Bill was not reading a book. Interrogatives seek informa-
tion concerning some specific entity, its location, and so on, and they too can
be affirmative (What was Bill reading?) or negative (What wasn’t Bill read-
ing?). They can also be used as yes/no questions to get confirmation that
something is the case (yes) or not (no), i.e. Was Bill reading a book?, and here
it is the whole predicate that is being questioned. Imperatives give commands,
directives, and so on, while exclamatives are used to express some emotion
such as surprise, wonder, exasperation, and so on.
These different types of sentences exhibit different syntactic properties.

Declaratives maintain the basic or unmarked word order, that is to say, they
do not involve any distortion to the normal order of constituents in the sen-
tence. In English, the subject precedes the verb and the verb in turn precedes
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its object, if one is present. This is the unmarked linear arrangement of these Typology of
three key constituents. If a tense marker is present, it precedes the verb, as sentences in
expected in typologically SVO languages. French
Interrogatives, by contrast, do involve one or two changes to the unmarked

pattern, although not in all languages. If they aim for specific information,
then a non-subject wh-phrase (who, what, which, where, when, why, and
how) is placed in clause-initial position rather than in its unmarked post-
verbal position. Additionally, the auxiliary, which normally follows the
subject, is placed in front of it, at least in languages such as English and
French. The inversion of subject and auxiliary is induced by the re-
ordering of the wh-phrase: What was Bill reading? If interrogatives aim
for confirmation or denial, as in yes/no questions, only the auxiliary is
re-ordered – it is placed in front of the subject: Was Bill reading a book?
Such re-ordering of the auxiliary is, however, restricted to main clauses:
I wonder whether Bill was reading a book and not *I wonder whether
was Bill reading a book.
Imperatives retain the main constituents of the clause except for the subject.
They do not have an overt subject, although one can be inserted provided the
context is appropriate, for instance, You read the book! uttered by someone
who is perhaps annoyed or exasperated with the hearer. The missing subject
is obviously the second person singular or plural you, and as an imperative
it is a command, instruction, and so on directed at the listener. Evidence that
the missing subject is the second person singular or plural you comes from
the fact that only the second person singular or plural reflexive pronoun is
possible in imperatives: Enjoy yourself/yourselves! but not *Enjoy myself/
herself/himself/ourselves/themselves! The other notable property of impera-
tives is that the verb has an invariant form, with no marking of tense:
*Enjoyed yourself/yourselves!
Exclamatives, finally, are distinctive by virtue of using the wh-phrase what or

how with a noun in initial position: What a mess! or an adjective How kind
of you! or an adverb How quickly he ran! or on its own How he enjoys sweets!
11.2 Typology of sentences in French
Similarly to English, French has the same four types of sentences listed earlier.
The following examples illustrate these four types, first with positive polarity
and then with negative polarity.
(1) a. Jean enseigne la linguistique.

‘John teaches linguistics.’
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11 b. Quel film avez-vous vu?
Clause ‘Which film have you seen?’
structure and
c. Allez voir vos amis!
word order
‘Go and see your friends!’
d. Comme ses amis sont aimables!
‘How friendly her friends are!’
(2) a. Jean n’enseigne pas la linguistique.

‘John does not teach linguistics.’
b. Quel film n’avez-vous pas vu?
‘Which film have you not seen?’
c. N’ allez pas voir vos amis!
‘Don’t go to see your friends!’
d. Comme ses amis ne sont pas aimables!
‘How her friends are unfriendly!’
These four sentence types have the same communicative functions in French
as they do in English. The declarative sentence Jean enseigne la linguistique
makes a simple assertion whose truth values one can evaluate by making use
of whatever information/knowledge one possesses of the world at the time
it is presented. The interrogative Quel film avez-vous vu?, however, is an
information-seeking constituent question as opposed to Avez-vous vu ce
film? ‘Have you seen that film?’, which requires a yes or no response. The
imperative N’allez pas chez vos amis! expresses what can be construed of as
a directive, i.e. command, instruction, or request, and finally the exclamative
Comme ses amis sont aimables! conveys an emotion of some kind, e.g. a
surprise. All four types can be embedded inside another clause (i.e. function
as complements of main verbs) without any change to their original seman-
tic functions.
(3) a. Il a dit que Jean enseigne la linguistique.

‘He said that John teaches linguistics.’
b. Il se demande quel film vous avez vu.
‘He wonders which film you saw.’
c. La police a exigé qu’il aille voir ses parents.
‘The police have demanded that he go to see his parents.’
d. Ils m’ont dit combien vos amis sont aimables.
‘They told me how friendly your friends are.’
It is worth noting that the four-way classification of sentences is justifiable not

only on semantic grounds, i.e. based on the kinds of function they have, i.e.
statement, question, exclamation (surprise), and directive/request, but also on
syntactic grounds. For instance, the indirect question in (3b) can be a comple-
ment to a verb like se demander ‘to wonder’ but not dire ‘to say’ *Il a dit quel
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film vous avez vu. ‘He said which film you saw’. Conversely, the embedded Typology of
declarative in (3a) can be a complement to a verb like dire ‘to say’ but not se sentences in
demander ‘to wonder’ *Je me demande que Jean enseigne la linguistique. The French
imperative in (3c) is also restricted to occur as the complement of a mandative
verb like exiger ‘to demand’. Likewise, verbs such as dire and exiger, for
instance, select the complementiser que, whereas se demander does not.
Sentences can be further classified in terms of other parameters, e.g. whether

they are finite or non-finite and whether they are full clauses or reduced
clauses, i.e. verb-less, auxiliary-less, and complementiser-less ‘small clauses’.
Sentences in French can be identified as being finite by the temporal, aspec-
tual, and modal information which is encoded in the verbs, i.e. their conjuga-
tions. Non-finite or infinitive sentences, however, have verbs which are clearly
marked by certain infinitival endings, for instance -er of manger ‘to eat’, -ir
of finir ‘to finish’, -re of prendre ‘to take’, and -oir of recevoir ‘to receive’.
The difference between finite and non-finite clauses is illustrated by the
embedded clauses in the following examples.
(4) a. Il a dit que Marie viendra demain

‘He said that Mary will come tomorrow.’
b. Marie a promis de venir demain
‘Mary has promised to come tomorrow.’
The verb in the embedded clause in (4a) is finite by virtue of its tense and
agreement inflection (future, third person singular form), while that in (4b)
is non-finite (infinitive) by virtue of displaying the infinitive ending -ir and
because it follows the preposition de (an infinitive marker). A further indica-
tion that the verb is non-finite in (4b) is the absence of an overt subject from
the embedded clause. Finite clauses in French cannot be subject-less: *Il a dit
que viendra demain.
The other observation concerning sentences (clauses) is that they do not always
require all three components to be present, i.e. subject, object, and verb. In
French, as in English, clauses cannot be subject-less, but they can be verb-less
and, in some cases, object-less. Consider the following verb-less clauses.
(5) a. Nous croyons Marie intelligente

‘We believe Mary clever.’
b. Ils considèrent Marie la meilleure candidate
‘They consider Mary the best candidate.’
c. On trouve la situation incontrôlable
‘One finds the situation uncontrollable.’
The complement clauses Marie intelligente (5a), Marie la meilleure candidate

(5b), and la situation incontrôlable (5c) are all verb-less. Note that the adjectival
predicate intelligente and the nominal predicate la meilleure candidate in (5a) and 321
11 (5b) respectively display the same gender and person agreement that they display
Clause in full copulative sentences such as Marie est intelligente ‘Mary is intelligent’ and
structure and
Marie est la meilleure candidate ‘Mary is the best candidate’. The adjectival and
word order
nominal phrases in (5) are therefore predicated of the third person feminine sub-
ject Marie in the same way that they are in the copulative sentences.
Object-less sentences in French are rare, but they do nevertheless occur, albeit
with an arbitrary ‘generic’ interpretation. That is to say, only object NPs with
an arbitrary ‘generic’ reference can be left unrealised, as in the following
examples from Authier (1989).
(6) a. Quand la musique rend triste, on boit un petit coup.

‘When music makes one sad one has a little drink.’
b. Ce poisson fait mourir.
‘This fish kills.’
We should note that in contrast to objects with arbitrary reference, such as

those in (6), referential objects cannot be missing from a sentence *Jean a vu
‘John has seen’, *Jean a écrit ‘John has written’, *Jean va inviter ‘John is
going to invite’, and so on, except when they can be identified from previous
discourse referents (Lambrecht and Lemoine 2005). The following is possi-
ble: Je vais demander si je peux passer ce soir prendre . . . meaning ‘I’m going
to ask if I can come by this evening and take . . .’.
11.3 Typology of sentences in the French creoles
The French creoles, just like French and English, have four types of sentences.
These are declarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamative. The fol-
lowing examples from the IOC illustrate these types: declarative (7a), inter-
rogative (7b), imperative (7c), and exclamative (7d).
(7) a. li travay dan enn labutik

3s work in a shop
‘He works in a shop.’
b. kot li travay?
where 3s work
‘Where does he work?’
c. pran sa simen la to ale!
take DEM road DEF 2s go
‘Go this way!’
d. kuma li bet sa piti la!
how 3s dumb DEM child DEF
322 ‘How dumb this child is!’
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Additionally, like their French counterparts, the four types can have both Typology of
positive polarity, as in (7), and negative polarity, as in (8). For a detailed sentences in
discussion of negation in the French creoles, see chapter 10. the French
creoles
(8) a. li pa travay aster
3s NEG work now
‘He doesn’t work now.’
b. ki fri to pa manze?
which fruit 2s NEG eat
‘Which fruit don’t you eat?’
c. pa tus sa!
NEG touch that
‘Don’t touch that!’
d. kuma li pa bet sa piti la!
how 3s NEG dumb DEM child DEF
‘How this child is not dumb!’
Also, these four types of sentences can be embedded just as they can in
French.
(9) a. li dir li pa travay aster

3s say 3s NEG work now
‘He says he doesn’t work now.’
b. mo dimann mwa kot li travay
1s ask 1s where 3s work
‘I ask myself (wonder) where he works.’
c. dokter ti konsej li aret bwar
doctor PAST advise 3s stop drink
‘The doctor advised him to stop drinking.’
d. personn pa krwa kuma li bet sa piti la
nobody NEG believe how 3s dumb DEM child DEF
‘No one believes how dumb this child is.’
Looking now at the other French creoles, they too have a similar typology of
sentences. The following examples are illustrative.
(10) a. m té gadé kò-m nan glas (H; Valdman 1978: 208)

1s PAST look body-1s in mirror
‘I looked at myself in the mirror.’
b. ki koté ou pralé? (H; Valdman 1978: 258)
which side 2p go
‘Where are you going?’
c. chita isit! (H; Valdman 1978: 264)
sit here
‘Sit here!’ 323
11 d. ala yon bèl lang se kreyòl, o! (H; DeGraff
Clause ala a beautiful language this creole, o 2007: 123)
structure and
‘Oh, what a beautiful language Creole is!’
word order
(11) a. laklé-a pa ka ouvè lapot-la (M; Bernabé 2003: 42)

key-DEF NEG PRES open door-DEF
‘The key does not open the door.’
b. kimoun pran bonbon-la? (Gu/M; Gadelii 1997: 290)
who take candy-DEF
‘Who took the candy?’
c. penga ou sòti! (Gu/M; Gadelii 1997: 255)
NEG.IMP 2p leave
‘Don’t you leave!’
d. mi bel péyi! (M; Bernabé 2003: 118)
see beautiful country
‘What a beautiful country!’
(12) a. misie a prã tut lazã a (St. L; Carrington 1984: 145)

man DEF take all money DEF
‘The man took all the money.’
b. ki mun ki sali had mwẽ a? (St. L; Carrington
who that dirty clothes 1s DEF 1984: 150)
‘Who dirtied my clothes?’
c. pòkò krie jo! (St. L; Carrington 1984: 154)
NEG.yet call 3p
‘Don’t call them yet!’
d. mi bagaj bèl! (St. L; Carrington 1984: 76)
see thing beautiful
‘What a lovely sight!’
(13) a. Pol ka t ravay (G; Damoiseau 2003: 13)

Paul PRES work
‘Paul works.’
b. kiles robe to ké mété? (G; Damoiseau 2003: 38)
what dress 2s FUT wear
‘What dress will you wear?’
c. soti di lakwizin-an! (G; Damoiseau 2003: 26)
go of kitchen-DEF
‘Get out of the kitchen!’
d. men (mé) kaz! (G; Damoiseau 2003: 39)
here house
‘What a house!’
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(14) a. mo te malad (K; Tobler 1983: 10) Word order
1s PAST ill in the French
‘I was ill.’ creoles
b. kumã li kupe-l? (K; Tobler 1983: 44)
how 3s cut-3s
‘How did he cut it?’
c. bay mo! (K; Tobler 1983: 44)
give 1s
‘Give me (it/them)!’
d. gade kumã la xiko-bwa blese-l! (K; Tobler 1983: 45)
see how there stump injure-3s
‘See how the stump injured him there!’
(15) a. nou te krouv tou no mirwa (L; Klingler 2003: 238)

1p PAST cover all 1p mirror
‘We covered all our mirrors.’
b. sa to wa? (L; Valdman and Klingler 1997: 135)
who 2s see
‘Who did you see?’
c. Frem(e) laport! (L; Valdman and Klingler 1997: 133)
close door
‘Close the door!’
d. wa kòman mou li ye (L; Klingler 2003: 352)
see how soft 3s be
‘See how soft it is!’
11.4 Word order in the French creoles
One important aspect of the structure of sentences (or again to be more pre-
cise, clauses) is word order of major constituents: subject, verb, and object. In
French, the unmarked word order is subject, followed by verb, which in turn
is followed by object: Jean aime son chat ‘John loves his cat’. The exception
to this is when the object is a weak (unstressed) pronoun, in which case it is
placed in front of the auxiliary or the verb if an auxiliary is absent, Jean l’a
aimé ‘John loved it’, Jean l’aime ‘John loves it’, resulting in an SOV order, a
pattern which was common in Old French. In the imperatives, however, the
object pronoun remains in a post-verbal (base) position, Prends-la ‘Take it!’
Donne-le-moi ‘Give it to me!’, although even in this type of constructions it
can precede the verb if it is in the infinitive Venez les chercher ‘Come and take
them!’ (lit. come them take) or if it is negated Ne le touche pas ‘Don’t touch
it!’ (lit. don’t it touch). Leaving aside the position of weak object pronouns
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11 such as le(s) ‘it/him/them’ and la ‘it/her’, French is from a language typological
Clause perspective a predominantly SVO language, or alternatively a head-initial
structure and
language, which is also suggested by the fact that it has post-nominal genitives
word order
la maison de Marie ‘Mary’s house’ (lit. the house of Mary), post-nominal rela-
tives le livre que Mary a lu ‘the book which Mary has read’, and post-nominal
adjectives (although there are exceptions), la guerre mondiale ‘world war’, to
name but a few of the SVO properties it displays.
The basic (unmarked) word order in the French creoles is rather straightfor-
ward: subject precedes verb and verb in turn precedes object. An object can
of course be placed in front of the subject, if it is fronted, but never between
the subject and the verb, even when it is a pronoun. If the object does not
occur in its canonical position (i.e. post-verbally), the construction is judged
marked. Thus (16a, c) are unmarked, (16b, d) marked, and (16e) plain
ungrammatical.
(16) a. Zan ti truv Marie (IOC)

John PAST see Mary
‘John saw Mary.’
b. Marie Zan ti truve (IOC)
Mary John PAST see
‘Mary John saw.’
c. Zan ti truv li (IOC)
John PAST see 3s
‘John saw her.’
d. li Zan ti truve (IOC)
3s John PAST see
‘Her John saw.’
e. * Zan Marie/li ti truve (IOC)
John Mary/3s PAST see
‘John saw Mary/her.’
The French creoles clearly pattern with English rather than French as far as the
position of object pronouns is concerned. They are strictly head-initial (VO)
languages, and, in accordance with this pattern, they display post-nominal
genitives, post-nominal relatives, many post-nominal adjectives, pre-verbal
auxiliaries (TMA markers), and pre-verbal negation, to name but a few of the
typological features characteristic of head-initial languages listed in Lehmann
(1978). The following are illustrative of the head-initial patterns in the IOC.
(17) a. lakaz so papa (N-GEN)

house 3s father
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b. lakaz ki to finn aste la (N-REL) Word order
house that 2s PERF buy DEF in the French
‘the house which you have bought’ creoles
c. latab ron la (N-ADJ)
table round DEF
‘the round table’
d. li pe manze (AUX-V)
3s PROG eat
‘He’s eating.’
e. li pa manz naryen (NEG-V)
3s NEG eat nothing
‘He doesn’t eat anything.’
Not surprisingly we find a similar pattern of ordering in the other French

creoles: Haitian (18), Lesser Antillean (19), St. Lucian (20), Guyanese (21),
Karipuna (22), and Louisiana (23).
(18) a. kay a Bouki (N-GEN) (H; Valdman 1978: 190)

house of Bouki
‘Bouki’s house’
b. m kõnè istwa u rakõnte m nã (N-REL) (H; Koopman
1s know story 2p tell 1s DEF 1982a: 174)
‘I know the story you told me.’
c. û ti garsõ žẽn (N-ADJ) (H; Lefebvre 1982b: 26)
a small boy young
‘a small young boy’
d. l ap boukannen maniok -la (AUX-V) (H; Valdman
3s PROG cook manioc-DEF 1978: 216)
‘He’s cooking the manioc.’
e. m p ap ba ou anpil lajan (NEG-V) (H; Valdman
1s NEG FUT give 2p lot money 1978: 217)
‘I won’t give you a lot of money.’
(19) a. man pa enmen liv Kanmi (N-GEN) (M; Bernabé

1s NEG like book Camille 2003: 115)
‘I don’t like Camille’s book.’
b. timoun-la ki ka kouri la (N-REL) (LA; Gadelii
child DEF that PROG run DEF 1997: 314)
‘the child who is running’
c. an nonm a bab blan (N-ADJ) (M; Bernabé
a man with beard white 2003: 214)
‘a man with a white beard’
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11 d. tianmay-la ka dòmi (AUX-V) (M; Bernabé 2003: 61)
Clause child-DEF PRES sleep
structure and
‘The child is sleeping.’
word order
e. i pa sòti (NEG-V) (Gu/M: Gadelii 1997: 188)
3s NEG leave
‘He didn’t leave.’
(20) a. bagaj lezot (N-GEN) (St. L; Carrington 1984: 88)

thing others
‘other people’s things’
b. i prã jõ kutla ki te biẽ file . . . (N-REL)
3s take one cutlass which PAST very sharp (St. L; Carrington
‘He took a cutlass which was very sharp . . .’ 1984: 145)
c. mãgo mi (N-ADJ) (St. L; Carrington 1984: 76)
mango ripe
‘ripe mangoes’
d. i ka sãte (AUX-V) (St. L; Carrington 1984: 113)
3s PRES sing
‘She is singing.’
e. u pa te ale? (NEG-V) (St. L; Carrington 1984: 129)
2p NEG PAST go
‘You did not go?’
(21) a. loto mo frè a (N-GEN) (G; Damoiseau 2003: 39)

car 1s brother DEF
b. loto-a ki klaksonnen an aréé (N-REL) (G; Damoiseau
car-DEF which honk DEF stop 2003: 39)
‘The car which honked has stopped.’
c. loto blan an (N-ADJ) (G; Damoiseau 2003: 39)
car white DEF
‘the white car’
d. yé ka lavé lenj ké savon (AUX-V) (G; Damoiseau
3p PRES wash cloth with soap 2003: 15)
‘They wash clothes with soap.’
e. i pa vini pas i malad (NEG-V) (G; Damoiseau
3s NEG come because 3s ill 2003: 21)
‘She hasn’t come because she is ill.’
(22) a. thip mutõ (N-GEN) (K; Tobler 1983: 61)

innards sheep
‘the sheep’s innards’
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b. utxi sa ki mo te bay (N-REL) Word order
where that which 1s PAST give in the French
pu u póte pu mo? (K; Tobler 1983: 50) creoles
for 2s carry for 1s
‘Where’s the thing which I gave you to carry for me.’
c. . . . letóf ble, jón, huj (N-ADJ) (K; Tobler 1983: 63)
cloth blue, yellow, red
‘. . . blue, yellow, red cloth’
d. kumã li ke fé-l? (AUX-V) (K; Tobler 1983: 44)
how 3s FUT do-3s
‘How will he do it?’
e. pa hete bakóv (NEG-V) (K; Tobler 1983: 54)
NEG stay banana
‘There are no bananas left.’
(23) a. mari mo fiy (N-GEN) (L; Klingler 2003: 477)

husband 1s daughter
‘my daughter’s husband’
b. tu la mizer je te fe li (N-REL) (L; Valdman and Klingler
all the hardship 3p PAST make 3s 1997: 138)
‘all the hardships they made her endure’
c. dolo fre (N-ADJ) (L; Valdman and Klingler
water cool 1997: 120)
‘cool water’
d. je te ka lir ave ekri (AUX-V) (L; Valdman and
3p PAST PROG read and write Klingler 1997: 125)
‘They could read and write.’
e. to pa futi gẽ ẽ lamezõ kɔm sa (NEG-V) (L; Valdman and
2s NEG can get a house like that Klingler 1997: 128)
‘You can’t get a house like that.’
Although the French creoles are on the whole uniform in displaying their
characteristic head-initial (VO) patterns, two comments must be made. First,
all these creoles, like French, also allow a number of adjectives in pre-nominal
position: enn bon dimunn ‘a good person’ (IOC), bèl pitit la ‘the beautiful
child’ (H; Lefebvre 1982b: 26), Piè sé an vié zanmi ‘Peter is an old friend’
(M; Bernabé 2003: 214), õ bõ lide ‘a good idea’ (St. L; Carrington 1984: 76),
oun gro poson ‘a big fish’ (G; Damoiseau 2003: 39), joli txi kaz ‘pretty little
house’ (K; Tobler 1983: 62), ẽ tris nuvɛl ‘a sad [bit of] news’ (L; Valdman and
Klingler 1997: 120). Second, the negator pa ‘not’ does not always precede
the verb in Louisiana: mo mãz pa diri ‘I don’t eat rice’ (Valdman and Klingler
1997: 132), the rule being that pa follows the verb when it displays its short
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11 form mãʓ and precedes it when it has its long form mãʓe. In the other French
Clause creoles, however, the position of the negator is fixed: it is always pre-verbal,
structure and
whether the verb is finite or not, or pre-auxiliary. The word order patterns
word order
of the French creoles are in general similar to those of French, except for the
position of the negative marker and weak object pronouns. The negative
marker follows a finite verb or auxiliary, whilst weak object pronouns pre-
cede verbs, particularly in non-imperative structures. In the French creoles,
however, the negative word consistently precedes all verbal elements (both
verbs and auxiliaries) (but see the earlier discussion concerning the negative
word in Louisiana) and object pronouns are consistently post-verbal, in their
canonical position, just as they are in English.
11.5 Structure of sentences in the French creoles
Aside from the three main constituents, namely subject, verb, and object,
sentences (clauses) in the French creoles, as those in French and English,
contain other elements, mainly those of a functional nature. These are the set
of TMA markers, the negative word pa ‘not’, and the complementisers which
introduce various types of clausal complement. With the exception of the
complementisers, these additional elements cluster in an area between the
subject and the verb, with the negative particle preceding the TMA mor-
phemes, except in Louisiana Creole, where it sometimes follows the verb, as
was noted earlier. See also (24e, f). As discussed in chapter 9, the TMA mark-
ers are also ordered in relation to each other such that tense precedes mood
and mood, aspect. The following illustrate sentences with the negative par-
ticle pa ‘not’ and the TMA markers.
(24) a. li pa ti pe travay (IOC)

3s NEG PAST PROG work
‘He wasn’t working.’
b. Jan pa t’ av ale nan mache (H; DeGraff
John NEG PAST FUT go in market 1993: 65)
‘John would not have gone into the market.’
c. Piè pa pé lévé woch-la (M; Bernabé 2003: 143)
Peter NEG PROG lift rock-DEF
‘Peter can’t lift that rock.’
d. vou pa kwa l a chinen? (L; Klingler 2003: 210)
2p NEG believe 3s FUT win
‘You don’t believe he will win?’
e. aben jòrdi èna pa moyen fe sa (L; Klingler 2003: 430)
but today be NEG means do that
330 ‘But today there is no way to do that.’
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f. li te pal pa kreyòl (L; Klingler 2003: 324) Structure of
3s PAST speak NEG creole sentences in
‘She didn’t speak Creole.’ the French
creoles
g. fanm te pa kouri anndan la, to konnen. (L; Klingler
woman PAST NEG go inside there, 2s know 2003: 389)
‘Women couldn’t go in there, you know.’
h. to pa ka touche piti kèkenn aster-la (L; Klingler
2s NEG can touch child someone now 2003: 430)
‘You can’t touch someone’s child now.’
An examination of the distribution of the negative particle pa ‘not’ across

the French creoles shows that it is fixed in a pre-verbal or pre-auxiliary
position, except in Louisiana. As the examples in (24d–h) make clear, it
occurs not only in a pre-verbal position (24d, g, h) but also in a post-
verbal position, as in (24e) and (24f). Post-verbal negation, although a
rare phenomenon in the French creoles, is common in French, particularly
when the verb is finite. The counterpart of (24e) in the IOC, for instance,
has the negative particle in front of the existential verb: aben zordi pa ena
(pena) mwayen fer sa and not *aben zordi ena pa mwayen fer sa, and
when a TMA marker is present, the negative word occurs in front of it.
Louisiana Creole is again the exception here since the negative particle
can sometimes follow a TMA marker, as in (24g), or both the TMA
marker and the verb, as in (24f), although, as (24h) and (25) show, it can
be placed in front of both.
(25) a. o nou pa e sati mo mẽm bẽ di tu (L; Klingler

oh 1p NEG PROG feel 1s REFL well at all 2003: 256)
‘Oh, I’m not feeling well at all.’
b. mo pa pu war byen (L; Klingler 2003: 275)
1s NEG can see well
‘I couldn’t see well.’
It should also be noted that the negative particle precedes semi-auxiliary/

modal verbs such as bèzòn ‘need to/have to’, foutu ‘able to’, kapab ‘can’, and
pu ‘can’, as in (25b).
(26) a. mile-a m pa bèzòn trape li (L; Klingler 2003: 279)

mule-DET 1s NEG need catch 3s
‘The mule, I didn’t need to catch it.’
b. n pa foutu trouve li (L; Klingler 2003: 275)
1p NEG can find it
‘We couldn’t find it.’
331
11 c. to pa kapab monje pok la astè (L; Klingler
Clause 2s NEG can eat pork DEF now 2003: 274)
structure and
‘You can’t eat pork now.’
word order
The general rule which determines where the negative morpheme is

placed in Louisiana Creole, as remarked earlier, depends on the surface
form of verb. It follows the verb if it has the short form, i.e. it occurs
without a final vowel (mãʓ ‘to eat’ or kout ‘to listen’) and precedes it if
it has the long form, i.e. occurs with a final vowel (mãʓe ‘to eat’ and
koute ‘to listen’). Other examples which illustrate this phenomenon are
given here.
(27) a. vyen pa dekouraje boug-sa-ye (L; Klingler 2003: 314)

come NEG discourage man-that-PLU
‘Don’t come and discourage these guys!’
b. kòl pa apre mon! (L; Klingler 2003: 314)
cling NEG after 1s
‘Don’t cling to me!’
(28) a. pa kouri nul plas (L; Klingler 2003: 314)

NEG go no place
‘Don’t go anywhere!’
b. pa brule vou zonyon astè (L; Klingler 2003: 314)
NEG burn 2p onion now
‘Don’t burn your onions now!’
Louisiana Creole is therefore unique among the French creoles to show such
variation in the distribution of its negative morpheme. To some extent, it could
be said to reflect the distribution of the negative pas ‘not’ in French, which
follows a verb when it is finite, i.e. one whose ending displays tense, aspectual,
and agreement marking. Whether the negative particle in Louisiana Creole
occupies two syntactic positions in the clause, i.e. a pre- and post-verbal posi-
tion or a single position, so that its two surface positions can be seen as a
consequence of the verb being able to occupy two surface positions, as has been
argued in Pollock (1989), is open to debate. It is conceivable that the negative
particle in Louisiana Creole has inherited its post-verbal and post-auxiliary
position from its analogue in Cajun French, where it always occurs post-
verbally and without the accompanying particle ne (Papen and Rottet 1997:
92), which, as is known, is optional in popular French. The distribution of the
negative particle in Louisiana Creole suggests that it still retains the distribu-
tion of its French antecedent through its contact with Cajun French, although
there has clearly been development towards the creole system, in which the
negative particle is consistently pre-verbal and pre-auxiliary.
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As far as the distribution of complementisers in the French creoles is con- Subject-less
cerned, they are placed at the beginning of an embedded/subordinate clause, and object-less
just like they are in French, and their primary function is to introduce the sentences
embedded/subordinate clause or link it to some embedding predicate. The
complementiser is ki ‘that’ if the complement clause is finite; pu ‘for’ if it is
non-finite, although Haitian also uses it to introduce finite complements
(see Lefebvre 1998, and the discussion in chapter 9); and si ‘if/whether’ if
the complement is an indirect interrogative. For a discussion of the syntax
of these complementisers, see chapter 12. It is useful, however, to note here
that some of the French creoles tend to avoid the complementiser ki (e.g.
Guyanese, see Damoiseau 2003: 149) because it is felt to be the result of
calquing (i.e. of French interference). Thus the Guyanese construction mo
ka pansé ki i ké pati Lafrans ‘I think that she will go to France’, according
to Damoiseau, is rejected in favour of mo ka pansé i ké pati Lafrans ‘I think
she will go to France’, in which the complementiser is absent. Similarly,
finite complements introduced with ke ‘that’ in Louisiana Creole are seen
as decreolised structures rather than truly creole (basilectal) structures (see
Neumann 1985, Valdman and Klingler 1997: 138). French creoles, it seems,
generally prefer complementiser-less finite complement clauses, which is
perhaps not surprising given the complementiser ki adds nothing to the
semantics of the sentence. Likewise, the absence of the French non-finite
complementiser à ‘to’ and de ‘to’ in the creoles is not surprising, since these
are just as semantically empty just like the complementiser ki/ke ‘that’. In
some cases they may be replaced with the complementiser pu ‘for’; for
example, French Elle a décidé de visiter ses amis ‘She has decided to visit
her friends’ is rendered in the IOC as li finn deside (pu) al visit so bann
kamarad (lit. she has decided for go visit her friends) ‘She has decided to
visit her friends’.
11.6 Subject-less and object-less sentences
Most of the French creoles, unlike French, do not always require all three
major constituents (i.e. subject, verb, and object) to be present in a finite
clause. Finite clauses can sometimes surface without a subject or object and
sometimes without a verb. Consider the IOC first. They are known to have
sentences which display all these properties. The following examples are
illustrative.
(29) a. finn aret voler la dans labutik

PERF arrest thief DET in shop
‘(Someone) stopped the thief in the shop.’
333
11 b. plant lagrein le mwa me
Clause plant seed the month May
structure and
‘One/They grow(s) seeds in May.’
word order
The subjects in (29a) and (29b) are indefinite, but there is a difference between
them. In the former, the subject has an existential interpretation, in the latter an
impersonal arbitrary/generic interpretation. One could arguably describe such
subject-less sentences as impersonal passives – the subject has been suppressed,
thus allowing the focus to be on the object even though it does not occupy a
thematically prominent (i.e. subject) position. Notice that constructions corre-
sponding to (29a, b) in French will have an overt indefinite impersonal pronoun
such as on ‘one/they’: On a arrêté le voleur dans une boutique ‘They stopped the
thief in a shop/The thief was stopped in a shop’ and On sème les grains en Mai
‘They sow seeds in May’/‘Seeds are sown in May’. Passive constructions are
generally very rare, if at all possible, in creoles. This may be a consequence of the
combined absence of an auxiliary and its accompanying passive verbal inflection,
as these elements are responsible for dethematicising an active verb in a passive
construction in languages such as French and English. It is not unreasonable to
suggest that examples such as (29a, b) have emerged in some creoles as alterna-
tive strategies for highlighting the object of a verb.
The missing subject in a finite sentence can also be an expletive subject in the
IOC, e.g. li ‘there/it’, as shown in the following examples. Notice that this
pronoun is impossible with the existential verb ena, as shown in (30a), but
is optional elsewhere.
(30) a. ena voler dan lavil

have thief in town
‘There are thieves in town.’
b. (li) posib pu ena lapli dimen
3s possible FUT have rain tomorrow
‘It’s possible there will be rain tomorrow.’
c. (li) difisil pu fer li konpran
3s difficult for make 3s understand
‘It’s difficult to make him understand.’
d. (li) pe fer nwar boner aster
3s PROG make dark early now
‘It’s getting dark early now.’
Unaccusative sentences can also be subject-less, as shown in the following

examples. The object of the verb stays in its canonical base position, while
the subject position remains empty, as shown in (31).
(31) a. ti vini enn dimunn

PAST come a person
334 ‘Someone did come.’
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b. pe kule bato la Subject-less
PROG sink boat DET and object-less
‘The boat is sinking.’ sentences
There is the option here of placing the object in subject position, as shown in
(32), which suggests that the subject position must be a non-thematic position,
that is to say, a position in which an expletive pronoun can be placed. However,
such a pronoun is not possible in the IOC because when placed in the subject
position of (31a, b), it ends up with a referential meaning, and these sentences
are then interpreted as right-dislocated constructions, as shown in (33).
(32) a. enn dimunn ti vini

a person PAST come
‘Someone came.’
b. bato la pe kule
boat DET PROG sink
‘The boat is sinking.’
(33) a. li ti vini dimunn la

3s PAST come person DEF
‘He came, that person.’
b. li pe kule bato la
3s PROG sink boat DEF
‘It is sinking, the boat.’
Aside from arbitrary and expletive subjects, referential subjects can also be
left out from a finite sentence in the IOC. This seems to be a rather unusual
possibility in a creole language since the absence of a referential subject in a
finite clause is often said to be contingent on the ‘rich’ agreement inflection
on the verb (see Rizzi 1986, for instance), from which the information con-
cerning the subject can be retrieved, as is the case in the Romance languages,
French excepted. In the absence of such verbal inflection, it is a reasonable
assumption that the content of the null referential subject in (34) is retrieved
from a discourse antecedent.
(34) a. (nu) pa bizen manze?

1p NEG must eat
‘Don’t we have to eat?’
b. pe netway lakaz (in response to ki u pe fer?
PROG clean house ‘What are you doing?’)
‘I’m cleaning the house.’
The IOC thus allows a possibility which is clearly not available in its lexifier
but is common in languages such as Italian and Spanish. But, interestingly, it 335
11 is not only subjects that can be null; objects too can be. And it is not only
Clause arbitrary objects, like those in French, but also referential objects. The exam-
structure and
ples in (35) show missing arbitrary objects, while those in (36) show missing
word order
referential objects.
(35) a. bwar tro buku fer (dimun/u) malad

drink too much make people/2p ill
‘Drinking too much makes one/you ill.’
b. manze donn (dimunn/u) lafors
food give people/2p strength
‘Food gives one/you strength.’
c. zot pa les (dimunn/u) rantre apre kat rer
3p NEG let people/2p enter after four o’clock
‘They don’t allow people in after four.’
(36) a. wi, mo kone (in reply to To pa konn sa?

yes 1s know ‘Don’t you know this?’)
‘I know/do.’
b. non, mo pa pu lave (in reply to To pu lav mo loto?
no 1s NEG FUT wash ‘Will you wash my car?’)
‘No, I won’t (wash it).’
Note that the second person u ‘you’ has an arbitrary interpretation in the
object position of the sentences in (35), and note also that null referential
objects, like null referential subjects, have to be discoursally linked to an
antecedent. That is to say, the context must have an antecedent from which
the content of a null object can be retrieved, as shown in (36).
Turning now to Haitian, it also allows expletive null subjects corresponding

to English it and there or French il, as shown in the following.
(37) a. (li) semble Jan te malad (H; Lefebvre 1998: 158)

3s seem John PAST sick
‘It seems John has been sick.’
b. fok ou rété (H; Valdman 1978: 226)
necessary 2p stay
‘It is necessary that you stay.’
c. gen anpil diri (H; Valdman 1978: 246)
have lot rice
‘There is a lot of rice.’
d. pa gen piès moun (H; Valdman 1978: 265)
NEG have piece people
‘There was no one.’
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e. nanpouen mal nan sa (H; Valdman 1978: 246) Subject-less
NEG be bad in that and object-less
‘There is nothing bad in that.’ sentences
Note that with complement-taking adjectives, the expletive is, according to

DeGraff (1992, cited in Gadelii 1997: 209), obligatory, which suggests that
expletive subjects can be impossible, as in (37b–e), optional, as in (37a), or
obligatory, as in (38).
(38) a. li difisil pou nou jwenn travay (H; Gadelii 1997: 209)
3s difficult for 1p find job
‘It’s hard for us to find a job.’
b. li bon pou Jan pati (H; Lefebvre 1998: 157)
3s good for John leave
‘It’s good for John to leave.’
With the exception of gen ‘have’, the verbs which allow null expletive subjects
in Haitian are similar to those which allow null expletive subjects in the IOC.
These are raising verbs like semble and paret ‘seem’, modal verbs like fok and
bizen, and existential verbs such as gen and ena, although the latter seems to
exist only in a fused form with the negative, as in nanpouen in (37e). Although
Haitian generally uses gen rather than ena, which we also find in the IOC, it
is interesting to note that they are both used not only as verbs which take
expletive subjects but also as verbs which take argumental subjects.
(39) a. li gen youn pitit yo rélé Mari (H; Valdman 1978: 266)
3s have one child 3p call Mary
‘She has one child they call Mary.’
b. li ena enn piti zot apel Mari (IOC)
3s have one child 3p call Mary
‘She has one child they call Mary.’
As far as null argumental subjects are concerned, there is some debate as to

whether these exist in Haitian. DeGraff (1992, 1993) has argued that they do,
the argument being that the subject pronoun in a finite clause is a syntactic
clitic, which occupies a functional position rather than the argument subject
position. Deprez (1992), on the other hand, argues that the subject pronoun is
a phonological, rather than a syntactic, clitic and it therefore occupies the argu-
ment subject position, which means that subject is not null. Null object too is
rare in Haitian. The following is an illustration of a referential null object.
(40) m- kouté san yo pa ouè (H; Corne 1999: 160)

1s listen without 3p NEG see
‘I listened without their seeing (it).’
337
11 Looking now at the Lesser Antillean creoles (Martinican and Guadeloupean),
Clause they too appear to allow null expletive subject but, interestingly, no argumental/
structure and
referential subject. The following examples show that the existential verbs ni
word order
‘have’ and rété ‘remain’, the modal verb fo ‘must’, and the weather verbal
phrase fè cho ‘make hot’ can occur without their expletive or quasi-argumental
(in the case of (41e)) subject pronoun.
(41) a. an ka simyé lè ni mango (LA; Poullet and

1s PRES prefer when have mango Telchid 1990: 15)
‘I prefer it when there are mangoes.’
b. ni an moun adan kay-la (M; Bernabé 2003: 109)
have one person inside house-DET
‘There is one person in the house.’
c. rété zaboka adan piébwa-a (M; Bernabé 2003: 111)
remain avocado in tree DET
‘There are avocados left on the tree.’
d. fo pa bengné toutouni kotésit (LA; Poullet and
must NEG swim naked here Telchid 1990: 215)
‘It’s forbidden to swim naked here.’
e. ka fè cho (LA; Poullet and Telchid 1990: 16)
PRES make hot
‘It’s hot.’
There is also some evidence of object-less sentences in these creoles. The fol-
lowing from Bernabé (1983: 850) illustrates a referential null object.
(42) Pyè trapé

Peter catch
‘Peter caught some.’
St Lucian, however, does not appear to allow either null referential or null
expletive subject pronoun. The following examples from Carrington (1984)
show the expletive pronoun i ‘it’ in the subject position of existential (43a,
b) and raising (43c) finite clauses.
(43) a. i ni plizie ti mulẽ isi (St. L; Carrington 1984: 113)

3s have several small mills here
‘There are several small mills here.’
b. atselmã, i ni kat mun nã kaj la (St. L; Carrington
actually 3s have four person in house DEF 1984: 137)
‘Actually, there are four people in the house.’
c. i sam jo kaj desire i (St. L; Carrington 1984: 113)
‘It seems that they will tear it.’
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This represents a surprising difference between St. Lucian on the one Subject-less
hand and the Lesser Antillean creoles (Martinican and Guadeloupean) and object-less
on the other. In these latter creoles, as we saw earlier, expletive pronouns sentences
can be null.
Guyanese also uses the pronoun i ‘it/there’ as an expletive, optionally with

the existential verb gen ‘have’ (Damoiseau 2003: 82), obligatorily with
weather verbs, but never with the modal verb fo ‘must’.
(44) a. i gen dé moun ki ka di sa (G; Damoiseau

3s have some person who PRES say that 2003: 34)
‘There are some people who say that.’
b. i ka fè cho (G; Damoiseau 2003: 82)
3s PRES make hot
‘It’s hot.’
c. fo to koupé to zong (G; Damoiseau 2003: 85)
must 2s cut 2s nail
‘You must clip your nails.’
Karipuna, however, allows both null referential subject, as in (45a, b) and

null referential object, as in (45c, d), as well as null expletive subject, as in
(46a–c), although not with a temporal adverb, as shown in (46d, e). In this
respect, it is very much like the IOC.
(45) a. so fam tõbe malad, muhi (K; Tobler 1983: 51)

3s wife fall ill die
‘His wife fell ill, and she died.’
b. hete bõ tã ye tut sótxi (K; Tobler 1983: 50)
stay good time 3p all leave
‘They stayed awhile, then left.’
c. li peye (K; Tobler 1983: 51)
3s pay
‘He paid (him the price).’
d. li bay li pu li bwé (K; Tobler 1983: 15)
3s give 3s to 3s drink
‘He gave it (to him) to drink.’
(46) a. p-ka bay tã pu mo tone (K; Tobler 1983: 15)

NEG-PRES give time for 1s return
‘There isn’t time for me to return.’
b. fodha u fé sa djime (K; Tobler 1983: 52)
must 2s do that tomorrow
‘You must do that tomorrow.’
339
11 c. te gã boku kaymã la lag (K; Tobler 1983: 57)
Clause PAST have many alligator there lake
structure and
‘There were lots of alligators in the lake.’
word order
d. li te bonó (K; Tobler 1983: 32)
3s PAST early
‘It was early.’
e. li midji deha (K; Tobler 1983: 33)
3s noon already
‘It is already noon.’
As to Louisiana Creole, there is ample evidence that it too allows finite sen-
tences to be subject-less and object-less. Klingler (2003: 211) observes that
this possibility exists whenever the content of the missing subject or object
can be understood from context. The missing subject is not, however, only
referential, but it can also be expletive. The following illustrate missing exple-
tive subject (47), missing referential subject (48), and missing referential
object (49).
(47) a. te siprann pou tande sa (L; Klingler 2003: 242)

PAST surprise to hear that
‘It was surprising to hear that.’
b. dwat gen en paròl pou li (L; Klingler 2003: 281)
must have a word for 3s
‘There must be a word for it.’
c. fo pa to fe sa (L; Neumann 1985: 274)
must NEG 2s do that
‘You shouldn’t do that.’
d. ena ẽ ta le piti ke pa (L; Neumann 1985: 271)
have a pile child who NEG
kone bjẽ parle . . .
know well speak
‘There are a lot of children who can’t speak (not English, but
French).’
(48) a. gen . . . pèyè tou-ki-chòj astè-la (L; Klingler 2003: 222)

have pay everything now
‘They have to pay for everything now.’
b. prète, men ye pa gen pou rann (L; Klingler
borrow but 3p NEG have to return 2003: 278)
‘They borrow things, but they aren’t going to give them back.’
c. pa dòn li gran-chòz, li (L; Klingler 2003: 220)
NEG give 3s lot 3s
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petèt pe e wa dèmen Subject-less
may NEG see tomorrow and object-less
‘(The doctor) didn’t give much (hope); he may not (live) to see sentences
tomorrow.’
d. pa abitwe zafe-sa-la (L; Klingler 2003: 283)
not used to thing-that-DET
‘I am not used to that (kind of) thing.’
e. mo papa sè te en rekoltè, (L; Klingler 2003: 211)
1s daddy 3s PAST a farmer
fe rekol. plante mayi, . . .
make crop plant maize . . .
‘My daddy was a farmer, he raised crops. He planted maize . . .’
(49) a. mon m te pa bèzòn (L; Klingler 2003: 210)

1s 1s PAST NEG need
‘I didn’t need it/them.’
b. dòn mon! (L; Klingler 2003: 212)
give 1s
‘Give me it/them.’
c. anu pran (L; Klingler 2003: 212)
let’s take
‘Let’s take some.’
d. prète, men ye pa gen pou rann (L; Klingler
borrow but 3p NEG have to return 2003: 278)
‘They borrow things, but they aren’t going to give them back.’
e. to gen? (in response to t ole en mòso gato?) (L; Klingler
2s have 2003: 212)
‘Do you have any?’ (in response to ‘Do you want some cake?’)
Note that the missing subject in (48a) and (48b) may also have the indefinite
referential interpretation of the impersonal they or one. On the whole it
seems that Louisiana Creole allows a similar range of missing subject as do
the IOC and Karipuna, namely expletive, definite referential, and indefinite
referential, but not arbitrary subject. As far as objects are concerned, Loui-
siana Creole seems to allow only null specific definite and indefinite objects
but no arbitrary ones. The IOC, by contrast, allow both. The possibility of
null referential subjects is however somewhat limited in the other French
creoles: missing subjects in the Lesser Antillean creoles and Haitian tend to
be expletive, while missing objects are altogether rare. One thing that they
all have in common, though, is the absence of expletive (semantically dummy)
subject pronouns, obligatorily in some cases and optionally in others, as
shown in Table 11.1.
341
11 Table 11.1 Referential, arbitrary, and expletive null subjects and objects in the French
Clause creoles
structure and
word order IOC H LA St. L G K L
R-Subj yes ?yes no no no yes yes

R-Obj yes yes yes no no yes yes
A-Subj yes no no no no no no
A-Obj yes no no no no no no
E-Subj yes yes yes no yes yes yes
This table shows that null expletive subject pronouns can be found in all the
creoles except St. Lucian. St. Lucian also appears to disallow referential and
arbitrary null subject and object. The IOC are the exact opposite of St. Lucian
in that they allow all types of nominal argument to be null. Guyanese, how-
ever, seems very similar to St. Lucian in that it also disallows all referential
and arbitrary null arguments. Karipuna and Louisiana seem alike in that they
both allow null referential subject and object and expletive subject but disal-
low null arbitrary subject and object, a feature which they share with Guya-
nese and all the Caribbean creoles. The Caribbean creoles, in particular
Haitian, Martinican, and Guadeloupean, are alike if we assume, following
Deprez (1992), that Haitian does not allow referential null subject. But if we
follow DeGraff (1992, 1993), who argues that Haitian allows null referential
subject, then their similarity is only partial. Overall, we have a picture here of
two creoles which are diametrically opposed, namely the IOC and St. Lucian,
and smaller sets of creoles which are completely or almost alike (e.g. St.
Lucian and Guyanese; Karipuna and Louisiana; and Haitian and Martinican/
Guadeloupean). The surprising fact here is that two languages, namely St.
Lucian and Guyanese, which are normally taken to belong to different sub-
groups, St. Lucian to the Carribean creoles and Guyanese to the creoles of the
Americas, have more in common with each other with respect to null subjects
and objects than with the creoles from their respective subgroups. Finally, note
that of all the French creoles under consideration, only the IOC allow arbi-
trary subject and object. A reasonable assumption to make here, particularly
in relation to arbitrary subjects in the IOC, is that they can also be traced back
to the languages of the Indian immigrants in Mauritius (i.e. a case of adstrate
influence).
11.7 Independent verb-less sentences
Unlike French, French creoles have independent sentences in which the cop-
ula verb is missing. These constructions simply consist of two juxtaposed
342 constituents: a subject on the other hand and a nominal, adjectival,
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prepositional, or adverbial predicate on the other. The following examples Independent
illustrate this type of sentences in the IOC. verb-less
sentences
(50) a. Zan dokter
John doctor
‘John is a doctor.’
b. Zan byen move
John very naughty
‘John is very naughty.’
c. Zan dan sa klas la
John in DEM class DEF
‘John is in that class.’
d. Zan isi
John here
‘John is here.’
Sentences corresponding to (50a–d) in French require a copula verb for them

to be well-formed: Jean est médecin ‘John is a doctor’, Jean est très méchant
‘John is very naughty’, Jean est dans cette classe ‘John is in that class’, and
Jean est ici ‘John is here’. In such sentences, the copula verb être ‘to be’ is
semantically empty and functions essentially as a linker of the subject and the
predicate as well as a tense and agreement marker. In other words, it has a
purely formal role and makes no contribution to the semantics of the sentence.
Examples of copula-less sentences in the other French creoles are given here.
(51) a. Bouki doktè (H; DeGraff 1995: 239)

Bouki doctor
‘Bouki is a doctor.’
b. Bouki malad (H; DeGraff 1995: 238)
Bouki ill
‘Bouki is ill.’
c. Bouki anba tab la (H; DeGraff 1995: 238)
Bouki under table DEF
‘Bouki is under the table.’
(52) a. Féfé doktè (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 1310)

Féfé doctor
‘Fefe is a doctor.’
b. madanm-tala bodzè (M; Bernabé 2003: 28)
woman-DEM elegant
‘This woman is elegant.’
c. péchè-a adan kannot-la (M; Bernabé 2003: 28)
fisherman-DEF in boat-DEF
‘The fisherman is in the boat.’ 343
11 d. Yo isidan/isi-a (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 1310)
Clause 3p here
structure and
‘They are here.’
word order
(53) a. is mwẽ te kaj avoka (St. L; Carrington 1984: 139)

child 1s PAST FUT lawyer
‘My child could have been a lawyer.’
b. i malad (St. L; Carrington 1984: 116)
3s ill
‘He’s ill.’
c. tut mun ã bitasiõ (St. L; Carrington 1984: 135)
all person in country
‘Everyone is in the country.’
d. mwẽ kaj ãba (St. L; Carrington 1984: 116)
1s FUT below
‘I will be below.’
(54) a. to timoun toujou (G; Damoiseau 2003: 101)

2s child always
‘You are still like a child.’
b. Sandra malad dépi dé jou (G; Damoiseau 2003: 22)
Sandra ill since two days
‘Sandra has been ill for two days.’
c. Jak annan lakou-a (G; Damoiseau 2003: 76)
Jack in yard-DEF
‘Jack is in the yard.’
d. yè la (G; Damoiseau 2012: 11)
3p there
‘They are there.’
(55) a. so tét du, li sót (K; Tobler 1983: 12)

3s head hard 3s stupid
‘His head is thick, he’s stupid.’
b. li la ba ofo (K; Tobler 1983: 57)
3s there over yonder
‘He is way over there.’
(56) a. mo en doktè (L; Klingler 2003: 292)

1s a doctor
‘I’m a doctor.’
b. li feb (L; Klingler 2003: 289)
3s weak
‘He’s weak.’
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c. chat-la dan la chanm (L; Klingler 2003: 289) Independent
cat-DEF in the room verb-less
‘The cat is in the room.’ sentences
d. mo sè laba (L; Klingler 2003: 289)
1s sister there
‘My sister is there.’
Although all the French creoles have copula-less sentences, there is an important
difference between the IOC and the other creoles when the predicate in these
sentences is nominal, as in the (a) examples in (51)–(54) and (56). If the nominal
predicate in the other creoles is bare (i.e. determiner-less), as in those examples,
the copula is missing or null, but if the nominal predicate has a determiner, or
is a proper noun, as shown in (57), the copula is overtly realised as se/sa.
(57) a. li sè youn ayisien (H; Valdman 1978: 244)

3s be a Haitian
‘He’s a Haitian.’
b. ou sé on/an nonm (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 1314)
2s be a man
‘You are a man.’
c. zòdi se õ bõ zu (St. L; Carrington 1984: 139)
today be a good day
‘Today is a good day.’
d. to sa roun timoun (G; Damoiseau 2003: 77)
2s be a child
‘You are a child.’
e. mo se en doktè (L; Klingler 2003: 290)
I be a doctor
‘I am a doctor.’
However, as DeGraff (1992) has argued, the copula only surfaces in such a
context when a tense, negative marker, or the complementiser ki is absent.
The copula se is, in other words, mutually exclusive with these functional
elements, as illustrated in (58).
(58) a. Bouki (*se) te (*se) youn doktè/Aristide (H; DeGraff

Bouki be PAST be a doctor/Aristide 1992: 104)
‘Bouki is a doctor/Aristide.’
b. Bouki (*se) pa (*se) youn doktè/Aristide (H; DeGraff
Bouki be NEG be a doctor/Aristide 1992: 104)
‘Bouki is not a doctor/Aristide.’
c. kimoun ki (*se) youn doktè/Aristide? (H; DeGraff
who that be a doctor/Aristide 1992: 105)
‘Who is a doctor/Aristide?’
345
11 This seems to be the general rule for the presence of the copula in these sen-
Clause tences in the other French creoles too, although not in Guyanese. The follow-
structure and
ing examples illustrate the absence of the copula in the context of tense and
word order
negation markers in the Caribbean French creoles.
(59) a. mwẽ te õ sasè (St. L; Carrington 1984: 139)

1p PAST a hunter
‘I was a hunter.’
b. u pa gro nòm (St. L; Carrington 1984: 155)
2p NEG big man
‘You are not a big man.’
(60) a. Eliza té on/an tifi (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 1326)

Eliza PAST a girl
‘Eliza was a little girl.’
b. Eliza ké on/an tifi (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 1327)
Eliza FUT a girl
‘Eliza will be a little girl.’
c. ou pa on/an nom (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 1334)
2p NEG a man
‘You are not a man.’
Bernabé (1983: 1326) notes that inserting the copula sé in examples such as
those in (60) results in them becoming ungrammatical. This is also the case
with Haitian, as we saw earlier.
(61) a. * Eliza sé té on/an tifi (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 1327)

Eliza be PAST a girl
b. * Eliza sé ké on/an tifi (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 1327)
Eliza be FUT a girl
In Guyanese, however, the copula can occur alongside a tense or negative

marker, which shows that they are not always mutually exclusive.
(62) a. to té sa roun timoun (G; Damoiseau 2012: 14)

2s PAST be a child
‘You were a child.’
b. to pa sa roun timoun (G; Damoiseau 2012: 14)
2s NEG be a child
‘You are not a child.’
Karipuna also appears to have a copula in the form of sa, and, interestingly,
it emerges even when the nominal predicate is bare. However, like the copula
in Guyanese, it too can occur alongside a tense marker.
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(63) a. mo sa mét (K; Tobler 1983: 30) Independent
1s be teacher verb-less
‘I am a teacher.’ sentences
b. li sa xofé dji aviõ (K; Tobler 1983: 30)
3s be driver of plane
‘He is a pilot.’
c. (tã dji) txig ye te sa mun (K; Tobler 1983: 30)
time of jaguar PLU PAST be people
‘(In the days when) jaguars were people.’
The IOC, however, are completely unlike the other creoles in that they never
allow an overt copula regardless of whether a nominal predicate is bare or
not and regardless of whether a tense or negative marker is present. As we
will see here, they do have a copula in the form of ete, but it only surfaces
when the nominal, adjectival, or prepositional predicate has been fronted.
(64) a. Zan laburer (IOC)

John labourer
‘John is a labourer.’
b. Zan enn laburer (IOC)
John a labourer
c. * Zan ete laburer/enn laburer (IOC)
John be labourer/a labourer
d. Zan ti (enn) labourer (IOC)
John PAST a labourer
‘John was a labourer.’
e. Zan pa (enn) laburer (IOC)
John NEG a labourer
‘John is not a labourer.’
All the creoles, including the IOC, do, however, have something in com-
mon when it comes to the copula. The copula surfaces whenever the predi-
cate is displaced via some fronting operation, as shown in the following.
Notice that it takes different forms, ete in the IOC and ye/yé/je/fika in the
other creoles.
(65) a. kot to ete? (IOC)

where 2s be
‘Where are you?’
b. enn prêt ki misie la ete (IOC)
a priest that man DEF be
‘It’s a priest that the man is.’
347
11 c. enn gran misisien Zan ete (IOC)
Clause a great musician John be
structure and
‘A great musician, John is./John is a great musician.’
word order
(66) a. ki koté li yé? (H; Valdman 1978: 255)

which side 3s be
‘Where is he?’
b. ki moun ou yé? (H; Valdman 1978: 257)
which person 2p be
‘Who are you?’
c. sa li yé? (H; Valdman 1978: 257)
what 3p be
‘What is he?’
d. . . . nan péyi koté l té yé (H; Valdman
. . . in country where 3s PAST be 1978: 279)
‘. . . in the country where he was.’
(67) a. epi ki moun zòt yé? (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 1315)

with which person 2p be
‘Who are you with?’
b. ki koté ou yé? (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 1315)
which side 2s be
c. sé dòktè Féfé yé . . . (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 1314)
it doctor Fefe be . . .
‘It’s a doctor that Fefe is . . .’
d. sé adan menm lékòl-la yo yé . . . (Gu/M; Bernabé
it in same school-DEF 3p be . . . 1983: 1314)
‘It’s in the same school that they are . . .’
(68) a. ã kaj la i je (St. L; Carrington 1984: 148)

in house DEF 3s be
‘It’s in the house that she is.’
b. ki kote i je? (St. L; Carrington 1984: 152)
which side 3s be
‘Where is it?’
(69) a. a ki moun to fika? (G; Damoiseau 2012: 128)

who 2s be
‘Who are you?’
b. a la nu té fika (G; Damoiseau 2012: 129)
here 1p PAST be
‘Here, we were.’
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c. a kapon i fika (G; Damoiseau 2012: 129) Independent
coward 3s be verb-less
‘A coward, he is.’ sentences
(70) a. mè ou sa ye? (L; Klingler 2003: 295)

but where that be
‘But where is that?’
b. ki mo ye? (L; Klingler 2003: 295)
who 1s be
‘Who am I?’
c. se kòm sa mo piti-ye ye (L; Klingler 2003: 295)
that like that 1s child-PLU be
‘That’s how my children are.’
The copula, when it occurs in a clause-final position, thus takes on different

surface forms: ete in the IOC, yé/ye/je in Haitian, Martinican, Guadeloupean,
St. Lucian, and Louisiana, but fika in Guyanese. It is not unreasonable to
assume that yé/ye/je is related to ete, given the partial phonetic similarity (see
Goodman 1964: 58). As to fika in Guyanese, its source is the Portuguese ficar
‘stay’ (Holm 1988: 178). One of the reasons why the copula is realised in
clause-final position, Holm (1988: 178) suggests, is because this is a position
in which it carries greater stress, as is clear from this French sentence: Je ne sais
pas où il EST ‘I don’t know where he is’, and a position in which a phonologi-
cal contraction rule in English is blocked *I don’t know where he’s (see Labov
1969, King 1970). However, there may also be a structural reason as to why
the copula is present in such a context (see Syea 1997). Note that, according
to (Klingler 2003: 298), the form of the copula in Louisiana Creole changes to
te when it is in the past tense, perhaps a fusion of the past tense te as in ye te
si fen ‘They were so hungry’ (Klingler 2003: 253) and the copula ye.
(71) a. se la o mo te (L; Klingler 2003: 298)

that there where 1s be.PAST
‘That’s where I was.’
b. mo pa konè ki-moun li te (L; Klingler 2003: 298)
1s NEG know who 3s be.PAST
‘I don’t know who he was.’
A close look at the examples given shows that there is one creole, namely Kari-
puna, where the copula behaves completely differently from the way it behaves
in all the other creoles; it is always null regardless of whether it is clause internal
or clause-final. The following illustrates this rather exceptional behaviour.
(72) a. utxi u sulye? (K; Tobler 1983: 44)

where 2p shoe
‘Where are your shoes?’ 349
11 b. ki kuló sa txizozo? (K; Tobler 1983: 43)
Clause what colour that songbird
structure and
‘What colour is that bird?’
word order
We should note that examples such as (72) are also possible in some of the
other creoles. Sylvain (1936: 105–108) provides the following examples in
Haitian Creole.
(73) a. koté li? (H; Sylvain 1936: 106)

where 3s
‘Where is he?’
b. koté li yé? (H; Sylvain 1936: 106)
where 3s be
‘Where is he?’
(74) a. ki žwèt sa yé? (H; Sylvain 1936: 106)

what game this be
‘What game is this?’
b. ki žwèt sa-a? (H; Sylvain 1936: 106)
what game this
Examples similar to those in (73a) and (74a) in Haitian and (72) in Karipuna
are also possible in the IOC.
(75) a. kot li (ete)? (IOC)

where 3s be
‘Where is he?’
b. ki zwe sa (ete)? (IOC)
what play that be
c. kot u sulyer (ete)? (IOC)
where 2s shoe be
‘Where are your shoes?’
Displacement of the predicate in copular constructions does not therefore

always force the copula to surface in clause-final position.
Finally, a note on the copula in Tayo: It too has copula-less sentences, but
only in the present tense. In the past tense, a sentence-internal copula is
allowed, and it takes the form of ete or te.
(76) a. la ako malad (T; Ehrhart 1993: 167)

3s still ill
350 ‘She’s still ill.’
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b. la ete a:sa:t (T; Ehrhart 1993: 171) Concluding
3s be. pregnant remarks
‘She was pregnant.’
We should also note that the copula in Tayo does not occur clause-finally.
This is probably not surprising since, unlike other creoles, it allows wh-in-situ
questions, as in the following.
(77) a. le kel er? (T; Ehrhart 1993: 197)

3p what time
‘What time is it?’ (lit. it’s what time?)
b. le u te laser? (T; Ehrhart 1993: 198)
3p where the sister
‘Where are the religious sisters?’ (lit. they are where the religious
sisters?)
c. taler ta ale u? (T; Ehrhart 1993: 198)
earlier 2s go where
‘Where were you earlier?’ (lit. earlier you went where?)
Simple sentences in the French creoles have structures which are to a large
extent similar to the structures of simple sentences in French. Both French
creoles and French have a strictly SVO order, except when French has weak
object pronouns. In non-imperative French sentences, weak object pronouns
are placed to the left of an auxiliary or a finite verb, whereas in the French
creoles, all object pronouns are placed after the verb. Tense, aspect, and
mood markers in the French creoles always follow the subject and precede
the verb in both declarative and interrogative sentences. In French, the aux-
iliaries precede the subject in interrogatives when the subject is pronominal
(e.g. As-tu vu mon chien? ‘Have you seen my dog?’), although informal
French may leave them in their post-subject position (e.g. Tu as vu mon
chien? ‘Have you seen my dog?’). Verbs too can be placed in front of the
subject in French questions if it is pronominal (e.g. Vient-il demain? Is he
coming tomorrow?’). Such inversion of the auxiliary/verb and the subject
pronoun is not allowed in any of the French creoles. The negative marker is
pa in all the French creoles, and it is always placed in front of the verb or the
tense, aspect, or mood marker, although in Louisiana Creole it can sometimes
occur after such a marker or a verb. Its post-auxiliary and post-verbal posi-
tion is clearly inherited from French or Cajun French. All French creoles
make use of the complementiser ki (< Fr que ‘that’), although its use seems
to be severely restricted in most of them largely because it is viewed as a
351
11 French calque. Another interesting difference between simple sentences in the
Clause French creoles and those in French is that the former, unlike the latter, can
structure and
be subject-less as well as copula-less. However, although most of them allow
word order
null expletive subject, only a few allow referential null subject sentences. The
IOC are probably the only creoles which allow missing referential subject on
a regular basis whenever it is indefinite or contextually recoverable. All the
French creoles appear to drop the copula verb in the context of a following
non-nominal predicate (i.e. when the predicate is adjectival, prepositional,
or adverbial). Where the predicate is nominal, most creoles appear to require
an overt copula in the form of se/sa if the nominal has a determiner but not
when a tense or negative marker or a complementiser is present. With bare
nominals the copula is null. The IOC are perhaps unique in not having the
copula, except when the predicate has been fronted. The other creoles, Tayo
excepted, also have an overt form of the copula in such a context.
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Chapter 12
Clausal complements
and complementisers
12.0 Introduction
This chapter is concerned with clausal complements and complementisers in

the French creoles. It is well known that lexical categories such as verbs,
nouns, adjectives, and prepositions select complements including nominal,
prepositional, and clausal complements. The clausal complements which they
select may be declarative, interrogative, imperative, or exclamative. Declara-
tive and interrogative complements can be finite or non-finite, and the type
of complement which is chosen depends on the semantics of the complement-
taking predicates. This chapter surveys the different types of complements in
the French creoles and the different complementisers which introduce them.
It begins with a short overview of clausal complements in English and French
and then focuses on clausal complements in the French creoles and the com-
plementisers which introduce them.
12.1 General
Lexical categories such as verbs, nouns, adjectives, and prepositions can be

transitive or intransitive, e.g. John is reading a book and John is reading;
John’s attendance at meetings has been very erratic, John’s attendance has
been very erratic; John is very keen on tennis and John is very keen; John
arrived after the meeting and John arrived after. However, these categories
can also be transitive only: Bill saw the film but not *Bill saw; Bill’s fondness
of wine is worrying but not *Bill’s fondness is worrying; Bill is similar to his
mother but not *Bill is similar; and Bill slept while the film was on but not
*Bill slept while. As we see from these examples, complements of these lexi-
cal categories can be nominal, as in the case of the verb see, prepositional as
in the case of the noun fondness and the adjective similar, and clausal as in
353
12 the case of the preposition while. Where the complement is clausal, it can be
Clausal either finite or non-finite, and its mood can be declarative, interrogative,
complements
imperative, or exclamative: I said that Mary has won a prize (finite and
declarative), I expect Mary to win a prize (non-finite and declarative), They
wondered where John slept (finite and interrogative), They wondered who
to invite to the party (non-finite and interrogative), They insist that everyone
stay in their room (finite and imperative), and He remarked how clever his
students were (finite and exclamative).
Clausal complements are in some cases introduced by a functional element, i.e.
a complementiser, but the choice of the complementiser depends on the
complement-taking word, which may be a verb, adjective, or noun. The set of
complementisers in English is usually very small: that, whether, for, if. A verb
such as say can select any of these except for: They will say that/whether/if/*for
the students are hard-working. A verb such as wonder, on the other hand, can
select whether or if but not that or for: You must be wondering whether/
if/*that/*for your students have done well. A verb such as prefer selects for or
if but not whether or that: I would prefer if/*whether/*that you stayed the
night and I would prefer for/*if/*whether/*that you to stay the night. Interest-
ingly, complementisers in turn select the kind of complement they introduce.
Thus, that selects a finite clause, whether selects either a finite or a non-finite
clause, if selects a finite clause, and, finally, for selects a non-finite clause. There
is thus an interesting relation between a complement-taking verb, its comple-
ment, and the complementiser that introduces this complement.
As a functional category, the complementiser essentially encodes grammatical

meaning (tense for example), and it serves to link the complement to the
complement-taking verb in the same way that prepositions link their comple-
ments to a predicate. However, note that complements are not always intro-
duced by complementisers. Some verbs, such as want, expect, consider, hear,
and several others, select complementiser-less complements, which are also
known as ‘exceptional clauses’, not only because they lack a complementiser
but also because their subject has certain peculiar properties. For instance, it
behaves like the object of the subcategorising verb (i.e. main verb) due to its
ability to undergo passivisation: John was believed to be the best candidate;
it can also be an expletive: We believe there to be a ghost in the house; it has
the accusative form rather than the nominative form: We believe him/*he to
be the best candidate. These are properties which are also shared with
another type of complement, namely ‘small clauses’ (Williams 1975, Chom-
sky 1981): She wanted everyone on the train, We consider John’s theory
interesting, They made John President, He lets everyone use his new pen, and
so on. Small clauses are different from exceptional clauses in that they lack
not only a complementiser but also an auxiliary. But they do have a subject
and a predicate which can belong of any of the following four categories: PP,
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AP, NP, and VP, and semantically they are not any different to ‘exceptional Clausal
clauses’ or ‘ordinary clauses’ – they are all propositional. complements
and comple-
mentisers in
French
12.2 Clausal complements and complementisers
in French
Clausal complements in French can also be both finite and non-finite. Finite
declarative complements of cognitive verbs (e.g. penser ‘to think’) and verbs
of saying (e.g. dire ‘to say’) in French are introduced with the complementiser
que ‘that’, as are the complements of certain adjectives, as shown in the fol-
lowing examples.
(1) a. Je pense que Jean a vendu sa voiture

‘I think that John has sold his car.’
b. Il croit que les enfants sont déjà partis
‘He believes that the children have already left.’
c. Elle a dit que son fils est en vacances
‘She said that her son is on holiday.’
d. Il est possible que les travailleurs demanderont une augmentation
‘It is possible that the workers will ask for a pay rise.’
The complementiser is however realised as qui if it is immediately followed

by a subject which has been questioned, as in Qui crois-tu qui/*que a vu
Marie? ‘Who do you believe saw Mary?’, relativised as in L’homme qui/*que
a vu Marie ‘the man who saw Mary’ or clefted as in C’est Jean qui a vu
Marie ‘It’s John who saw Mary’. However, when an object is questioned,
relativised, or clefted, the complementiser retains its que form: Qui crois-tu
que Marie a vu? ‘Who do you believe Mary saw?’, L’homme que Marie a
vu ‘the man that Mary saw’, and C’est Marie que Jean a vu ‘It’s Mary that
John saw’.
The complementiser que , like its English analogue that , introduces a

finite clausal complement (i.e. an indirect statement), and it is very much
a part of the structure of that clausal constituent. This is clear for instance
from clause coordination facts where both clauses are introduced by que,
as in (2).
(2) a. Je crois que Jean vendra sa voiture et qu’il achètera une bicyclette
‘I believe that John will sell his car and that he will buy a bicycle.’
b. Il croit que les enfants sont déjà partis et qu’ils sont peut-être
chez eux
‘He believes that the children have already left and that they
are perhaps at home.’
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12 The interesting difference between the complementiser que and its English
Clausal counterpart that is that the former is always obligatory while the latter
complements
optional except when used in the subject position of a finite clause, e.g. That
Mary left early was unfortunate; without que the examples in (1) are all
ungrammatical: *Je pense Jean a vendu sa voiture; *Il croit les enfants sont
déjà partis; *Elle a dit son fils est en vacances; *Il est possible les travailleurs
demanderont une augmentation. Sentences corresponding to these ungram-
matical French sentences in English are all grammatical.
Like finite clauses, non-finite clauses can also function as complements to
verbs. The subset of verbs which selects non-finite complements includes
recommander ‘to recommend’, décider ‘to decide’, essayer ‘to try’, obliger ‘to
oblige’, promettre ‘to promise’, permettre ‘to permit/allow’, and so on. In
such cases the non-finite complements are introduced by the prepositions de
‘to’ and à ‘to’, which therefore function as complementisers, as shown in the
following:
(3) a. Il lui a recommandé de voir un cardiologue

‘He suggested that he sees a heart specialist.’
b. J’ai décidé de voir mes amis les weekends
‘I have decided to see my friends on weekends.’
c. Elle a essayé de réparer sa voiture
‘She tried to repair her car.’
d. Ils nous ont promis d’augmenter notre salaire
‘They promised us to increase our salary.’
(4) a. Ils ont tous commencé à m’ennuyer

‘They have all started to annoy me.’
b. Il a obligé les enfants à prendre l’autobus
‘He made the children take the bus.’
c. Il hésite à travailler avec ses amis
‘He hesitates to work with his friends.’
d. Marie lui a enseigné à parler l’espagnol
‘Mary taught him to speak Spanish.’
With a few verbs, however, either of these prepositions seems possible: con-
tinuer ‘to continue’, as in Elle continue à/de jouer la musique ‘She continues
to play music’, and commencer ‘to begin’, as in Il commence à/de nettoyer la
maison ‘He begins to clean the house’.
However, with cognitive verbs like croire ‘to believe’, vouloir ‘to want’,
penser ‘to think’, and so on, neither of these complementisers is allowed
when the complement is non-finite, as shown in (5d–f). In such cases the main
verb is immediately followed by the infinitive or non-finite verb.
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(5) a. Jean croit avoir vu quelqu’un dans la maison. Clausal
‘John believes he saw someone in the house.’ complements
b. Jean veut prendre le train. and comple-
mentisers in
‘John wants to take the train.’ French
c. Jean pense construire une maison.
‘John is thinking of a house.’
d. * Jean croit à/d’ avoir vu quelqu’un dans la maison.
‘John believes to have seen someone in the house.’
e. * Jean veut à/de prendre le train.
‘John wants to take the train.’
f. ? Jean pense à/de construire une maison.
‘John thinks he might build a house.’
French has other verbs which take non-finite complements without a comple-
mentiser. These include modal verbs (6a), verbs of saying or asserting (6b),
verbs of perception (6c), verbs of causation (6d), and so on.
(6) a. Chantal peut laisser sortir les enfants.

‘Chantal can let the children leave.’
b. Jean a déclaré avoir résolu le problème.
‘John declared having solved the problem.’
c. Nous écoutons les enfants chanter.
‘We are listening to the children singing.’
d. Marie a fait travailler les enfants.
‘Mary has made the children work.’
The words de and à are clearly prepositions, but their function in examples
such as (3) and (4) is unquestionably to introduce the non-finite comple-
ments, and they must accordingly be treated as complementisers. Notice that
these are not required when the non-finite clause occurs in the subject posi-
tion of finite clauses.
(7) a. (De) pleurer ne sert à rien.

‘Crying doesn’t help.’
b. Ecouter de la musique le soir est très agréable.
‘Listening to music at night is very pleasant.’
Beside verbs, adjectives and nouns too can take non-finite complements
which must be introduced with the complementiser de and à. Exam-
ples (8a–e) illustrate clausal complements of adjectives, while (8f–h) illustrate
those of nouns. Note that the presence of the complementiser in such cases
is mandatory.
(8) a. Il est nécessaire de prendre tous les médicaments.

‘It’s necessary to take all the medications.’
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12 b. Il est important d’inviter tous les étudiants à cet évènement.
Clausal ‘It is important to invite all the students to this event.’
complements
c. Il est impossible de réparer cette voiture.
‘It is impossible to repair that car.’
d. Cette voiture est impossible à réparer.
‘That car is difficult to repair.’
e. On est disposé à vous aider à construire une maison.
‘We are prepared to help you build a house.’
f. Jean prend plaisir à aider les pauvres.
‘John enjoys helping the poor.’
g. Il a eu l’occasion de rencontrer les joueurs allemands.
‘He had the opportunity to meet the German players.’
h. Vous avez le droit de demander une enquête pour savoir ce qui
s’est passé.
‘You have the right to ask for an inquiry to find out what
happened.’
Non-finite complements of verbs in French, just like those in English, can

also occur without a complementiser and an auxiliary. That is to say, they
can also be ‘small clause’ complements. Those verbs which select such com-
plements include croire ‘to believe’ and trouver ‘to find’.
(9) a. Nous croyons Marie intelligente.

‘We believe Mary to be intelligent.’
b. Je trouve cette histoire incroyable.
‘I find this story unbelievable.’
We could also include in this subset of verbs those verbs which are known as
copular or raising verbs: être ‘to be’, sembler/paraître ‘to seem/appear’, deve-
nir ‘to become’, and so on. The subject of these verbs is understood as the
subject of their complement clause, i.e. the small clause. This is captured in
transformational-generative grammar (Chomsky 1981) by placing the sub-
ject inside the complement clause, as shown in (10a), and it is then made the
subject of the copular or raising verbs, as shown in (10b).
(10) a. [ ] est/semble/ paraît [ Jean malade ]

be/seem/appear John ill
b. Jean est/semble/paraît [ malade ]
John be/seem/appear ill
‘John is/seems/appears ill.’
Given that an auxiliary is impossible in such a complement, *Nous croyons

Jean être malade ‘We believe John to be ill’, we can infer that French does
not allow exceptional non-finite clauses.
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12.3 Clausal complements and complementisers Clausal
in the French creoles complements
and comple-
mentisers in
The difference between a finite and a non-finite clause in French is indicated the French
by the form that the verb or auxiliary verb inside these clauses displays. In creoles
finite clauses, verbs (including auxiliary verbs) are inflected for tense, aspect,
mood, and agreement. In non-finite clauses, verbs (and auxiliary verbs) have
certain infinitive endings such as -er (e.g. manger ‘to eat’), -ir (e.g. partir ‘to
leave’), -re (e.g. vendre ‘to sell), and so on. The French creoles also have finite
and non-finite clauses, but the difference between them is not indicated by
the verb form, simply because verbs, like nouns and adjectives, are generally
bare. However, there are other indicators such as the presence of a tense
marker, the presence of a complementiser, the surface form of a subject pro-
noun, and the semantics of the complement-taking predicate. For instance,
in the IOC, as shown in (11), finite clauses generally have an overt tense
marker, they may take the complementiser ki ‘that’, and they take the weak
nominative form of a subject pronoun. Non-finite clauses, as shown in (12),
do not allow tense markers, they may take the complementiser pu ‘for’, and
they take the strong accusative form of a subject pronoun. The different
forms for the first and second person singular pronoun in the IOC are mo ‘I’
and to ‘you’ if they occur in the subject position of a finite clause, and mwa
‘me’ and twa ‘you’ if they occur in the subject position of a non-finite clause.
(11) a. mo kone Marie ti al bazar (IOC)

1s know Mary PAST go market
‘I know Mary went to the market.’
b. mo kone (ki/*pu) Marie al bazar (IOC)
1s know that/for Mary go market
‘I know that Mary goes to the market.’
c. to dir to/*twa bwar labier (IOC)
2s say 2s drink beer
‘You say you drink beer.’
(12) a. mo ti esey (*ti) fer li (IOC)
1s PAST try PAST do 3s
‘I tried to do it.’
b. mo prefer (*ki/pu) fer sa (IOC)
1s prefer that/for do that
‘I prefer to do that.’
c. li ti anpes twa/*to al laba
3s PAST stop 2s go there
‘He told you not to go there.’(lit. he stopped you from going there)
Finite and non-finite clauses can thus be separated in the French creoles even 359
though their verbs are inflection-less (i.e. they have a bare form).
12 12.3.1 Clausal complements and complementisers
Clausal in the IOC
complements
There are three types of clausal complement in the IOC: finite clauses intro-
duced by the optional complementiser ki (< Fr que), non-finite complement
clauses introduced by a null complementiser Ø (the analogue of the French
complementisers de and à) or the complementiser pu ‘for’ (< Fr pour ‘for’),
and non-finite participial complements of perception verbs, also introduced
by a null complementiser Ø. These are illustrated here:
(13) a. mo panse (ki) Zan pe dormi

1s think that John PROG sleep
‘I think that John is sleeping.’
b. mo krwar (ki) zot finn ale
1s believe that 3p PERF go
‘I think that they have left.’
c. li pu dir (ki) personn pa ti bat li
3s FUT say that nobody NEG PAST hit 3s
‘He will say that nobody hit him.’
(14) a. li pe esey (pu) repar so loto

3s PROG try for repair 3s car
‘He is trying to repair his car.’
b. zot pe kumans (pu) agas mwa
3p PROG begin for annoy me
‘They are beginning to annoy me.’
c. mo ti ed zot (pu) netway zot lakaz
1s PAST help 3p for clean 3p house
‘I helped them clean their house.’
d. zot finn prefer (pu) fer lagrev
3p PERF prefer for make strike
‘They have preferred/chosen to strike.’
e. li pa posib (pu) fini travay la zordi
3s NEG possible for finish work DEF today
‘It is not possible to finish this work today.’
f. li neseser (pu) fini travay la zordi
3s necessary for finish work DEF today
‘It’s necessary to finish this work today.’
(15) a. zot ti truv mwa pe galupe

3p PAST see 1s PROG run
‘They saw me running.’
b. mo ti tann twa pe sante
360 1s PAST hear 2p PROG sing
‘I heard you singing.’
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The finite and non-finite complements in these examples are clearly selected Clausal
by the complement-taking predicates (i.e. the verbs or adjectives in the main complements
clauses). Thus, a cognitive verb like kone ‘know’ selects a finite complement, and comple-
mentisers in
and that is why the complementiser ki ‘that’, and not pu ‘for’, is allowed in the French
it. However, a verb like prefer ‘prefer’ or an adjective like fasil ‘easy’ selects creoles
a non-finite complement, and, as expected, the complementiser pu ‘for’ is
allowed but not ki ‘that’. Perception verbs too select a non-finite complement
but one which has to be complementiser-less. The contrasts in (16) illustrate
these differences.
(16) a. li kone ki/*pu nu la

3s know that/for 1p here
‘He knows that we are here.’
b. mo prefer pu/*ki al lamerik
1s prefer for/that go America
‘I prefer to go to America.’
c. zot ti truv *pu/*ki mwa pe galupe
3p PAST see for/that 1s PROG run
‘They saw me running.’
The complementiser ki, like English that and French que, only occurs in
constructions whose clausal complements are finite (i.e. tensed), but note that
it is optional, just like English that but unlike its French antecedent que:
*nous savons ils sont partis ‘we know they have left’. The example in (16a)
is grammatical without ki.
Notice, however, that if a finite complement is the subject of a finite clause,

as in (17), the complementiser ki, just like that in English, becomes obliga-
tory. Its distribution is therefore syntactically conditioned; optional when the
complement it introduces is in object position and obligatory when it is in
subject position of a finite clause.
(17) a. *(ki) Zan finn bat enn polisier pa vre

that John PERF hit a policeman NEG true
‘That John has hit a policeman isn’t true.’
b. *(ki) mama la finn perdi so zanfan fer byen sagrin
that mother DEF PERF lose es child make very sad
‘That that mother has lost her child is very sad.’
The complementiser ki in (13a–c), again like its English counterpart, is part of

the structure of the complement clause, and this can be demonstrated for instance
by coordinating two complement clauses, each introduced by ki, as in (18).
(18) a. mo krwar (ki) zot finn ale e (ki)

1s believe that 3p PERF go and that
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12 zot finn deza rant lakaz
Clausal 3p PERF already arrive home
complements
‘I believe that they left and that they are already at home.’
b. mo panse (ki) li malad e (ki) li pu mor
1s think that 3s ill and that 3s FUT die
‘I think that he is ill and that he will die.’
Another way of demonstrating that ki belongs with the complement which

it introduces is by using it and the complement in reply to a question during
an interaction, as shown in (19).
(19) a. ki li pu dir? b. *(ki) li pa ti bat personn

what 3s FUT say that 3s NEG PAST hit no one
‘What will he say?’ ‘That he didn’t hit anyone.’
The complementiser is obligatory in the reply to the question in (19) as pre-

dicted. It is also worth pointing out that its obligatory presence in the subject
of the finite clauses in (17a, b) provides further support for the claim that it
is structurally part of the clause that it introduces.
As for the complementiser pu ‘for’, it too is optional when it introduces a

non-finite complement, as shown in (14). However, just like ki ‘that’, pu is
obligatory when it introduces a clause in the subject position of a finite clause,
as shown in (20a); the sentence is ungrammatical without pu. It is clear from
(20b), though, that pu is only obligatory if the clause has a subject.
(20) a. *(pu) li aret voler la pa fasil

for 3s stop thief DEF NEG easy
‘For him to stop the thief is not easy.’
b. (pu) aret voler la pa fasil
for stop thief DEF NEG easy
‘To stop that thief is not easy.’
Interestingly, there is another context in which pu is obligatory, which is

when the complement is an indirect interrogative, as shown in (21a); note
that (21b) is ungrammatical without the complementiser.
(21) a. mo pa kone ki kado pu aste pu mo-mem

1s NEG know what present for buy for 1s-self
‘I don’t know what present to buy myself.’
b. * mo pa kone ki kado aste pu mo-mem
1s NEG know what present buy for 1s-self
‘I don’t know what present to buy myself.’
As a complementiser introducing a clausal complement, we evidently expect

pu, just like ki ‘that’, to be structurally part of that complement. In fact, the
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examples in (20) provide evidence in support of this expectation: pu is Clausal
fronted along with the complement clause. To be clear, note that (20a, b) complements
derive from constructions like (22a, b), where the complement clause follows and comple-
mentisers in
the adjective predicate, via a fronting process. the French
creoles
(22) a. (li) pa fasil pu li aret voler la
3s NEG easy for 3s stop thief DEF
‘It isn’t easy for him to stop that thief.’
b. (li) pa fasil (pu) aret voler la
3s NEG easy for stop thief DEF
‘It isn’t easy to stop that thief.’
Further evidence that the complementiser pu is structurally part of the com-

plement clause comes from its position in relation to the wh-phrase in (21a).
If the wh-phrase occupies clause-initial position, then pu is inevitably inside
the complement clause.
Another complementiser which the IOC have is si (< Fr si ‘if/whether’), and

it is used to introduce the indirect finite interrogative complements of cogni-
tive verbs such as kone ‘to know’, dimande ‘ask’, rapel ‘remember’, and bliye
‘forget’, as well as adjectives such as sir ‘sure’. This is illustrated in (23).
(23) a. mo pa kone si Zan finn al bazaar

1s NEG know if John PERF go market
‘I don’t know if John has gone to the market.’
b. li pe dimande si zot finn manze
3s PROG ask if 2p PERF eat
‘He’s asking if you have eaten.’
c. mo pa rapel si mo ti ferm laport
1s NEG remember if 1s PAST shut door
‘I don’t remember if I closed the door’
d. li pa sir si li pu kapav vini
3s NEG sure if 3s FUT can come
‘He isn’t sure if he can come.’
However, when predicates such as kone ‘know’ and sir ‘sure’ are followed
by an interrogative complement clause with a wh-phrase placed in clause-
initial position, then they require that the complementiser si be null, as shown
by the contrast in (24) and (25).
(24) a. mo pa kone kot li’ nn ale

1s NEG know where 3s AS go
‘I don’t know where he’s gone.’
b. * mo pa kone kot si li’ nn ale
1s NEG know where if 3s PERF go
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12 (25) a. li pa sir kan zot pu returne
Clausal 3s NEG sure when 3p FUT return
complements
‘He isn’t sure when they will return.’
b. * li pa sir kan si zot pu returne
3s NEG sure when if 3p FUT return
The IOC then has three overt complementisers: ki ‘that’ to introduce finite
declarative complements (i.e. indirect statements), si ‘if/whether’ to introduce
indirect finite interrogative complements, and pu ‘for’ to introduce non-finite
complements. Ki is always optional when the complement is in object posi-
tion; pu is also optional in this position except when it introduces an indirect
interrogative complement, in which case it is obligatory, as in (21); and si is
obligatory except when the complement has a fronted wh-phrase. In the sub-
ject position of a finite clause, ki is obligatory and pu optional except when
the clause it introduces has an overt subject. We could add a zero complemen-
tiser to this list, as none of the other three is allowed in the complement of
perception verbs.
12.3.2 Clausal complements and complementisers in Haitian
Haitian, like the IOC and French, has sentences with finite and non-finite
clausal complements, and like the IOC, it has several complementisers to
introduce these complements: ke ‘that’, pou/pu ‘for’, and si ‘if’. The
complementiser ke ‘that’, like the IOC ki ‘that’, introduces a finite clause
and is optional when the complement is in object position. However,
unlike the ki in the IOC, the occurrence of ke is said to be rare in Haitian;
it only occurs in certain dialects (DeGraff 2007) or decreolised varieties
(Damoiseau 2005). The following illustrate finite complements with and
without ke.
(26) a. Jan kwè/di/panse Mari vini (H; Lefebvre 1998: 185)

John believe/say/think Mary come
‘John believed/said/thought that Mary came.’
b. m di u li vini (ã) (H; Lefebvre 1982b: 38)
1s say 2p 3s come DEF
‘I told you he has come.’
c. u kwè l pu mouri (H; Koopman and
2s believe 3s FUT die Lefebvre 1982: 83)
‘You think he will (is about to) die.’
d. Bouki konnen (ke) Boukinèt renmen l anpil (H; DeGraff
Bouki know that Boukinet love 3s lot 2007: 109)
‘Bouki knows that Boukinet loves her a lot.’
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e. mwen panse ke li pral pati an Frans (H; Damoiseau Clausal
1s think that 3s FUT go in France 2005: 153) complements
‘I think she will go to France.’ and comple-
mentisers in
the French
Interestingly, Haitian uses not only ke to introduce a finite complement creoles
clause but also, surprisingly, the complementiser pu/pou, as shown in the
following.
(27) a. mwen te mande pou l te vini (H; DeGraff

1s PAST ask for 3s PAST come 2007: 109)
‘I asked that (s)he come.’ (= I asked for her to come.)
b. msye deside pu l al ayiti (H; Koopman and
man decide for 3s go Haiti Lefebvre 1982: 69)
‘The man decided to go to Haiti.’
c. m pomet u pu m vini (H; Koopman and
1s promise 2p for 1s come Lefebvre 1982: 69)
‘I promised you to come.’
d. yo te vle pu m te (Koopman and Lefebvre 1982: 68)
3p PAST want for 1s PAST
ãtre nã trup Žakmèl
go in group Zakmel
‘They wanted me to join Zakmel’s group.’
The fact that a tense marker can be inserted inside a complement introduced
by pou/pu, as in (27a, d), suggests that the complement must be finite.
Another piece of evidence which suggests that pou/pu in Haitian introduces
finite clauses comes from an example like (28a) which, according to Koop-
man (1986, cited in Lefebvre 1998: 271), is ambiguous. Such ambiguity does
not arise either in the IOC or French.
(28) a. lii vle pou li/j vini (H; Lefebvre 1998: 271)
3s want for 3s come
‘He wants to come’ or ‘He wants him to come.’
b. lii le li*i/j vini (IOC)
3s want 3s come
‘He wants him to come.’
c. Ili veut qu’ il*i/j vienne (French)
3s want that 3s come
‘He wants him to come.’
In (28a), the subject of the complement may or may not refer to the subject
of the main clause, hence the ambiguity. The fact that they can co-refer
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12 suggests that the complement clause is finite. In the IOC and French, by
Clausal contrast, the subject of the complement clause must refer to someone other
complements
than the person referred to by the subject of the main clause. This means that
the complement clause is non-finite. This is further suggested by the fact that
a tense marker cannot occur in (28b): *li le li ti/pu vini (lit. he wants he came/
will come) or *Il veut qu’il viendra (lit. he wants he will come).
Although the complement of vle ‘want’ in (28a) is finite, it can also be non-
finite provided the complementiser is left out. Accordingly, we can insert a
tense marker in (28a), as shown in (29a) but not in (29b), which is non-finite
without the complementiser.
(29) a. li vle pou l te vini (H; Lefebvre 1998: 274)

3s want for 3s PAST come
‘He wants him to have come.’
b. * li vle l te vini
3s want 3s PAST come
Other examples of the non-finite complements of vle ‘want’ are given in (30),
where the subject of the lower verb is phonologically null and co-referential
with the subject in the main clause. Note that these non-finite complements
are complementiser-less.
(30) a. Jan vle kraze machin-nã (H; Lefebvre 1998: 272)

John want destroy car- DEF
‘John wants to destroy the car.’
b. li vle vini ã (H; Lefebvre 1982b: 41)
3s want come DET
‘He wants to come.’
As was pointed out earlier, Haitian also has a complementiser si ‘if’, which
corresponds to the complementiser si in the IOC and French. This comple-
mentiser is selected by verbs such as kone ‘know’ and mãde ‘ask’, and it
introduces indirect finite interrogatives, as in (31a, b), but not when they
contain a fronted wh-phrase, as shown in (31c). In this respect, the Haitian
complementiser si behaves just like its IOC counterpart.
(31) a. m pa t kòn si l (H; Koopman and

1s NEG PAST know if 3s Lefebvre 1982: 83)
te pu vini
PAST FUT come
‘I didn’t know if he had to come.’
b. m mãde u si l ap vini (H; Koopman 1982b: 206)
1s ask 2s if 3s FUT come
‘I ask you if he will come.’
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c. mo mãde u ki mun (H; Koopman 1982b: 215) Clausal
1s ask 2s which person complements
ki te vini ã and comple-
mentisers in
who PAST come DEF the French
‘I ask you who came.’ creoles
Haitian and the IOC thus appear to have recruited the same French lexical
items to introduce complement clauses: they both use ke/ki (< Fr que ‘that’)
and si ‘if’ to introduce finite complements, the choice being determined by the
semantics of the complement-taking verb. Both also use pu/pou (< Fr pour
‘for’) but in different ways: Haitian uses it to introduce the finite complements
of certain verbs, while the IOC use it to introduce non-finite complements only.

in Lesser Antillean creoles
Lesser Antillean French creoles, just like the IOC and Haitian, have finite and
non-finite clausal complements. They also make use of the complementiser ké
/ki to introduce finite complements, but, as is the case with Haitian ke, this is
rarely used and only in a decreolised variety of these creoles. The following are
illustrative.
(32) a. man sav ou ké pati oswè-a (M; Bernabé 2003: 222)

1s know 2p PRES leave tonight
‘I know you are leaving tonight.’
b. Pyè di Pòl ké pati (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 1265)
Peter say Paul FUT leave
‘Peter said that Paul will leave.’
c. man sav (kè) ou ké pati oswè-a (M; Bernabé
1s know that 2p PRES leave tonight 2003: 222)
‘I know that you are leaving tonight.’
d. yo di (ké) zétoual broté yo isit (Gu/M; Valdman
3p say that star bring 3p here 1978: 270)
‘They say that the star brought them here.’
Interestingly, the complementiser is obligatory when the complement is

fronted, as shown in (33) from Bernabé (2003: 224).
(33) ki Ti-Joj té an gran krapon,

that ti-Georges PAST a big coward,
nou té bien sav sa
1p PAST well know that
‘That little Georges was a big coward, we all knew that.’
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12 It is also worth noting that Lesser Antillean creoles also use konmkwa
Clausal (< comme quoi lit. to the effect that) optionally to introduce some finite
complements
complements, as shown in the following from Bernabé (2003: 224).
(34) a. sé timanmay-la di (konmkwa) yo

PLU child DEF say that 3p
té ka wè mizè an Frans
PAST PROG see poverty in France
‘The children said that they suffered poverty in France.’
b. nu aprann (konmkwa) sé Méritjen-an débatjé la Grinad
1p learn that it-is Americans land Grenada
‘We learnt that the Americans have landed in Grenada.’
Like the IOC and Haitian, Lesser Antillean creoles also use pu/pou ‘for’ to
introduce non-finite complements, as shown in (35a) from Poullet and Tel-
chid (1990: 157) and (35b) from Cyrille (2000: 76).
(35) a. an ja di-y pou i vin é mwen

1s already say-3s for 3s come with 1s
‘I already told him to come with me.’
b. an té vlé sav si zò dakò pou nou jwenn la
1s PAST want know if 2p agree for 1p meet there
‘I wanted to know if you agree for us to meet there.’
Non-finite complements can also be bare, i.e. without a complementiser.

Verbs (typically commitative and cognitive verbs) such as pwomèt ‘to prom-
ise’, sav ‘know’, di ‘say’, and mandé ‘ask’ among others select such comple-
ments, as shown in the following from Bernabé (1983).
(36) a. Pyè pwomèt Pòl vann liv-la (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 1269)
Peter promise Paul sell book-DEF
‘Peter promised Paul to sell the book.’
b. Pyè sav pale angle (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 1159)
Peter know speak English
‘Peter knows how to speak English.’ (Peter can speak English)
c. Pyè di Pòl pati (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 1265)
Peter tell Paul leave
‘Peter told Paul to leave.’
d. Pyè mandé Pòl pati (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 1266)
Peter ask Paul leave
‘Peter asked Paul to leave.’
e. es u mandé yo pati (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 1243)
Q 2s ask 3p leave
‘Did you ask them to leave?’
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Lesser Antillean creoles, just like the IOC and Haitian, also have a comple- Clausal
mentiser si, which they use to introduce finite indirect interrogatives, as complements
shown in (37a, b) from Cyrille (2000: 76) and (37c) from Bernabé (2003: and comple-
mentisers in
227). Note that si alternates with ès (< Fr est-ce), which occurs in yes/no the French
questions: es i ké vin? ‘Is she coming?’ (lit. whether she is coming) from creoles
Cyrille (2000: 80).
(37) a. an ka mandé mwen si/ès i ké vin

1s PROG ask 1s if/Q 3s FUR come
‘I wonder whether he will come.’
b. an té vlé sav si/ès zò dakò pou nou jwenn la
1p PAST want know if/Q 2p agree for 1p meet there
‘I wanted to know if you want to meet there.’
c. Afarel mandé mwen es/ési Kanmi genhen anlo lajan
Raphael ask 1s Q Camille win lot money
‘Raphael asked me whether Camille has won a lot of money.’
Looking at Lesser Antillean creoles, Haitian, and the IOC, it is clear that they
all make use of ki/ké ‘that’ to introduce finite indicative complements and
they all use the preposition pu/pou ‘for’ as a complementiser to introduce
non-finite complements, although Haitian also uses it to introduce finite
complements. All three also use the complementiser si ‘if/whether’ to intro-
duce finite indirect interrogative clauses, although Lesser Antillean creoles
have an alternative complementiser to si, namely es/ési ‘whether’.

in St. Lucian
St. Lucian Creole, like the other creoles discussed, has the word ki, but it
seems to use it more as a subject relative pronoun and a wh-question word
than a complementiser to introduce finite complements. Whether or not it is
used in a decreolised variety of St. Lucian is not clear, but it is not inconceiv-
able that it might be, given that it is found in decreolised varieties of Haitian
Creole and Lesser Antillean Creoles, as we saw earlier. The following exam-
ples show finite declarative complements of cognitive verbs occurring with-
out the complementiser ki ‘that’.
(38) a. tut ka di se bõ bagay (St. L; Carrington 1984: 85)

all PRES say it good thing
‘They all say it was a good thing.’
b. u sav mwẽ kaj ba u i (St. L; Carrington 1984: 109)
2p know 1s FUT give 2p it
‘You know that I will give it to you.’
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12 c. misie a kwè i pli (St. L; Carrington 1984: 110)
Clausal man DEF believe 3s more
complements
for pase tut mun
strong pass all people
‘The man believes he is stronger than everybody.’
d. ti fi ja imazine i wè jõ dzab (St. L; Carrington
little girl DEF imagine 3s see a devil 1984: 115)
‘The little girl imagined that she saw a devil.’
e. i sam jo kay desire i (St. L; Carrington 1984: 113)
Non-finite complements are also generally complementiser-less, although St.

Lucian does have the complementiser pu, which it uses to introduce adjunct
non-finite clauses, as shown in (39c).
(39) a. mwẽ vle ale dãse (St. L; Carrington 1984: 115)

1s want go dance
‘I want to go dancing’
b. I eseye ãpese mwẽ fè li (St. L; Carrington 1984: 115)
3s try prevent 1s do it
‘He tried to prevent me from doing it.’
c. Zòdi õ bõ zu (pu ale sase) (St. L; Carrington 1984: 139)
today a good day for go hunt
‘Today is a good day (to go hunting).’
St. Lucian also has the complementiser si ‘if/whether’, which it uses to intro-
duce the indirect interrogative complements of semantically interrogative
verbs such as mande ‘ask’, as shown in (40).
(40) a. . . . i mande gasõ a si i kònèt mwẽ (St. L; Carrington

. . . 3s ask boy DEF if 3s know 1s 1984: 143)
‘. . . he asked the boy if he knew me.’
b. I mãde mwẽ si mwẽ te (St. L; Carrington 1984: 110)
3s ask 1s if 1s PAST
ni lazã a
have money DEF
‘He asked me if I had the money.’
c. mwẽ vin mãde u si i sa vini (St. L; Carrington
1s come ask 2p if 3s can come 1984: 108)
‘I’ve come to ask you if he can come.’
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It seems that of the Atlantic creoles, St. Lucian is probably the one which Clausal
strongly prefers complementiser-less complements except when it comes to complements
indirect interrogative complements. It is clear that when it comes to the com- and comple-
mentisers in
plements of semantically interrogative or dubitative verbs, the complemen- the French
tiser si is obligatory in all the creoles surveyed earlier. creoles

in Guyanese
Guyanese Creole also has the three types of clausal complements which the
other creoles have. Finite clausal complements, expressing direct statements, can
be introduced with the complementiser ki ‘that’, although in general such com-
plements occur without it, not only in Guyanese but also in the other creoles of
the Atlantic. The use of ki ‘that’ is mostly avoided because it is viewed as a
French calque (Damoiseau 2003: 149). The following are illustrative.
(41) a. mo ka pansé ki i ké pati Lafrans (G; Damoiseau

1s PRES think that 3s FUT go France 2003: 149)
‘I think that he will go to France.’
b. mo ka pansé i ké pati Lafrans (G; Damoiseau
1s PRES think 3s FUT go France 2003: 149)
‘I think he will go to France.’
c. mo save so madanm malad (G; Damoiseau 2003: 149)
1s know 3s wife ill
‘I know his wife is ill.’
d. mo krè i a so kaz (G; Damoiseau 2003: 150)
1s believe 3s be 3s house
‘I think he’s at home.’
Non-finite declarative clausal complements also do not require a complementiser.

The French complementisers à ‘to’ and de ‘to’, which introduce infinitives in
French, are missing in Guyanese as they are in the other creoles. The non-finite
clausal complements thus appear juxtaposed to the main clause, as in the
following.
(42) a. i ka éséyé maché (G; Damoiseau 2003: 154)

3s PRES try walk
‘He tries to walk.’
b. lò Loran malad, mo oblijé rété lakaz (G; Damoiseau
when Laurent ill 1s oblige stay home 2003: 158)
‘When Laurent is ill, I have to stay at home.’
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12 c. annou alé anvan lapli koumansé tonbé! (G; Damoiseau
Clausal let’s go before rain begin fall 2003: 158)
complements
‘Let’s go before it starts raining.’
Note that sentences corresponding to (42a–b) in French have the complemen-

tiser de ‘to’, which is selected by the verb essayer ‘to try’: Il essaie de marcher
‘He tries to walk’ and obliger ‘to oblige’: Je suis obligé de rester à la maison
‘I’m obliged to stay at home’, while the sentence which corresponds to (42c)
has the complementiser à ‘to’: Partons avant qu’il ne commence à pleuvoir
‘Let’s go before it starts raining’.
Non-finite interrogative complements, in contrast to the non-finite declara-

tive complements in (42), require the complementiser pou ‘for’, as shown in
the following.
(43) mo pa savé kisa pou mo fè (G; Damoiseau 2003: 162)

1s NEG know what for 1s do
‘I don’t know what to do.’
We noted a similar occurrence in the IOC – see (22a). Note that the word
order of pou in relation to the fronted wh-phrase kisa suggests that it is part
of the structure of the indirect interrogative.
Guyanese also has finite indirect interrogatives as complements of interroga-

tive verbs such as doumandé ‘to ask/wonder’ and cognitive verbs such as savé
‘to know’ when negated, and these are introduced by si ‘if/whether’ just like
in the other creoles.
(44) a. i doumandé mo si i pouv (G; Damoiseau 2003: 170)

3s ask 1s if 3s can
al kot so kanmarad
go at 3s friend
‘He asked me if he could go to his friend’s place.’
b. mo pa savé si i ké vini (G; Damoiseau 2003: 151)
1s NEG know if 3s FUT come
‘I don’t know if she will come.’
This complementiser is obligatory, just as it is in similar constructions in the

other creoles, except when a fronted wh-phrase is present in the complement,
as in the following.
(45) mo ka doumandé ki tan i ké vini (G; Damoiseau

1s PRES ask what time 3s FUT come 2003: 151)
‘I’m asking when she will come.’
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12.3.6 Clausal complements and complementisers Clausal
in Karipuna complements
and comple-
mentisers in
Complement clauses in Karipuna too can be finite and non-finite, and here the French
too finite complements of cognitive verbs, for instance, may be introduced creoles
by ki ‘that’, but only rarely.
(46) a. Pyè dji pu ye li pa ka vãde-l (K; Tobler

Peter say for 3p 3s NEG PROG sell-3s 1983: 37)
‘Peter said to them (that) he was not selling it.’
b. li dji ki li ka vin (K; Tobler 1983: 37)
3s say that 3s PROG come
‘He said that he would come.’
c. Pyè save ki bét la ka vin dehiyé (K; Tobler
Peter know that beast DEF PROG come behind 1983: 38)
‘Peter knew that the beast was following.’
Non-finite complements can be complementiser-less, or they can be intro-

duced by the complementiser pu ‘for’, especially when they are the comple-
ment of a cognitive verb such as dji ‘say/tell’ or a causative verb such as fé
‘make’, as shown in the following.
(47) a. u dji pu mo sabhe bakòv (K; Tobler 1983: 37)

2s say for 1s clear banana
‘You told me to clear the bananas.’
b. ye dji pu mo pu mo pa ke tone (K; Tobler 1983: 37)
3p say to 1s for 1s NEG FUT return
‘They told me not to return.’
c. mo ka dji pu li hete ke tximun (K; Tobler 1983: 37)
1s PRES tell for 3s stay with child
‘I told her to stay with the child.’
d. li fé ye fade bwa boku (K; Tobler 1983: 38)
3s make 3p fell wood much
‘He made them fell a lot of wood.’
It is useful to note in connection with the use of the complementiser pu in

Karipuna that it also occurs in purposive adjunct clauses, as in the following
examples.
(48) a. li ke vin pu phã so bagaj (K; Tobler 1983: 48)

3s FUT come to take 3s thing
‘He will come to get his things.’
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12 b. fey ka bay pu fini kaz (K; Tobler 1983: 49)
Clausal leaf PRES give for finish house
complements
‘There is enough leafing to finish the house.’
Like the other creoles, Karipuna uses the French preposition pour ‘for’ to
introduce non-finite complement and adjunct clauses.
Finally, complement clauses in Karipuna can be declarative, as in the exam-

ples presented here, as well as interrogative. Indirect interrogative comple-
ments are complementiser-less if they have a fronted wh-phrase, as in (49a);
otherwise they are introduced by the same complementiser that the other
creoles use, namely si, derived from the French complementiser si ‘if’.
(49) a. ye ka majine kumã ye ka txue-l (K; Tobler 1983: 38)

3p PRES think how 3p PRES kill-3s
‘They think how they will kill him.’
b. ale dumãde mama si u puve ale (K; Tobler 1983: 38)
go ask mother if 2s able go
‘Go and ask your mother if you may go.’
c. mo dumãde u si u ke le (K; Tobler 1983: 37)
1s ask 2s if 2s FUT want
‘I ask you whether you would like (some bananas).’
Karipuna’s similarity with the other French creoles, particularly with those of the
Atlantic, is quite striking. They all seem to have recruited French complementisers
in order to introduce their finite and non-finite complements. The rarity of the
complementiser ki ‘that’ in Karipuna shows that it is closer to the Atlantic creoles
than it is to the IOC in the way in which it introduces its finite complements.

in Louisiana Creole
Turning now to Louisiana Creole: it too allows complements which are both
finite and non-finite. Finite complements are introduced by the complemen-
tiser ke (< Fr que ‘that’) but only optionally, as is the case in the other French
creoles. However, its use in Louisiana Creole may not be as rare as it is in the
Atlantic creoles surveyed earlier.
(50) a. e kõ li wa sure enough (L; Neumann 1985: 347)

and when 3s see sure enough
ke Lapẽ t’ ape dormi
that Rabbit PAST PROG sleep
‘And when she was sure that the Rabbit was sleeping . . .’
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b. mo kwa kè pètèt li (L; Klingler 2003: 368) Clausal
1s believe that perhaps 3s complements
te ne Lafrik and comple-
mentisers in
PAST born Africa the French
‘I believe that maybe she was born in Africa.’ creoles
c. mo te p’ole ke je te (L; Valdman and
1s PAST NEG want that 3p PAST Klingler 1997: 138)
kɔnɛ ke mo te parle [kreɔl]
know that 1s PAST speak [kreɔl]
‘I didn’t want them to know that I speak Creole.’
d. mo krwa pa m’ale zue (L; Neumann 1985: 347)

1s believe NEG 1s go play
‘I don’t think I will go to play.’
e. vou pa kwa l a chinen? (L; Klingler 2003: 367)
2s NEG believe 3s FUT win
‘Don’t you think he’ll win?’
Louisiana Creole also has the complementiser pou ‘for/to’, which it uses to
introduce non-finite complements, although not always (see (51c, d)).
(51) a. mo di twa pa pou fe sa (L; Klingler 2003: 371)

1s tell 2s NEG for do that
‘I told you not to do that.’
b. mo kantan pou fe sa pou twa (L; Klingler 2003: 371)
1s happy for do that for 2s
‘I’m happy to do that for you.’
c. li vule pale ave je (L; Valdman and Klingler
3s want speak with 3p 1997: 128)
‘He wanted to speak to them.’
d. mo se vudre wa to madõm (L; Valdman and
1s se want see 2s wife Klingler 1997: 128)
‘I wanted to see your wife.’
Complements can of course be declarative, as in (50) and (51), or they can

be interrogative, as in (52) and (53). Notice that interrogative complements
can be both finite, as in (52), and non-finite, as in (53).
(52) a. li te pa kone eu Torti nave (L; Neumann

3s PAST NEG know where Tortoise be 1985: 337)
‘He did not know where the Tortoise was.’
b. li mõd twa ke sar to vomje (L; Neumann 1985: 338)
3s ask 2s which car 2s prefer
‘He is asking you which car you prefer.’
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12 (53) a. ye kònen sa pou fe (L; Klingler 2003: 371)
Clausal 3p know what to do
complements
‘They know what to do.’
b. to gen pou kònen kòmon se pou kwi ye (L; Klingler
2s have to know how to cook 3p 2003: 371)
‘You have to know how to cook them.’
Indirect interrogative complements in Lousiana Creole, as in the other cre-

oles, can be introduced by the complementiser si ‘if’, as shown in the
following.
(54) a. . . . m pa konè si sè en (L; Klingler 2003: 330)

1s NEG know if it a
sèrpan ki mòrd lo o ki
snake that bite 3s or what
‘I didn’t know if a snake had bitten it or what.’
b. sa-fe mo pa konnen si li (L; Klingler 2003: 467)
so 1s NEG know if 3s
ne isi o an Frons
born here or in France
‘So, I don’t know if she was born here or in France.’
c. mo pa konnen si s te (L; Klingler 2003: 474)
1s NEG know if 3s PAST
pa en move nonm
NEG a bad man
‘I don’t know if he wasn’t a bad man.’
d. Alõ wa si to kone dãse (L; Neumann 1985: 338)
let see if 2s know dance
‘Let’s see if you know how to dance.’
Similarly, in the IOC, the verb konè/konnen ‘know’ in (54a–c) is semantically

a cognitive verb which selects declarative complements when it is not negated
and declarative or interrogative when it is negated. In the latter case, it is
optionally introduced with ki ‘that’ when the complement is declarative and
obligatorily with si ‘if/whether’ when it is interrogative.
(55) a. mo pa ti kone (ki) li ti malad (IOC)

1s NEG PAST know that 3s PAST sick
‘I didn’t know that he was sick.’
b. mo pa ti kone si li ti malad (IOC)
1s NEG PAST know if 3s PAST sick
‘I didn’t know if/whether John was ill.’
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From the examples presented in this section, it is clear that Louisiana Creole Small clause
has the same range of complements as those found in the other creoles: finite complements
and non-finite, declarative (indicative) and interrogatives (indirect interroga- in the French
creoles
tive complements). It also has the same items (albeit in different forms at
times) to link clausal complements to the subcategorising (main) verbs: ki/ke
‘that’, although this is rarely used in the Atlantic creoles and Louisiana Cre-
ole, to introduce finite indicative complements, pu/pou ‘for/to’ to introduce
a non-finite complements, and si ‘if/whether’ to introduce a finite comple-
ment with a non-factive meaning.
Although the examples presented so far all illustrate verbal complementation,

i.e. complements of verbs, it should be noted that the French creoles also
allow complements of nouns, as shown in these examples from the IOC.
(56) a. le fe ki Zan isi fer Mari ankoler (IOC)

the fact that John here makes Mary angry
‘The fact that John is here makes Mary angry.’
b. kisenn la ti donn u lord pu kup pje la? (IOC)
Who PAST give 2s order for fell tree DEF
‘Who asked you to fell the tree?’
c. zot pa finn donn li permission pu al lakaz (IOC)
3p NEG PERF give 3s permission for go home
‘They haven’t given him permission to go home.’
It is worth pointing out that although the noun permision ‘permission’ has a
verbal counterpart in permet ‘to allow’ (zot pa finn permet li al lakaz ‘they
haven’t allowed him to go home’), the deverbal noun is generally preferred
in basilectal IOC. The verbal counterpart is a decreolised form.
12.4 Small clause complements in the French creoles
Another type of complement which we find in languages such as English and

French is the ‘small clause’ type. ‘Small clauses’ (Williams 1975, Chomsky
1981, among others) are clauses which lack both a complementiser and a
tense marking element (e.g. an auxiliary or inflectional element). They are
truly bare complements. Semantically, though, they still convey a proposi-
tional meaning; they have a subject and a predicate which can belong to any
of the four phrasal projections: NP, AP, PP, and VP. Their subject has an
accusative form. In English, small clause complements are selected by just a
subset of verbs, particularly of the cognitive type, (e.g. want, find, consider,
imagine, etc.). As we will see, this type of complement can also be found in
the French creoles. The following are from the IOC.
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12 (57) a. nu truv lakaz la byen gran (IOC)
Clausal 1p find house DEF very big
complements
‘We find the house very big.’
b. nu truv so bann zanfan byen move (IOC)
1p find 3s PLU child very naughty
‘We find his children very naughty.’
c. nu le tu zanfan dan klas (IOC)
1p want all child in class
‘We want all the children in class.’
d. zot konsider bann travayer la pares (IOC)
3p consider PLU worker DEF lazy
‘They consider the workers lazy.’
Note that neither the complementiser ki ‘that’ nor pu ‘for’ can occur between
the main verbs and their complements.
(58) a. *nu truv ki/pu lakaz la byen gran (IOC)

1p find that/for house DEF very big
b. *nu le ki/pu tu zanfan dan klas (IOC)
1p want that/for all child in class
c. *zot konsider ki/pu bann travayer la pares (IOC)
3p consider that/for PLU worker DEF lazy
Likewise, no tense marker can be inserted in their complements.
(59) a. * nu (ti) truv lakaz la ti byen gran

1p PAST find house DEF PAST very big
b. * nu (ti) le tu zanfan ti dan klas
1p PAST want all child PAST in class
c. * zot (ti) konsider bann travayer la ti pares
3p PAST consider PLU worker DEF PAST lazy
The non-finiteness of the complement in the IOC can also be read from the
surface form of the main verb, as the following examples show.
(60) a. zot finn truv li kupab

3p PERF find 3s guilty
‘They found him guilty.’
b. zot finn truve li (ti) kupab
3p PERF find 3s (PAST) guilty
‘They found he is/was guilty.’
The verb without the final vowel is an indicator that what follows is an
indicative non-finite clause. With the final vowel present, as in (60b), the
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complement gets interpreted as finite: present tense without ti and past tense Small clause
with ti. complements
in the French
This type of complement clauses also exists in the other French creoles. Some creoles
of the verbs which select a small clause complement are: ran ‘to make’, nòme
‘to appoint’, éli ‘to elect’, kite/lese ‘to let’, ole/vle ‘to want’, truve/trove/thove
‘to find’, konsidere ‘to consider’, and so on.
(61) a. sa ka ran mwẽ malad (St. L; Carrington 1984: 114)

that PRES make 1s sick
‘That makes me sick.’
b. kòwnsèl la nòme misie (St. L; Carrington 1984: 103)
council DEF name man
a guvènè sẽt lisi
DEF governor St Lucia
‘The council appointed the man governor of St. Lucia.’
c. yo éli Pyè mè (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 1246)
3p elect Peter mayor
‘They elected Peter mayor.’
d. kite Pyè fè zafè-tala (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 1252)
let Peter do thing-DEM
‘Let Peter do that thing.’
e. Jan vle Mari vini (H; Lefebvre 1998: 200)
John want Mary come
‘John wants Mary to come.’
f. met-a lésé timoun-yan jwé (G; Damoiseau 2003: 156)
teacher-DEF let child-PLU play
‘The teacher let the children play.’
g. ye te ole nouzòt la (L; Klingler 2003: 276)
3p PAST want 1p there
‘They wanted us there.’
h. . . . ye trouv mo aou mo ye (L; Klingler 2003: 283)
3p find 1s where 1s be
‘. . . they found me where I was.’
i. lese mun thavay ka thavay (K; Tobler 1983: 59)
leave people work PRES work
‘Leave people alone to get on with the work.’
j. li pa thuve-l la so gu (K; Tobler 1983: 35)
3s NEG find-3s there 3s taste
‘He didn’t find it to his taste.’
As noted earlier, one property of small clause complements is that they lack
both a complementiser and a tense-marking element. Another property that
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12 they have is that their subject has the accusative form and not the nominative
Clausal form. This is very clear in those creoles, like the IOC, for instance, which
complements
have developed an accusative/objective and a nominative/subjective form for
some of the personal pronouns. Observe the contrast in the following
examples.
(62) a. to/*twa byen malin (IOC)

2sNom/2sAcc very clever
‘You are very clever.’
b. zot konsider *to/twa byen malin (IOC)
3p consider 2sNom/2sAcc very clever
‘They consider you very clever.’
As we see, the accusative/objective form twa is possible in the subject position

of the small clause complement in (62b) but not in the subject position of the
main (finite) clause in (62a).
Not all creoles have developed these two forms. In St. Lucian, for instance,
the subject form is always mwẽ (< Fr moi ‘me’) whether it is in the subject
position of a finite clause or a non-finite complement, as in (61a). Like-
wise, the same form, mouen, first person singular, occurs in subject posi-
tion of finite clauses as well as in object position. On the other hand,
Louisiana Creole uses mo, first person singular, in the subject position of
both finite and non-finite clauses, but that is because it can be both nomi-
native and accusative (Klingler 2003: 206). Note that this is possible even
though Louisiana Creole has a distinctive accusative (strong) form mwa/
mwen ‘me’: mwa mo pe e bat, mwen (lit. me, I not want fight, me) ‘Me,
I don’t want to fight’ (Klingler 2003: 206) and li pa monsyonnen mwa sa
(lit. he not mention me that) ‘He didn’t mention that to me’. However,
this strong/objective form can also occur in subject position of fi nite
clauses, as in some of the Atlantic creoles. A clear distinction seems to
exist, however, when it comes to the second person singular: it is to ‘you’
in subject position and twa ‘you’ (informal) in object position, just as in
the IOC.
(63) a. to vide l andan bari-la (L; Klingler 2003: 210)

2s empty 3s into barrel-DEF
‘You empty it into the barrel.’
b. mo prete twa li (L; Klingler 2003: 211)
1s lend 2s 3s
‘I loaned it to you.’
The form mo (first person singular) displayed in (61h) is not therefore a

problem for the claim that the subject of a small clause has accusative form
because it can also be accusative.
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12.5 Concluding remarks Concluding
remarks
Looking at clausal complements in the French creoles, it is clear that they can be
either finite or non-finite, the choice being dependent on the semantics of the
selecting predicate (verb or adjective). Finite complements are introduced by
the complementiser ki ‘that’ in the IOC or ki/ke in the other creoles if they are
indicative and declarative. In all the creoles, this complementiser is optional. In
fact in Haitian, Lesser Antillean, St. Lucian, and Louisiana Creole, the preferred
option seems to be to omit the complementiser, except in the decreolised varieties,
where its presence is preferred. The main and subordinated clause thus appear to
be simply juxtaposed in the absence of the complementiser, but a relation of
hypotaxis is maintained between the two. The optionality of this complementiser
represents an interesting change from the obligatoriness of its French antecedent
(i.e. que ‘that’) in French. Haitian appears to be exceptional in also using the
complementiser pu/pou ‘for’ to introduce finite (subjunctive) complements, pos-
sibly historically modelled on French subjunctives introduced by pour que ‘so
that’. Finite complements which are indirect interrogatives, on the other hand, are
introduced by si ‘if/whether’ in all the creoles. Lesser Antillean creoles have an
alternative form, es, which probably stems from the French yes/no question
marker est-ce que. Non-finite complements, however, are either bare, i.e.
complementiser-less, in all the creoles or introduced by the complementiser
pu/pou, except in Haitian, where, as was pointed out, it introduces finite rather
than non-finite complements. What is clear from this survey of complementation
in the French creoles under consideration is that they have on the whole retained
not only the French predicate-taking verbs and adjectives but also the inherent
semantics of these verbs in terms of the types of complement which they select. It
does not seem unreasonable to suggest then that the acquisition of these French
verbs by non-French speakers involved acquiring not only their phonology but
also their semantics and syntax. The structural similarity is clearly striking, as far
as one can tell. Additionally, note that they have retained the complementisers
which these verbs select in French, although their use in the creoles varies particu-
larly in the case of ki (< Fr que ‘that’) and pu (< Fr pour ‘for’). As noted earlier,
the use of ki is optional across all the creoles; its French antecedent, in contrast,
is never optional. It is interesting to note in this connection that of all the func-
tional categories, the complementiser is perhaps the category which appears to
have been quite resilient to loss, particularly in comparison to other functional
categories such as tense markers, determiners, and case-marking prepositions. As
to pu, it seems to have been innovatively used in non-finite complements where
French uses the complementiser de ‘to’ and à ‘to’, and creatively as a complemen-
tiser of finite complements, as is the case in Haitian. On the other hand, all the
creoles appear to behave in the same way when it comes to the complementiser
si ‘if/whether’, which introduces interrogative complements. In this, there is no
break between French and the creoles derived from it. 381
Chapter 13
Relative clauses
13.0 Introduction
This chapter examines restrictive relative clauses in the French creoles. Fol-
lowing a brief introduction to relative clauses in English and French, it
focuses on relative clauses in the French creoles. For each of the creoles, it
considers the range of grammatical functions (subject, object, and so on)
which it relativises and the relative pronoun(s) it uses to introduce relative
clauses. It also discusses the use of resumptive pronouns inside the relative
clauses. It concludes with a discussion of non-finite relatives and free
relatives.
13.1 General
Relative clauses are a type of construction in which a clause modifies a noun

phrase or pronoun (more accurately a pro-NP) within a sentence: the man
who bought my car was John, he who comes first wins the prize. In the sen-
tence the man who bought my car was John the relative clause is who bought
my car, and it modifies the noun phrase the man, which is the subject of
bought my car and the subject of was John. Similarly, whom we hired is a
relative clause in the sentence the journalist whom we hired has resigned, and
it modifies the noun phrase the journalist, which is the object of the verb
hired in the sentence we hired the journalist and the subject of has resigned.
The relative clauses in such examples are said to be restrictive in the sense
that their primary semantic function is to restrict (delimit) the reference of
the noun phrase which they modify. Thus, in the journalist whom we hired
has resigned, the set of journalists is limited/restricted to one individual
(the one we hired). In addition to the restrictive type, there is also the non-
382 restrictive (appositive) type, e.g. the student, whose mother was here this
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morning, was arrested. In this example the relative clause whose mother was General
here this morning provides additional information without attempting to
further delimit the reference of the noun phrase it modifies. In such cases, the
relative clause simply provides information which may be interpreted as an
afterthought rather than some essential information.
As we saw earlier, both subject and object noun phrases can be modified by
a relative clause: subject in the man bought my car and object in we hired the
journalist. However, these are not the only grammatical functions which can
host a modifying relative clause. Other grammatical functions can also do
that, e.g. indirect object the girl to whom John gave the book (John gave the
book to the girl), oblique the girl to whom John was speaking (John was
speaking to the girl), genitive the girl whose mother John met (John met the
girl’s mother), and comparative the girl who John is weaker than (John is
weaker than the girl). English clearly allows a wider range of grammatical
functions which can be relativised in comparison to other languages, for
example French.
Close examination of these relative clauses shows that they are introduced
by a relative pronoun whose surface morphological form can be who, whom,
or whose. This variation in form depends on the grammatical function that
the modified noun phrase has in the modifying relative clause. Where the
noun phrase is the subject of the relative clause, as in the man [the man
bought my car] is John, then the nominative form who is selected to replace
the second occurrence of the man. However, if the modified noun phrase is
the object of a verb, as in the journalist [we hired the journalist] has resigned;
or a preposition, as in the girl [John gave the book to the girl ] and the girl
[ John was speaking to the girl]; or a comparative adjective, as in the girl
[ John is weaker than the girl], the relative pronoun has the accusative/oblique
form whom. If the modified noun phrase has a genitive/possessive role, as in
the girl [ John met the girl’s mother], the relative pronoun surfaces in its
genitive/possessive form whose. In spoken English and informal written texts,
however, who is more likely in some of the positions in which whom nor-
mally occurs, e.g. the journalist who we hired has resigned, the girl who John
is weaker than. It is also acceptable for the relative pronouns who and whom
to be replaced by the complementiser that in all these relatives: the man that
bought my car was John, the journalist that we hired has resigned, the girl
that John gave the book to, the girl that John was speaking to, and the
girl that John is weaker than. It is equally acceptable for them to be left out
of the relative clause (i.e. for them to have a zero form) except when the
modified noun phrase is subject, e.g. the journalist we hired has resigned, the
girl John gave the book to, the girl John was speaking to, and the girl John
is weaker than, but not *the man bought my car was John. Note that neither
the complementiser that nor a zero relative is possible in non-restrictive
383
13 relative clauses *the student, (that) his mother was here this morning, was
Relative clauses arrested. Beside who, whom, and that, relative clauses can also be introduced
by which, but only when the modified noun phrase is inanimate the car which
is in the garage, by where when the modified noun phrase denotes a location
the hotel where we stayed, and by why as in the reason why we stopped was
because the police had arrived.
It will be noted that in some of these examples where the modified noun
phrase is the object of a preposition, as in the girl to whom John gave the
book and the girl to whom John was speaking, it is possible to strand
the preposition, i.e. leave it inside the relative clause the girl (who) John gave
the book to and the girl (who) John was speaking to. Such constructions are
not acceptable in other languages unless a pronoun (known as a resumptive
pronoun) is placed in the relativised position inside the relative clause, so that
instead of the girl John was speaking to was Mary we get the girl John was
speaking to her was Mary. As we see, the preposition in such languages has
to be followed by its object.
Finally, note that the relative clause linearly follows the noun phrase it modi-
fies. This ordering is expected in view of the fact that English is typologically
an SVO language, and in such languages the head of a phrase tends to come
first. Note also that the modified noun phrase and the modifying relative clause
together form a constituent which can occupy a subject or object position.
Evidence that they form a single constituent comes from the fact that they can
be pronominalised (Mary read the book which was on the table and John read
it too) or passivised (the book which was on the table was read by Mary) or
clefted (it was the book which was on the table that Mary read), and so on.
13.2 Relative clauses in French
Relative clauses similar to those found in English also exist in French. There
are, however, a few differences, as we will see in due course. The range of
relative clauses which French seems to allow is illustrated here.
(1) a. L’étudiant qui est arrivé ce matin est intelligent

‘The student who arrived this morning is intelligent.’
b. L’étudiant que j’ai rencontré ce matin vient de Prague
‘The student whom I met this morning comes from Prague.’
c. La dame à qui j’ai donné la clé est partie
‘The lady to whom I gave the key has left.’
d. L’auteur à qui nous avons parlé a offert d’aider les étudiants
‘The author to whom we have spoken has offered to help the
students.’
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e. L’enfant dont vous avez rencontré la mère est malade Relative
‘The child whose mother you met is ill.’ clauses in
French
These show subject relative in (1a), direct object relative in (1b), indirect
object relative in (1c), object of preposition (or oblique) relative in (1d), and
possessor relative in (1e). Each relative clause is introduced with a relation
pronoun qui in (1a), que in (1b), qui in (1c, d) and dont in (1e). The relative
pronoun qui ‘who’ is used when the modified noun phrase is subject and
object of a preposition (oblique), que ‘whom’ when it is object, and dont
‘whose’ when it is genitive/possessive.
French has other relative pronouns, for example où ‘where’ to introduce a

relative clause modifying a noun phrase denoting location and laquelle/lequ
el/lesquelles ‘which’ to introduce a relative clause modifying a noun phrase
functioning as the object of prepositions such as sur ‘on’, dans ‘in’, parmi
‘among’, and so on inside the relative clause.
(2) a. L’endroit où habite ma mère est loin d’ ici

‘The place where my mother lives is a long way from here.’
b. La table sur laquelle j’ai mis mes livres est cassée
‘The table on which I put my books is broken.’
c. Les scientifiques parmi lesquels était Stephen Hawking sont
arrivés hier
‘The scientists among whom was Stephen Hawking arrived
yesterday.’
The relative clauses in French are in many ways similar to those in English.
In both languages they are introduced with a relative pronoun, and in both
they linearly follow the modified noun phrase, which functions as the head
of the relative clauses. Also, in both languages the surface forms of the
relative pronoun vary with the grammatical functions which the modified
noun phrase has: qui ‘who’ when it is subject, que ‘whom’ when it is
object, and so on. It will be noted that the relative pronouns qui and que
have been claimed to be complementisers, similar to English that, in rela-
tive clauses. To be more precise, the complementiser is que, and it changes
its form to qui whenever the modified noun phrase is the subject of the
relative clause.
(3) a. La fille qui/*que chante chaque matin est la soeur de Marie

‘The girl who/that sings every morning is Mary’s sister.’
b. La fille que/*qui Jean a rencontrée est chinoise
‘The girl who/whom/that John met is Chinese.’
This is thus another similarity that French and English share. They both can
use a complementiser to introduce a relative clause. 385
13 However, there are also a few differences worth noting: first, relative pro-
Relative clauses nouns in French, unlike those in English, are never optional, i.e. they can
never be omitted from the relative clause, as shown by the ungrammaticality
of the following sentences.
(4) a. * L’étudiant est arrivé ce matin est intelligent

‘The student who arrived this morning is intelligent.’
b. * L’étudiant j’ai rencontré ce matin vient de Prague
‘The student whom I met this morning comes from Prague.’
c. * La dame j’ai donnée la clé est partie
‘The lady to whom I gave the key has left.’
d. * L’auteur nous avons parlé a offert d’aider les étudiants
‘The author to whom we have spoken has offered to help the
students.’
e. * L’enfant vous avez rencontré la mère est malade
‘The child whose mother you met is ill.’
f. * L’endroit habite ma mère est loin d’ içi
‘The place where my mother lives is a long way from here.’
g. * La table j’ai mis mes livres est cassée
‘The table on which I put my books is broken.’
A further difference between French and English relative clauses lies in the
range of grammatical functions which they can relativise. French, unlike
English, does not permit the object of a comparative adjective to be relativ-
ised, as shown in the following.
(5) a. * La fille que Marie est plus forte que est sa soeur
‘The girl who Mary is stronger than is her sister.’
b. * La fille que Jean aime Marie plus que est partie
‘The girl who John loves Mary more than has left.’
French also does not generally allow relative clauses in which a preposition
is stranded. However, this restriction applies only to formal French. In the
French varieties of Northern America, relatives corresponding to (6a, b)
in standard French are acceptable (see Roberge and Rosen 1999:
153–158).
(6) a. * L’homme qui/que tu parlais avec est le professeur de Marie

‘The man who you were speaking to is Mary’s teacher.’
b. * La voiture que/laquelle ils sont partis dans était très belle
‘The car that they left in was very beautiful.’
In formal French, the preposition has to be pied-piped (i.e. moved along with
its object to the beginning of the relative clause) e.g. l’homme avec qui tu
parlais est le professeur de Marie ‘the man with whom you were speaking is
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Mary’s teacher’ and la voiture dans laquelle ils sont partis était très belle ‘the Relative
car in which they left was beautiful’. clauses in
the French
When comparing relative clauses in French and in English, it is evident that creoles
there exist certain similarities as well as certain differences. The similarities
lie mainly in their structure and the fact that they are introduced by relative
pronouns. The differences lie in the obligatory/optional presence of the rela-
tive pronouns and in the range of grammatical functions which they can rela-
tivise. Importantly, French does not allow a relative clause in which the
modified (head) noun phrase is the object of a comparative adjective. Also,
significantly, French (at least formal French) does not allow relative clauses
which contain stranded prepositions.
13.3 Relative clauses in the French creoles
Relative clauses are a type of construction which also exists in the French-based
creoles. Structurally, they are very similar to relative clauses in French and
English. They linearly follow the modified (head) noun phrase, and they may
be introduced with a relative pronoun. However, unlike the relative clauses
in French and English, those in the French creoles also have a definite marker
(article) la ‘the’ placed in their rightmost position, i.e. at the end of the rela-
tive clause within the sentence, as shown in the upcoming examples (more
on la follows). There are other differences between (1) French creoles and
French, and (2) the French creoles themselves, relating to how they form their
relative clauses. These include (a) the range of grammatical functions that
they relativise, (b) whether the presence of a relative pronoun is obligatory,
optional, or impossible, and (c) whether they allow preposition stranding.
13.3.1 Relative clauses in the IOC
The following examples illustrate relative clauses in the IOC.
(7) a. madam (ki) ti sante la nu profeser

woman REL PAST sing DEF 1p teacher
‘The woman who sang is our teacher.’
b. tifi (ki) to ti zwenn la apel Maryse
girl REL 2s PAST meet DEF call Maryse
‘The girl whom you met is called Maryse.’
c. zelev (ki) to ti prêt to liv la dan mo klas
student REL 2s PAST lend 2s book DEF in 1s class
‘The student to whom you lent your book is in my class.’
387
13 d. madam (ki) to ti pe koz ar li la malad
Relative clauses lady REL 2s PAST PROG speak with 3s DEF ill
‘The lady with whom you were talking is ill.’
e. madam (ki) to ti zwenn so garson la malad
lady REL 2s PAST meet 3s son DEF ill
‘The lady whose son you met is ill.’
f. madam (ki) to pli vie ki li la finn mor
lady REL 2s more old than 3s DEF PERF die
‘The lady who you are older than has died.’
We can see from these examples that the range of grammatical functions that
can be relativised in the IOC is similar to that found in English. In (7a) the
modified (or head) noun phrase madam la ‘the lady’ is the subject of the rela-
tive clause madam la ti sante ‘the lady sang’; in (7b) tifi la ‘the girl’, the modi-
fied noun phrase, is the object of the relative clause to ti zwenn tifi la ‘you
met the girl’; in (7c) the modified noun phrase zelev la ‘the student’ is the
indirect object of the verb in the relative clause to ti prêt zelev la to liv ‘you
lent the student your book’; in (7d) the modified noun phrase madam la ‘the
lady’ is the object of the preposition to ti pe koz ar madam la ‘you were talk-
ing to the lady’; in (7e) madam la ‘the lady’, the modified noun phrase, is a
possessor to ti zwenn madam la so garson or to ti zwenn garson madam la
‘you met the lady’s son’; and in (7f), the modified NP is the object of com-
parison to pli vie ki madam la ‘you are older than the lady’. Note that this
last type of relative clause is impossible in French.
As far as the presence of the relative pronoun is concerned, it is evident from

the examples in (7) that it is optional even when a subject NP is relativised.
In this respect, the IOC relatives are in sharp contrast with those in French,
where the relative pronoun is always obligatory regardless of what grammati-
cal function is relativised. However, in some varieties of French, e.g. Cajun
French (Guilbeau 1950: 172, cited in Papen and Rottet 1997: 106), the relative
pronoun can sometimes be left out: C’est du bois je t’ai envoyé chercher ‘It’s
wood I sent you to get’. It is also worth pointing out that Cajun French also
uses the more regular relative pronoun que ‘that’ instead of dont ‘whose’ when
genitive is relativised, as in the following: l’homme que son garçon est mort
‘the man whose son is dead’ (Guilbeau 1950: 173, cited in Papen and Rottet
1997: 107) rather than the French l’homme dont le fils est mort. It is possible
to interpret this as an attempt at simplifying the set of relative pronouns in
Cajun French, a process which may also have applied in the French creoles.
The other feature which the IOC relatives have and do not share with French
is the use of resumptive pronouns. As the examples in (8) show, oblique,
genitive, and object of comparison relatives are ungrammatical without a
resumptive pronoun inside the relative clause (cf. (7d–f)).
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(8) a. * madam (ki) to ti pe koz ar la malad Relative
lady REL 2s PAST PROG speak with DEF ill clauses in
b. * madam (ki) to ti zwenn garson la malad the French
creoles
lady REL 2s PAST meet son DEF ill
f. * madam (ki) to pli vie ki la finn mor
lady REL 2s more old than DEF PERF die
Direct and indirect object relatives, by contrast, do not require a resump-

tive pronoun, although one can be inserted, particularly when the head
(modified) noun phrase is animate, as illustrated in (9a, b). The presence
of such a pronoun in subject relatives, however, is unacceptable, as shown
in (9a).
(9) a. * madam (ki) li ti sante la ti nu profeser

woman REL 3s PAST sing DEF PAST 1p teacher
‘The woman who sang was our teacher.’
b. tifi (ki) to ti zwenn (li) la apel Maryse
girl REL 2s PAST meet 3s DEF call Maryse
‘The girl whom you met is called Maryse.’
c. zelev (ki) to ti prêt (li) to liv la dan mo klas
student REL 2s PAST lend 3s 2s book DEF in 1s class
‘The student to whom you lent your book is in my class.’
The pattern that we thus find concerning the distribution of resumptive pro-
nouns in IOC relatives is as follows: they are (a) obligatory when an oblique
NP, genitive NP, or object of comparison NP is relativised, (b) optional when
direct and indirect object NPs are relativised, and (c) impossible when a
subject NP is relativised. The obligatory presence of such a pronoun in (7d–f)
no doubt reflects the difficulty in relativising grammatical functions which
are low on Keenan and Comrie’s (1977: 90) NP accessibility hierarchy, a
trend which is attested across languages. It should be noted here that,
although resumptive pronouns are impossible in formal French, they do
occur in informal or popular French, as illustrated in the following examples
from Guiraud (1967: 85, cited in Valdman 1978: 277).
(10) a. L’homme que je suis venu avec lui

the man who 1s be come with 3s
‘The man who I came with.’
b. L’homme qu’ il est venu
the man who 3s be come
‘The man who came.’
Notice that resumptive pronouns can occur in subject relatives in popular

French, as shown in (10b), a possibility which does not exist in the IOC and
the other French creoles (see later examples).
389
13 The IOC have an alternative to the resumptive pronoun strategy when they
Relative clauses relativise oblique NPs. They can move the whole PP to the beginning of the
relative clause, as shown in (11b). Preposition stranding, which we find in
English relatives, is not possible in the IOC, as shown in (11c).
(11) a. madam (ki) to ti pe koz ar li la malad

lady REL 2s PAST PROG speak with 3s DEF ill
‘The lady who you were talking with is ill.’
b. madam ar ki to ti pe koze la malad
lady with REL 2s PAST PROG talk DEF ill
‘The lady with whom you were talking is ill.’
c. *madam (ki) to ti pe koz ar la malad
lady REL 2s PAST PROG speak with DEF ill
‘The lady who you were talking to is ill.’
In this respect, the IOC is like formal French, which also does not allow
a preposition to be stranded inside a relative clause *la dame que tu par-
lais à est malade ‘the lady who you were talking to is ill’. It is interesting
to note in this connection that preposition stranding in relatives is com-
mon in Cajun French, as shown in the following from Papen and Rottet
(1997: 107).
(12) a. le bougue que je travaille avec

‘the man that I work with’
b. la maison que vous-autes reste dedans
‘the house which you live in’
In fact, it is possible in this variety of French or popular French not only

to strand the preposition but also to leave it out completely, particularly
when it is à ‘to’ and de ‘of’, as shown in (13) from Papen and Rottet
(1997: 107). As shown in (14), the relative corresponding to (13a) is
impossible in the IOC, but that corresponding to (13b) is possible. This
may be because the French noun besoin ‘need’ has been recategorised as
a verb in the IOC.
(13) a. le femme que j’ai parlé

‘The woman that I spoke (to)’
b. la chaise qu’on a besoin
‘the chair that we (have) need (of)’
(14) a. * fam ki mo ti koze

woman REL 1s PAST speak
b. sez ki nu bizen
chair REL 1p need
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Thus, the only way to form an oblique relative in the IOC is either to use a Relative
resumptive pronoun (i.e. the resumptive pronoun strategy), as in (11a), or to clauses in
pied-pipe the whole PP as in (11b). The latter construction appears to have the French
creoles
been modelled on its French analogue: la dame à qui tu parlais est malade
‘the lady with whom you were talking is ill’, and to that extent may be viewed
as a decreolised (non-basilectal) construction.
13.3.2 Relative clauses in Haitian
Haitian relativises a similar range of grammatical functions: subject in (15a),

direct object in (15b), indirect object in (15c), oblique in (15d), and genitive
in (15e).
(15) a. mun nã ki te vini (H; Koopman 1982a: 173)

person DEF REL PAST come
ã te di nu sa
DEF PAST tell us that
‘The person who came told us that.’
b. tab la m te ašte a li bèl (H; Koopman
table DEF 1s PAST buy DEF 3p beautiful 1982a: 174)
‘The table I bought is beautiful.’
c. ti mun m te bay mãze (H; Koopman 1982a: 175)
child 1s PAST give food
a te kõtã ãpil
DEF PAST happy lot
‘The child to whom I gave food was very happy.’
d. fi m ap maše ãba (H; Koopman 1982a: 178)
girl 1s PROG walk under
lapli avè li a rele Mariz
rain with 3s DEF call Maryse
‘The girl I was walking in the rain with is called Maryse.’
e. m te wè fi m kõnè mari li a (H; Koopman
1s PAST see girl 1s know husband 3s DEF 1982a: 223)
‘I saw the girl whose husband I know.’
It is evident from these examples that Haitian does not use a relative pro-
noun to introduce its relative clauses except when a subject is relativised
(see (15a)).
This contrasts sharply with the IOC. Firstly, Haitian does not generally allow
a relative pronoun when a non-subject is relativised; the IOC do. Secondly,
Haitian requires a relative pronoun when a subject is relativised; the IOC
does not. Both languages are, however, similar in that they require a resumptive
391
13 pronoun when they relativise oblique NPs (i.e. the object of a preposition)
Relative clauses and genitive NPs. However, they are different in their use of such a pronoun
when other grammatical functions are relativised. In the IOC, but not in
Haitian, a resumptive pronoun can be used in direct and indirect object rela-
tives. However, in neither language is a resumptive pronoun used in subject
relatives. The following illustrates the restriction on the use of the resumptive
pronoun in Haitian relatives.
(16) a. * moun li pa travay p ap touché (H; DeGraff

person 3s NEG work NEG FUT pay 2007: 111)
‘People who don’t work won’t get paid.’
b. * syẽ ã m te bay li õ ku ã te mòde m
dog DEF 1s PAST give 3s a blow DEF PAST bite 1s
‘The dog that I hit (gave a blow to) bit me.’ (H; Koopman
1982a: 175)
Another similarity between these two languages is that they both have an
alternative way of relativising an oblique relative, as shown in (17). How-
ever, such a construction is rejected by native speakers of Haitian as being
non-basilectal or a French calque (see Koopman 1982a: 179). They are,
however, acceptable in the IOC, but note that the personal pronoun fol-
lowing the preposition in (17a) must be replaced with a relative pronoun
(see (17c)).
(17) a. kuto avèk li m kupe pẽ ã ... (H; Koopman

knife with 3s 1s cut bread DEF . . . 1982a: 179)
‘The knife with which I cut the bread . . .’
b. mun ak ki Mariz te pati a . . . (H; Koopman
person with who Maryse PAST go DEF . . . 1982a: 179)
‘The person with whom Maryse went . . .’
c. kuto avek ki mo ti kupe dipen la . . . (IOC)
knife with which 1s PAST cut bread DEF. . .
‘The knife with which I cut the loaf . . .’
d. dimunn avek ki Mari ti ale la . . . (IOC)
person with whom Mary PAST go DEF . . .
‘The person with whom Mary went . . .’
Koopman (1982a) also has examples of relative clauses in which a wh-

phrase occurs in the position of the relative pronoun in (17b): fi nã ki mun
mo gẽ kõfiãs . . . (lit. girl in what person I have confidence) ‘the girl in
whom I have confidence . . .’. Such examples as (17b) are clearly modelled
on the French relative la personne avec qui Maryse était partie . . . ‘the
person with whom Maryse went/left’, but there is no French construction
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which corresponds to (17a). Here it seems that the whole PP has been Relative
placed at the beginning of the relative clause, just as ak ki ‘with who’ in clauses in
(17b), but only after the resumptive pronoun has been inserted inside the the French
creoles
relative clause.
Another similarity between Haitian and the IOC concerning oblique (PP)
relatives is that neither allows the preposition to be stranded inside the rela-
tive clause. Both (18a) and (18b) are ungrammatical.
(18) a. * mun mo travay pu rele Mariz (H; Koopman 1982a: 180)

person 1s work for call Maryse
‘The person I work for is called Maryse.’
b. * dimun mo travay pu apel Mariz (IOC)
person I work for call Maryse
‘The person I work for is called Maryse.’
Haitian and the IOC thus pattern with formal French in disallowing prepo-
sition stranding in relative clauses. There is, however, a difference between
Haitian on the one hand and the IOC and French on the other. It allows a
whole relativised PP to be omitted, which is clearly impossible in the IOC
and French. It has been noted, however, that omitting the whole PP is
restricted to certain verbs. It is possible with šita ‘to sit’, for instance, but
not maše ‘to walk’.
(19) a. šèz yo šita (su li) a pa solid (H; Koopman 1982a: 177)
chair 3p sit on 3s DEF NEG strong
‘The chair that you sat on is not strong.’
b. * fi m ap maše ãba lapli (H; Koopman 1982a: 178)
girl 1s PROG walk under rain
a rele Mariz
DEF call Maryse
‘The girl I was walking in the rain with is called Maryse.’
c. * sez to pe asize pa solid (IOC)
chair 2s PROG sit NEG strong
‘The chair that you are sitting on is not strong.’
d. * La chaise tu t’ assis n’est pas solide (French)
‘The chair you are sitting on is not strong.’
Structurally, relative clauses in Haitian are similar to those in the IOC and
French. They follow the modified (head) noun phrase. Additionally, Hai-
tian relatives are also similar to the relatives in the IOC in having the defi-
nite article at the end of the relative clause. However, as examples (15a–b)
show, it is also possible in Haitian to find two occurrences of the definite
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13 article in such constructions, one immediately after the modified (head)
Relative clauses noun phrase (or at the start of the relative clause) and then at the end of
the relative clause. This is also possible in the IOC, but only in non-
restrictive (appositive) relatives. Restrictive and non-restrictive relatives
can therefore be phonologically (i.e. by intonation) and structurally
differentiated.
(20) a. liv ki to ti lir la pu Zan

book REL 2s PAST read DEF for John
‘The book which you read belongs to John.’
b. liv la, ki to ti lir la, pu Zan
book DEF REL 2s PAST read DEF for John
‘The book, which you read, belongs to John.’
In Haitian, these two types of relative can only be phonologically

distinguished.
13.3.3 Relative clauses in Martinican, Guadeloupean,

St. Lucian, and Guyanese
Looking now at Martinican/Guadeloupean, St. Lucian, and Guyanese, these

languages have relative clauses similar to those in Haitian and the IOC. The
following are illustrative: the examples in (21) are from Martinican, those in
(22) from St. Lucian, and those in (23) from Guyanese.
(21) a. man konnet an boutik ki (M; Bernabé 2003: 193)

1s know a shop REL
ka vann bèbel kréyol
PRES sell pretty jewellery
‘I know a shop which sells beautiful jewellery.’
b. mi an boutjé flè manman-mwen (M; Bernabé
be a bunch flowers mother-1s 2003: 194)
ka voyé ba ou
PRES send to 2s
‘Here’s a bunch of flowers my mother has sent you.’
c. sé fanm-la Pierre fo sé (M; Bernabé
PLU woman-DEF Peter throw PLU 1987: 83)
fig-la pati
banana-DEF leave
‘The women whom Peter threw the bananas left.’
d. Kanmi sé an moun mwen pa (M; Bernabé
Camille be a person 1s NEG 2003: 194)
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janmen pale ba i Relative
never speak to 3s clauses in
‘Camille is a person to whom I have never spoken.’ the French
creoles
e. mi boug la ou gran pasé y la (M; Bernabé
look guy DEF 2s big pass 3s DEF 1987: 83)
‘Here’s the guy that you are bigger than.’
(22) a. misie a prã tu lazã ki (St. L; Carrington

man DEF take all money REL 1984: 145)
te ã kaj la
PAST in house DEF
‘The man took all the money that was in the house.’
b. misie a prã tu lazã mwẽ te ni (St. L; Carrington
man DEF take all money 1s PAST have 1984: 146)
‘The man took all the money I had.’
(23) a. mo wè moun-an ki ka (G; Damoiseau 2003: 64)

1s see person-DEF REL PRES
travay koté Jinet
work at Ginette
‘I saw the person who works at Ginette.’
b. ròb mó ka poté-a nwè (G; Saint-Jacques-
dress 1s PROG wear-DEF black Fauquenoy 1972: 95)
‘The dress I am wearing is black.’
c. madanm-an mo ka pale to (G; Damoiseau 2003: 45)
woman-DEF 1s PRES talk 2s
a ka rété Kourou
DEF PRES live Kourou
‘The woman who I was talking to you about lives in Kourou.’
The (a) examples in (21)–(23) illustrate subject relative clauses and the
(b) examples object relative clauses. One difference between them is that the
relative pronoun ki is obligatory when the subject is relativised and impos-
sible when the object is relativised. As the other examples show, the relative
pronoun is also absent when an oblique object is relativised, as in (21c) and
(23c), and when an indirect object (21d) or object of comparison (21e) is
relativised. The use of a relative pronoun when a non-subject is relativised is
judged decreolised or as being influenced by French (Valdman 1978: 277,
Bernabé 2003: 195). It should be noted, however, the existence of the Guya-
nese example in (24a) from Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy (1972: 119), which
appears to suggest that a relative pronoun may not always be necessary when
the subject is relativised, as is the case in the IOC (see (7a)).
395
13 (24) a. yé šaradé piti mosó lasu nèg ka krošé frãsé
Relative clauses 3p tease little bit on man PRES encroach French
‘They tease a bit the man who uses French (when speaking
creole).’
b. mo konn misie donn zot rom pu bwar la (IOC)
1s know man give 3p rhum for drink DEF
‘I know the man who gives them rhum to drink.’
The overall pattern as far as the distribution of the relative pronoun is con-
cerned shows that the Atlantic creoles (Haitian, Martinican, Guadeloupe,
and St. Lucian) use ki only when a subject is relativised. In the IOC and
Guyanese, on the other hand, the relative pronoun is optional regardless of
the grammatical function which is relativised.
Considering the use of resumptive pronoun in Martinican/Guadeloupean,

here too there is strong similarity between these creoles and Haitian. Exam-
ples (21d) and (21e) show that Martinican and Guadeloupean use a resump-
tive pronoun when an oblique pronoun or an object of comparison is
relativised. This is also the pattern in the IOC. Guyanese, on the other
hand, does not appear to require such a pronoun whenever an oblique NP
is relativised, as we see in (23c). In fact the whole PP can be left out here,
as is the case with the oblique PP of certain verbs in Haitian (see (19a)). As
already noted, such a possibility does not exist in the IOC: *madam mo ti
pe koze la res laba (lit. the woman I was speaking lives there) is
ungrammatical.
The other similarity to note is in the use of the definite marker la or one of
its phonological variants. In these creoles, as in Haitian, it is possible to
find the definite marker simultaneously preceding and following the relative
clause, as in (21c, e), (22a), and (23c), or just following the relative clause,
as in (23b), or only following the modified (head) noun phrase, as in (22b)
and (23a). However, it must be obvious that where the modified (head)
noun phrase is indefinite, as in (21a, b, d), no marker of indefiniteness or
definiteness appears at the end of the relative clause. Thus, a marker of
definiteness only appears if the modified (head) noun is definite (see also
Bernabé 1983: 925). The fact that it sometimes appears twice within the
same noun phrase, once after the head noun and once after the relative
clause, suggests a simple copying rule. However, this rule may sometimes
not apply, in which case the definite article appears only after the modified
noun phrase. Another possibility is for the original (i.e. the definite deter-
miner adjacent to the head noun) to be deleted once it has been copied at
the end of the relative clause. The different possibilities are illustrated once
again in the following from Guyanese (see example (25a, b)) and Martini-
can (see example (25c, d)).
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(25) a. mo pa konnet moun-na ki téléfonnen (Damoiseau Relative
1s NEG know person-DEF REL phone 2003: 148) clauses in
‘I don’t know the person who phoned.’ the French
creoles
b. ròb mó ka poté-a nwè (Saint-Jacques-
dress 1s PROG wear-DEF black Fauquenoy 1972: 95)
‘The dress which I am wearing is black.’
c. boug-la ki ni bab blan an (Bernabé 2003: 206)
man-DEF REL have beard white DEF
‘the man who has the white beard’
d. man konnet frè-a ki (Bernabé 2003: 201)
1s know brother-DEF REL
ka travay Fodfrans lan
PRES work Fort-de-France DEF
In the IOC, the strategy for restrictive relatives appears to be obligatory

copying of the definite article followed by deletion of the original marker.
Failure to delete results in a non-restrictive relative clause. In Haitian,
Martinican, and Guadeloupean deletion of the original marker is optional,
which means relatives sometimes retain both the original and the copy. In
Guyanese, it would appear from (23a) that copying may sometimes be
optional. Evidence of copying with deletion of original definite marker
comes from examples like (26a) from the IOC, while evidence of copying
without deletion comes from (26b) from Martinican and Guadeloupe
(Bernabé 1983: 924–925).
(26) a. madam ki ti truv Pyer la nu profeser (IOC)

woman RELPAST see Peter DEF 1p teacher
‘The woman who saw Peter is our teacher.’
b. nonm la ki ka rété Fòdfwans (Gu/M)
man DEF who PRES live Fort-de-France
la toujou an rèta
DEF always late
‘The man who lives in Fort-de-France is always late.’
In such examples the second determiner, as Bernabé points out, follows a

proper noun, which is not usually followed by a definite marker, just as we
do not usually have *the John in English or *le Jean in French. This second
determiner must therefore be a copy of the first one. The difference between
(26a) and (26b) is simply that the first determiner is deleted in the former but
retained in the latter. Other cases where a copying rule appears justified are
where the second determiner follows a personal pronoun or a verb, as in the
following from the IOC. Again, the definite marker is not an element which
occurs with a personal pronoun or a verb. 397
13 (27) a. madam ki ti truv twa la nu profeser
Relative clauses woman REL PAST see 2s DEF 1p teacher
‘The woman who saw you is our teacher.’
b. madam ki ti koze la nu profeser
woman REL PAST speak DEF 1p teacher
‘The woman who spoke is our teacher.’
The rule of deletion also applies to the second determiner following copying
if the relative clause ends with a noun which has a postposed determiner, as
in the following examples, although it is sometimes possible to have both
present at the end of the clause.
(28) a. madam ki ti truv tifi la (la) nu profeser (IOC)

woman REL PAST see girl DEF DEF 1p teacher
‘The woman who saw the girl is our teacher.’
b. boug-la ki ka vann vwati-la la/loto-a a
man-DEF REL PRES sell car-DEF DEF/car-DEF DEF
‘The man who sells the car . . .’ (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 925)
c. boug-la ki ka vann vwati-la/loto-a . . . (Gu/M; Bernabé
man-DEF REL PRES sell car-DEF car-DEF 1983: 925)
‘The man who sells the car . . .’
These different strategies might be taken to show the degree of integration

of the modifying relative clause with the antecedent noun phrase which is
being relativised. The distribution of the definite marker in these relative
clauses seems to suggest that the relative clauses may perhaps be more
integrated with the head noun phrase in the IOC than in the other
creoles.
13.3.4 Relative clauses in Karipuna
Karipuna also has a relative pronoun ki, or relator, as Tobler (1983: 50) calls
it, which it uses to introduce a relative clause. From the examples in (29), it
seems that this creole uses the relative pronoun not only when a subject (29a)
but also when an object (29b) is relativised. Its presence in object relatives is
somewhat surprising given that it is absent from object relatives in the French
creoles spoken in that region.
(29) a. mo wé sa fam ki te vini pase fét isi la

1s see DEM woman REL PAST come pass holiday here DEF
‘I saw that woman who came to spend the holiday here.’
(K; Tobler 1983: 50)
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b. utxi sa ki mo te bay pu u póte pu mo? Relative
where DEM REL 1s PAST give for 2s carry for 1s clauses in
‘Where is that which I gave you to carry for me?’ the French
creoles
(K; Tobler 1983: 50)
Karipuna, according to Tobler (1983: 50), has two other ‘relators’: pu ‘for’
and kote ‘where’, as shown in the following.
(30) a. mo pa-õkór wé kaho pu mo ale lãdã (K; Tobler 1983: 50)

1s NEG-yet see car for 1s go there=in
‘I haven’t yet seen the car which I was to go in.’
b. li ale la kote ye teka bhiga (K; Tobler 1983: 50)
3s go there where 3p PAST.PROG fight
‘He went where they were fighting.’
The other creoles also use kote/kot (< Fr côté) or ola/aou/u (< Fr où) in
examples similar to (30b), but they are generally optional.
(31) a. landrwa kot zot reste bye zoli (IOC)

place REL3p live very beautiful
‘The place where they live is very beautiful.’
b. frizidè kote yo sere viãn yo a te kase (H; Koopman
fridge REL 3p keep meat PLU DEF PAST break 1982a: 176)
‘The fridge where they keep meat was broken.’
c. koté-a ola ou ka alé-a (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 934)
place-DEF REL 2s PRES go-DEF
‘The place where you go.’
d. on bout aou mon mo te res, ennave trwa koulè . . .
at end REL1s 1s PAST live, was three coloured . . .
‘At the end where I used to live there were three coloured
people (below me).’ (L; Klingler 2003: 230)
e. li t’ ape turne kote-la u li te kone kuŝe
3s PAST PROG turn place-DEF REL 3s PAST know sleep
‘He was returning to the place where he used to sleep.’
(L; Neumann 1985: 165)
As far as pu in (30a) is concerned, it is probably more appropriately anal-

ysed as an infinitival complementiser introducing a non-finite relative with
an irrealis mood. Similarly kote, kot, ola, aou, and u in (31), all translated
as ‘where’, are best analysed as wh-pronouns or wh-relatives, as suggested
in Radford (1988: 481), for words such as where, why, and so on in English
relatives. The term ‘relator’ suggested by Tobler may perhaps be a descriptively
399
13 more appropriate all-purpose term for whatever word introduces a relative
Relative clauses clause.
Structurally, Karipuna relatives are similar to those of the other creoles. The
relative clause immediately follows the modified (head) noun phrase, which,
as (29b) shows, can also be a pronoun. Note also that it is followed by the
definite marker la (see (29a)) just like the relatives in the other creoles. Also,
as (30a) shows, Karipuna uses a resumptive pronoun when the modified
(head) noun has an oblique function: the adverbial pro-form lãdã (< Fr là
‘here’ and dans ‘in’) occupies the relativised position.
13.3.5 Relative clauses in Louisiana Creole
Turning next to relative clauses in Louisiana Creole, they also display fea-
tures similar to those of relatives in the other creoles. First, the range of
grammatical functions which can be relativised in Louisiana Creole is more
or less the same as those in the other creoles: subject relative (32a) and (33a),
direct object relative (32b) and (33b), oblique/object of preposition relative
(32c) and (33c), and genitive/possessor relative (32d) and (33d). Second, the
relative clauses are introduced with the relative pronoun ki/ke (sometimes
shortened to simply k), and it is mostly optional even when the subject is rela-
tivised, as we see in (33a).
(32) a. trap BANJO-la ki la dõ kwẽ! (L: Neumann 1985: 176)

get Banjo-DEF REL here in corner
‘Take the banjo which is in the corner!’
b. la pli grõ serpõ ke mo zame wa (L: Neumann 1985: 163)
the most big serpent that 1s never see
‘the biggest serpent that I ever saw’
c. m’aŝte en BAG ki nu pø met le zafer ondõ (L: Neumann
1s buy a bag REL 1p can put the thing inside 1985: 163)
‘I bought a bag that we can put things in.’
d. piti ke/ki so momõ muri res ek mwa (L: Neumann
child REL 3s mother die live with 1s 1985: 176)
‘The child whose mother has died lives with me.’
(33) a. si mo te en boug te gen larjan (L; Klingler 2003: 226)

if 1s PAST a man PAST have money
‘if I were a guy who had money’
b. mo te gen en bwat siga boug-ye te donn mon
1s PAST have a box cigar man-PLU PAST give 1s
‘I have a box of cigars which those guys gave me.’
(L; Klingler 2003: 225)
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c. paròl la Brian te e parle pou (L; Klingler Relative
word DEF Brian PAST PROG talk about 2003: 229) clauses in
‘the thing Brian was talking about’ the French
creoles
d. mo trouve nomn-la, ki chyen-la te mòrde mo garson
1s find man DEF who dog-DEF PAST bite 1s boy
‘I found the man whose dog bit my boy.’
(L; Klingler 2003: 232)
Neumann (1985: 162) notes that the relative pronoun ki/ke is rare in non-
subject relativisation in the old texts of Louisiana Creole, and its occurrence
in modern Louisiana Creole must therefore be treated as an instance of decre-
olisation. However, it may also be attributed more directly to Cajun French,
which also allows que with non-subject relatives, although it is occasionally
optional (Papen and Rottet 1997: 106): c’est du bois je t’ai envoyé chercher
‘It’s wood I sent you to get’ (Papen and Rottet 1997: 106). This is in fact the
pattern we observed in the Atlantic creoles, possibly with the exception of
Karipuna.
Perhaps the most striking feature of relative clauses in Louisiana Creole is

the possibility of stranding a preposition inside an oblique relative clause, as
we see in (32c), (33c), and (34).
(34) a. tu le piti nu te kuri lekol avek (L: Neumann 1985: 176)

all the child 1p PAST go school with
‘All the children we went to school with.’
b. la fij ki li vini avek se sa bel (L: Neumann 1985: 164)
the girl REL3s come with be 3s girlfriend
‘The girl who he came with is his girlfriend.’
This is indeed a rare phenomenon in the French creoles, as they generally

adopt either pied-piping (i.e. the preposition and its object are both placed
clause-initially) or use a resumptive pronoun in the relativised position inside
the relative clause. It has already been noted that although preposition
stranding does not occur in standard French, it is nevertheless possible in
popular French and some varieties of French. It is in fact quite common in
Cajun French, as shown in (35), and it is possible that its occurrence in Loui-
siana Creole may be a direct influence of Cajun French.
(35) a. le bougue que je travaille avec (Papen and Rottet

the man REL 1s work with 1997: 107)
‘the man who I work with’
b. la maison que vous-autes rest dedans (Papen and Rottet
the house REL 2p live in 1997: 107)
‘the house which you live in’ 401
13 Preposition stranding is, however, disallowed in Cajun French when the prepo-
Relative clauses sition is à and de, the equivalents of grammatical or case-marking prepositions
in other languages. Where their object is relativised, they are omitted, as shown
in (36a, b).
(36) a. la femme que j’ ai parlé (Papen and Rottet 1997: 107)

the woman that 1s have speak
‘the woman that I spoke (to)’
b. la chaise qu’ on a besoin (Papen and Rottet 1997: 107)
the chair that 1p have need
‘the chair that we (have) need (for)’
An oblique relative somewhat similar to (36a) in Louisiana Creole, however,

requires a preposition, as we see in (33c). It appears that Louisiana Creole uses
preposition stranding in contexts in which Cajun French disallows it, which
by all accounts represents an interesting and unexpected development.
It is also interesting to note that the genitive relatives in this creole bear a
close similarity to those in Cajun French. Cajun French, unlike standard
French, does not have the genitive relative pronoun dont ‘whose’. Instead,
it uses ke/ki, as does Louisiana Creole. However, given that a similar pos-
sibility exists in the IOC, any suggestion that the absence of dont in Loui-
siana Creole is due to the influence of Cajun French must remain at best
tentative.
(37) a. piti ke/ke sa momõ muri res ek nu (L; Neumann

child REL 3s mother die live with 1p 1985: 176)
‘The child whose mother has died lives with us.’
b. l’ homme que son garçon est mort (CF; Papen and Rottet
the man REL 3s son be die 1997: 107)
‘the man whose son is dead’
c. madam ki so bonom finn mor la (IOC)
woman REL 3s husband ASP die DEF
‘the woman whose husband is dead’
It is possible, as was hinted earlier, that the loss of dont (as well as auquel/
laquelle/duquel/les quell(le)s ‘whom/which’ and so on) may be the result of
an attempt to simplify the set of relative pronouns in the French creoles in
the same way that the set of personal pronouns has been simplified in Cajun
French.
Structurally, the relative clauses in Louisiana Creole are similar to those in

the other creoles and French. They follow the modified (head) noun phrase.
The relative clause may display the definite marker in its clause-final position,
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as in (38), or this marker may be left immediately postposed to the modified Relative
(head) noun phrase, as in (33c, d). clauses in
the French
creoles
(38) a. mo frè ki mouri la, li kouri ave so kouzen-ye
1s brother REL die DEF 3s run with 3s cousin-PLU
‘My brother who died, he went with his cousins.’
(L; Klingler 2003: 179)
b. tou piti-ye mo gen a se pou li (L; Klingler 2003: 179)
all child-PLU 1s have DEF be for 3s
‘All the children I have are by him.’
It should be noted that Louisiana Creole has another definite marker which
is similar in form to the French definite article le(s), and it occurs in pre-
nominal position just like French le(s), especially when the noun is plural,
e.g. se le zwaso k kou monje, ye vale le grenn ‘It was the birds who went to
eat, they swallowed the seed’.
13.3.6 Relative clauses in Tayo
Like the other French creoles, Tayo has a relative pronoun in the form of ki/
ke/ka ‘that/which’, but unlike the other creoles, it also has a relative pronoun
in the form sa/sa la (possibly from French ce (la)). The relative pronoun ka/
ki is used when subject is relativised and the relative pronoun ke when object
is relativised, as shown in (39). The pronoun sa or sa la, on the other hand,
can be used when either subject or object is relativised, as shown in (40), and
appears more frequently than the others, particularly in subject relatives.
Interestingly, relative pronouns can be dropped, but this seems rather rare
(Ehrhart 1993: 152–153).
(39) a. e pi wala na kalka ka tire lja ave fisi (T; Ehrhart

and then be someone REL shoot 3s with gun 1993: 187)
‘and then there was someone who shot him with a gun’
b. pi tule kokotje-la ke nu war laba (T; Ehrhart
and all coconut trees-DEF REL 1p see there 1993: 154)
‘and all the coconut trees that we saw’
(40) a. lot ƒef-la sa la reste isi-la (T; Ehrhart 1993: 153)

other chief-DEF REL stay here-DEF
‘the other chief who lived here’
b. tule koko sa le pla:te la (T; Ehrhart 1993: 154)
all coconut REL 3p plant there
‘all the coconuts that they planted there’
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13 The pronoun ki, which is common in all the other creoles, appears more
Relative clauses frequently in cleft than relative constructions, and is probably best analysed
as a complementiser.
(41) a. se mwa ki dwa ale travaje ƒe twa (T; Ehrhart 1993: 153)
it 1s COMP must go work at 2s
‘It’s me who must go to work at your place.’
b. paske se ƒesi ki rako:te sa (T; Ehrhart 1993: 153)
because it Jesus COMP tell tha
‘Because it was Jesus who told (us) that.’
13.4 Non-finite relative clauses in the French creoles
The following is a brief discussion of non-finite relative clauses in the French

creoles. Beside allowing finite relative clauses, both English and French also
allow non-finite relative clauses. The following illustrates non-finite relatives
in English.
(42) a. The tutor to help these children has just arrived

b. The plane to take the visitors to the conference is late
The subject in such constructions consists of the head noun phrase the tutor
and the plane followed by the non-finite relative to help these children and
to take the visitors to the conference respectively, and the head noun phrase
is the subject of the verb help and take in the relative clause, but it can also
be an object in a non-finite relative clause, as in: this is a book to read very
closely. One important property of these non-finite relatives is that, unlike
their finite counterparts, they are never introduced with a relative pronoun:
*the tutor who to help these children has just arrived or *the plane which/
that to take the visitors to the conference is late. However, there is no dif-
ference structurally; the noun phrases and the non-finite relative clauses
form a single constituent.
French also has non-finite relatives, as shown in the following examples.
(43) a. Les exercices à faire sont à la page trente

‘The exercises to do are on page thirty.’
b. Un film à voir à tout prix cette année
‘a film to see at all costs this year’
c. J’ai quelque chose à vous donner
‘I have something to give you.’
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The modified noun phrase les exercices and the non-finite relative à faire in Non-finite
(43a) form a single constituent, and this is shown by the fact that the whole relative clauses
string can be replaced with a pro-form (pro-NP), as shown in the following. in the French
creoles
(44) a. Où sont les exercices à faire? b. Elles sont à la page trente
‘Where are the exercises to be done?’ ‘They are on page thirty.’
As is the case with English non-finite relatives, French non-finite relatives are
never introduced with a relative pronoun: *un film qu’à voir à tout prix cette
année ‘a film that to see at all costs this year’.
Non-finite relatives similar to those in English and French can also be found
in the French creoles, as shown in the following.
(45) a. to ena kiksoz pu bwar? (IOC)

2s have something for drink
‘Do you have anything to drink?’
b. labwason pu servi la lor latab (IOC)
drink for serve DEF on tabl
‘The drink to be served is on the table.’
c. dimunn pu repar masin-a-lave la finn vini (IOC)
person for repair washing machine DEF PERF com
‘The person to repair the washing machine has arrived.’
d. gẽ õ bay pu m fè a (H; Koopman 1982a: 175)
have one thing for 1s do DE
‘I have something to do.’
e. Piè sé an boug enmen jenn fanm (M; Bernabé 2003: 206)
Peter be a man love young woman
‘Peter is a man loving of (who loves) young women.’
f. i té gen ounlo bet pou i té poté (G; Damoiseau
3s PAST have much thing for 3s PAST carr 2003: 162)
‘She had a lot of things to carry.’
g. ka hete wun pu bay pu li (K; Tobler 1983: 50)
PRES stay one for give for 3
‘There is one left over which you can give him.’
h. mo plen ki-chò pou achte (L; Klingler 2003: 362)
1s full thing for buy
‘I have lots of things to buy.’
Notice that the modified head noun phrase has different grammatical func-
tions: object in (45a, b, d, f, g, h), subject in (45c, e).
The non-finiteness of the verbs in these examples is signalled by the presence
of the infinitive marker (or complementiser) pu, placed to their left. Note that
when placed in front of a verb, pu can be either a tense (future) or mood
405
13 (irrealis) marker, but in the examples in (45) it is neither. It simply indicates
Relative clauses the non-finiteness of the verb, just as it does when it occurs as the comple-
ments of certain verbs or adjectives.
(46) a. li prefer pu dormi laba (IOC)

3s prefer for sleep there
‘He prefers to sleep there.’
b. li pa fasil pu anbet zot (IOC)
3s NEG easy for fool 3p
‘It isn’t easy to fool them.’
c. pu ranz legliz la ti bizen mil zuvriye (IOC)
for build church DEF PAST need thousand workers
‘To build the church they needed a thousand workers.’
d. li difisil pu m fè sa (H; Koopman and Lefebvre 1982: 70)
3s difficult for 1s do that
‘It’s difficult for me to do that.’
e. si mo gen pou rètè m a rètè (L; Klingler 2003: 278)
if 1s have for stay 1s FUT stay
‘If I have to stay, I’ll stay.’
The relative pronoun in non-finite relatives such as those in (45) could be

said to be a phonologically null relative pronoun.
Concerning the structure of non-finite relatives in creoles, we take the non-

finite string to modify the noun phrase kiksoz (45a), labwason (45b), dimunn
(45c), and bay in (45d), and together they form a single constituent and, as
predicted, can stand alone.
(47) A: ki lor latab? B: labwason pu servi la

What on table drink for serve DEF
‘What’s on the table?’ ‘The drink to be served’
(48) A: kisennla ti vini? B: dimunn pu repar masin-a-lave la

who PAST come person for repair machine wash DEF
‘Who came?’ ‘The person to repair the washing
machine’
13.5 Free relatives in the French creoles
Both English and French have free relative clauses. These are clauses in which
the nominal head is absent and the relative clause modifies a non-specific
wh-relative pronoun such as who or what in English and ce que, ceux qui,
406 celui qui, and so on in French.
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(49) a. They noted who were not at the meeting Free relatives
b. We know who Mary is going to marry in the French
c. I saw who Mary was talking to creoles
(50) a. Ils ont photographié ceux qui étaient en grève

‘They photographed those who were on strike.’
b. Il mange ce que vous lui donnez
‘He eats whatever you give him.’
c. Nous avons rencontré celle qu’il aime
‘We met the one he loves.’
Notice that whereas English has a wh-relative heading the relative clause,
French has a compound consisting of a demonstrative ce/celle/celui/ceux
‘that’ and the complementiser que/qui ‘that’.
This type of relatives can also be found in the French creoles, largely mod-
elled on the French free relatives, as shown in (51).
(51) a. zot ti tir foto sa ki ti dan sa reunion la (IOC)

3p PAST pull photo that who PAST in DEM meeting DEF
‘They photographed who(ever)/those who was/were at that
meeting.’
b. sa k vlé kola (H; Valdman 1978: 207)
that who want cola
‘those who want cola’
c. ou ka sanm sa ki kagou (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 928)
2s PRES seem that who suffer
‘You seem to be like someone who is suffering.’
d. pwété mwen pa bliyé sa i di a! (M; Bernabé
IMP 1s NEG forget that 3s say DEF 2003: 75)
‘Let me not forget that which/what he said.’
e. sa bondjé bay to a sa pou to pran (G; Damoiseau
that God give 2s DEF that for 2s take 2003: 162)
‘That which/What(ever) God gives you, you have to accept.’
f. utxi sa ki mo te bay pu u póte pu mo? (K; Tobler
where that which 1s PAST give for 2s carry for 1s 1983: 50)
‘Where is that which/what I gave you to carry for me?’
g. li pran sa-ki te on la tab-la (L; Klingler
3s take that-which PAST on the table-DEF 2003: 228)
‘He took that which/what was on the table.’
All the relatives in (51) lack a head (otherwise antecedent) and begin with
the demonstrative sa, which is then followed by the relative k(i), which cor-
responds to the French ce qui/que as well as ceux/celui/celle and so on. 407
Relative clauses
Although clearly modelled on French relatives, French creole relatives appear

to have developed certain features which they do not share with their lexifier.
First, the relative pronoun, as we have seen, is absent or optional when a non-
subject is relativised. In some creoles (e.g. the IOC and Guyanese) this is even
possible when the subject is relativised. Relative pronouns in French are, how-
ever, obligatory, although they may be optional in some varieties of French
(e.g. Cajun French). Second, a feature, again not shared with French, is the
placement of the definite marker la (and its variant forms) at the end of the
relative clause. Lefebvre (1998: 83) notes, however, that relatives with post-
nominal deictic markers – là: l’homme là vient d’arriver ‘the man who just
arrived’ and un/l’homme là, qui vient d’arriver là, . . . ‘The man, who just
arrived, . . .’ occur in popular French and have been in use since the seven-
teenth century (Flûtre 1970, Hull 1975, cited in Lefebvre 1998: 83). The dis-
tribution of the definite marker in relative clauses in the French creoles suggests
a copying mechanism, which has the effect of integrating the relative clause
to the noun phrase it modifies. It also has the effect of marking off the whole
noun phrase as an independent constituent. Evidence from the IOC (Old
Mauritian Creole texts in particular, see Syea (1996)) suggests that the devel-
opment of the relative clause may have been staged. The initial stage saw the
French post-nominal reinforcing adverbial -là ‘there’ being changed into a
post-nominal marker of definiteness or specificity, and it is placed next to the
modified head noun phrase and in front of the relative clause. Then it is simul-
taneously placed in front of and after the modifying relative clause. Finally, it
is placed only after the relative clause. Its distribution reflects a gradual change
in its status from being a deictic adverbial suffix in the input (i.e. French) to
becoming a free-standing marker of definiteness/specificity in the French cre-
oles. This represents a rather unexpected development, a case of degrammati-
calisation, it seems, since it shows a shift from a bound suffix to a free particle,
a development which goes against the prediction that the grammaticalisation
cline (Meillet 1912) makes. In fact, closer scrutiny appears to reveal a kind of
a determiner cycle (or article cycle, a term proposed in Lyons 1999: 326). The
deictic suffix -là, which was used in popular French to reinforce the demon-
strative ce(s), once the Old French cest ‘this’ and cel ‘that’ collapsed into a
single form ce, derived from a free-standing locative adverb là, as in Il est là
‘he is there’. In the French creoles, the reverse process seems to have happened.
The French post-nominal deictic suffix-là developed into a free-standing
definiteness/specificity morpheme and ceased to be a deictic marker of remote-
ness (in opposition to -ci, the marker of proximity).
A third feature which creoles share with each other and with popular
French but not standard/formal French is the use of resumptive pronouns
408
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(definite personal pronouns) to fill certain syntactic positions inside a rela- Concluding
tive clause. However, it will be noted that its use varies from creole to remarks
creole, from being quite free as in the IOC to being quite restricted as in
Louisiana Creole, where it only occurs when a genitive noun phrase is rela-
tivised, as in (33d). It will also be noted that it occurs in similar contexts
in some varieties of French (e.g. Cajun French, see (37b)). This difference
between Louisiana Creole and the other creoles may be attributed to the
fact that preposition stranding is quite common in the former, as illustrated
in (34) and (52).
(52) a. se sotchèn late fose-la pase ann (L; Klingler 2003: 229)
it 3s land ditch-DEF pass through
‘It’s her land the ditch passes through.’
b. lit-la nou kouch andan bèzòn en nouvo matla (L; Klingler
bed-DEF 1p sleep in need a new mattress 2003: 229)
‘The bed we sleep in needs a new mattress.’
c. li lèm pa fanm li travay pou (L; Klingler 2003: 229)
3s love NEG woman 3s work for
‘She doesn’t like the woman she works for.’
This is very clearly an unexpected development in a French creole and, since

it is restricted to Louisiana Creole, it does not seem unreasonable to assume
that it has been influenced by Cajun French, as pointed out earlier. The use
of resumptive pronouns in relative clauses in the French creoles seems to be
in accord with Keenan and Comrie’s (1977: 90) NP accessibility hierarchy
for relativisation:
NP (subject), NP (direct & indirect object), PP (oblique), NP (genitive), NP

(comparative)
This hierarchy predicts that functions higher up the hierarchy (e.g. subject
and object) are generally easier to relativise than those lower down the hier-
archy (e.g. oblique, genitive, and comparative). The use of resumptive pro-
nouns is more likely when a noun phrase low in the hierarchy is being
relativised. The general prediction appears to be borne out in the French
creoles under consideration, although it will be noted that there is some
variation between these creoles. Some use a resumptive pronoun in direct and
indirect object relatives (e.g. the IOC); others do not. However, all the creoles
are unified in rejecting a resumptive pronoun in subject relatives.
409
Chapter 14
Questions
14.0 Introduction
This chapter examines the different types of questions in the French creoles.
It considers the inventory of wh-words in each of them and compares their
inventories to the inventory of wh-words in French. It then discusses yes/no
questions and draws attention to the strategies they use for forming this type
of questions. Next it considers direct, indirect and long wh-questions in the
different creoles and the restrictions on the presence of the complementiser
and on how far a question word can be displaced. It also considers wh-in-situ
questions, with echo and non-echo interpretation, and verificational ques-
tions. It concludes with a brief examination of questions in Tayo. Tayo, as
we will see, seems the closest to popular French in the way it forms most of
its questions.
14.1 General
Different types of questions exist in natural languages. Among those which

exist in a language like English are yes/no questions, which require answers
in either the positive yes or the negative no. Examples of these questions in
English are: Have you seen John? Do you like Mexican food? You like Mexi-
can food? Notice that in the first two examples the auxiliary verb is placed
in front of the subject, a change from its canonical position in the clause. In
the third example, however, word order is unchanged. The subject comes first
and the verb follows it, just as in a declarative sentence or statement, except
that it is accompanied with a different intonation contour, i.e. rising intona-
tion, which is what makes it a question.
A second type of questions is the information-seeking type (also referred to

410 as wh-questions), e.g. Where did you buy your coat? How much will you pay
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for this car? When can this plane take off? Who won the match? This type General
has a question word or wh-phrase in clause-initial position, and it determines
the kind of information that is requested, e.g. where (location), when (time),
who (person), why (reason), how (manner), which (choice). Some of these
wh-words sometimes combine with other words to form the question phrase,
e.g. what and which for example combine with a noun: what time? (= when?),
which person? (= who?), and which place? (= where?), and how combines
with an adverb or adjective, e.g. how often? how pretty? The following exam-
ples are illustrative: What time is the plane leaving? Which place have you
picked for your holidays? Which student did you chastise? How often do
they ring the bell? How competent are the candidates? Which student won
the prize? and so on. It will be noted that wh-questions can be direct, like
those just given, or indirect, where they are embedded inside another clause
as the complement of the main verb, e.g. I wonder where the guests will be
staying or I don’t know when they are supposed to be arriving. One other
important difference between these two types lies in the position of the aux-
iliary in relation to the subject. In direct wh-questions, the auxiliary is placed
in front of the subject when will he know? (except when the subject is a wh-
phrase), while in indirect wh-questions the auxiliary remains in its usual
place, i.e. after the subject: I wonder when he will know. A further distinction
worth noting is that between a wh-question in which the displaced wh-phrase
stays within its clause, Who will she meet in London? I don’t know who she
will meet in London, and a wh-question in which the displaced wh-phrase is
placed at the beginning of an embedding clause, Who have they said she will
meet in London? Notice that in all three constructions the wh-phrase is
interpreted as the object of the verb meet.
A third type of questions is the echo wh-phrase type. This type seeks neither
information nor a yes/no answer but simply echoes a phrase/constituent in a
previous statement or question: You invited who(m)? She went where? They
bought what? In such questions the information is already known, and the
point of using an in-situ wh-word has more to do with expressing an emotion
(for instance, how surprised or horrified one is). It may be useful here to
compare such questions with the information-seeking questions presented
earlier. Information-seeking questions, unlike echo wh-questions, involve
some change in the unmarked surface word order which results not only in
the displacement of the wh-phrase but also, especially in direct questions, of
the auxiliary verb, e.g. You will buy what? as opposed to What will you buy?,
He is meeting who at the party? as opposed to Who is he meeting at the
party?, and so on.
A fourth type of questions is the multiple wh-question type. It is so called

because there is more than one wh-phrase in the sentence: Who did you meet
when? What did you leave where? I wonder who met whom where?
411
14 A fifth type is the alternative question type, in which alternative answers are
Questions already available: Are you leaving today or tomorrow? Are you taking Syn-
tactic Theory or Advanced Syntax?
The last type one can also mention here is the tag-question type: He will suc-
ceed, won’t he? They must know she is here, mustn’t they? Note that the tag
copies the subject and the auxiliary in the clause but in reverse order: She will
succeed, won’t she? And note also the change to negative in the tag when the
statement is positive and to positive when the statement is negative, as in She
won’t succeed, will she?
14.2 Questions in French
There is a similar range of questions in French. Examples of yes/no questions

are the following: Est-ce que vous connaissez mon ami? ‘Do you know my
friend?, Voulez-vous du café? ‘Do you want some coffee?’, or Vous voulez
du café? ‘You want some coffee?’ (with rising intonation). Notice that these
three examples are not structured in the same way: the first one retains the
basic word order of a statement but places an invariant question word/
particle est-ce que at the beginning of the sentence; the second involves inver-
sion of the verb and the subject, thus distorting the normal surface word
order pattern from SVO to VSO; and the last one, like the first one, retains
the normal surface word order but, unlike the first one, does not use a question
word/particle. Instead, it relies on a distinctive (rising) intonation contour,
which differentiates it from a statement. Notice that the question phrase est-
ce que itself involves subject-verb inversion, being derived from c’est que.
Information-seeking (i.e. wh-) questions in French are in many ways similar

to those in English, although French allows a slightly wider range, as we will
see. French, like English, has a small inventory of question words, e.g. qui
‘who’ – Qui as-tu vu? ‘Who did you see?’; que ‘what’ – Que fais-tu? ‘What
are you doing?’; quoi ‘what’ – Vous faites quoi? ‘What do you do?’; quand
‘when’ – Quand est-elle partie? ‘When did she leave?’; comment ‘how’ –
Comment Jean a-t-il réparé la voiture? ‘How did John repair the car?’;
quel(s)/quelle(s) ‘which’ – Quelle personne voulez-vous rencontrer? ‘Which
person do you want to meet?’; and pourquoi ‘why’ – Pourquoi Marie est-elle
triste? ‘Why is Mary unhappy?’ Notice that all the question words, with the
exception of pourquoi, begin with the phoneme /k/, which is not surprising
given that they stem from Latin question words, e.g. quis ‘who’ and quid
‘what’. Notice also that the wh-phrases, quoi excepted, are placed clause-
initially in all these examples, and the finite auxiliary or verb is placed in front
of the subject. However, when the subject is a non-pronominal, as in Com-
ment Jean a-t-il réparé la voiture? or Pourquoi Marie est-elle triste? the
412
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normal word SVO word order pattern is maintained, although a pronoun, Questions in
which agrees with the subject in person and number – Pourquoi les enfants French
sont-ils tristes? ‘Why are the children unhappy?’ – is placed immediately after
the auxiliary or the verb.
Interestingly, in popular (informal style of) French, such questions can occur
without the pronoun: Comment Jean a réparé la voiture? ‘How did John
repair the car?’ Qui vous avez invité? Who did you invite? A qui ton père
parle? ‘To whom is your father speaking?’ The same word order surfaces
when est-ce que is used together with a question word: Qui est-ce que vous
avez vu? ‘Who did you see?’, Qu’est-ce que Marie a fait? ‘What did Mary
do?’, Quand est-ce qu’ils partent? ‘When are they leaving?’, Où est-ce que
vous avez mis mon livre? ‘Where did you put my book?’ and so on. Note that
without est-ce que, the object question word que is impossible in initial posi-
tion while still retaining the SVO word order pattern: *Que Marie a fait?
‘What did Mary do?’ or *Qu’il a mangé? ‘What did he eat?’ The alternative
here is to use inversion: Qu’a-t-il mangé? or use quoi in object position: Il a
mangé quoi? ‘What did he eat?’ and Marie a fait quoi? ‘What did Mary do?’
This last option is also available with the other question words, so that they
can occur either in sentence-initial position or in their base position inside
the sentence: Vous avez invité qui? ‘Who did you invite?’, Ton père parle à
qui? ‘To whom is your father speaking?’, Le train est arrivé quand? ‘When
did the train arrive?’, and so on, but not *Marie a fait que? or *Vous pensez
à que? ‘What are you thinking about?’ Que is therefore impossible in object
position and is only allowed in sentence-initial position if it is immediately
followed by the finite verb or auxiliary (i.e. if subject-verb inversion applies),
e.g. Que fait Marie? ‘What is Mary doing?’, Où va Marie? ‘Where is Mary
going?’, Quand part le train? ‘When does the train leave?’, but not *Que
Marie fait-elle? ‘What is Mary doing?’ or *Pourquoi part le train? ‘Why is
the train leaving?’
In addition to the direct yes/no questions and wh-questions discussed earlier,

French also allows indirect yes/no questions and wh-questions. Both are
embedded inside a main clause, and yes/no questions are introduced with the
complementiser si ‘if/whether’: Je me demande si le train est arrivé ‘I wonder
if the train has arrived’, Il ne sait pas si vous êtes capable de le faire ‘He does
not know if you are able to do it’. Wh-questions, on the other hand, are not
introduced with a complementiser, they are simply placed next to the embed-
ding verb as their complement: Je ne sais pas quand il arrivera ‘I don’t know
when he is coming’, Dites nous qui vous a telephoné ‘Tell us who phoned you’,
Je me demande où il a mis mon livre ‘I wonder where he’s put my book’, Elle
a demandé quel livre elle devrait lire ‘She asked which book she should read’.
Note the wh-phrase in indirect questions can also be introduced with ce, as
in Je ne sais plus ce qu’il veut ‘I no longer know what he wants’, Je ne sais pas
413
14 ce que Marie va faire ‘I don’t know what Mary is going to do’, Personne ne
Questions sait ce qui se passe ‘Nobody knows what is happening’. It should be clear that
in none of these indirect questions do the subject and the auxiliary or verb
undergo an inversion process. The following, for instance, are ungrammatical:
*Je me demande si est-il arrivé ‘I wonder if he has arrived’ or *Je me demande
si le train est-il arrivé ‘I wonder if the train has arrived’, *Je ne sais pas quand
viendra-t-il ‘I don’t know when he will come’, *Il m’a dit où est-il ‘He told
me where he is’, *Je ne sais pas ce que dit-il ‘I don’t know what he is saying’.
Subject and auxiliary/verb inversion is only allowed in main clause wh-questions,
which is also the case in English.
Note that French, like English, allows not only short wh-questions (i.e. ques-
tions in which the wh-phrase is placed at the beginning of the clause which
contains it), like those we have seen earlier, but also long wh-questions in
which the wh-phrase in sentence-initial position is linked to a position inside
the complement clause: Qui as-tu dit que Marie aime? ‘Who did you say that
Mary loves?’, Qu’a-t-il demandé qu’on fasse? ‘What has he asked that we
do?’, Quand pensez-vous que le train arrivera? ‘When do you think that the
train will arrive?’ In the first example qui is the object of the lower verb aime,
in the second que is the object of the lower verb fasse, and in the third quand
is an adjunct adverbial phrase modifying the lower verb arrivera. The dis-
tance between where the wh-phrase is and where it is interpreted is not
restricted – there could easily be more than two clauses separating them: Qui
penses-tu qu’il a dit que Marie aime ‘Who do you think that he said that
Mary loves’. However, this is only possible if the clause in which the wh-
phrase is interpreted or base-generated is the complement of certain verbs.
For instance, if the verb is murmurer ‘to murmur’, then such long distance
wh-questions are impossible, although not for everyone (p.c. Alain Kihm)
*Qui as-tu murmuré que Marie aime? ‘Who did you murmur that Marie
loves?’ Similarly, if the wh-phrase originates in an adjunct clause, long dis-
tance wh-questions become impossible just as in English: *Qui est-il parti
quand Marie a rencontré ‘Who did he leave when Mary met?’
Wh-questions in French, just like those in English, need not be limited to one
wh-phrase per question. It is also possible to have more than one, i.e. it is
possible to have multiple wh-questions: Qu’avez-vous dit à qui? ‘What did
you say to whom?’, Qu’as-tu donné à qui? ‘What did you give to whom?’ In
such questions one of the wh-phrases is placed clause-initially while the other
remains in-situ, but it is also possible to leave both wh-phrases in-situ and
have a multiple wh-question: Vous avez dit quoi à qui? ‘You said what to
whom?’ and Tu as donné quoi à qui? ‘You gave what to whom?’
The other type of questions that French also allows is the echo wh-in-situ
question type. Notice that this type of question is not information-seeking,
414 unlike the multiple wh-in-situ questions seen earlier. Rather, echo wh-in-situ
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questions echo a constituent in a preceding statement or question: Vous avez Questions in
vu qui hier? ‘You saw who yesterday?’ in response to J’ai vu mon oncle hier the French
‘I saw my uncle yesterday’ or Il a vu quoi dans le jardin? ‘He saw what in creoles
the garden?’ in response to Il a vu un renard dans le jardin ‘He saw a fox in the
garden’. Notice that the normal word order is retained in all these in-situ
questions, and notice also that such questions are restricted to main clauses.
The following are ill-formed *Elle a dit que les étudiants ont fait quoi ‘She
said that the students did what’ and *Ils croient que les étudiants sont allés
où. ‘They believe that the students have gone where’. However, these are
acceptable if the wh-phrases carry strong stress and a high pitch.
One further type is the alternative question type: Tu prends l’avion ou le train?
‘Are you taking the plane or the train?’ and Vous voulez du café ou du thé?
‘Do you want coffee or tea?’ The basic word order, as we see, remains
unchanged. Note that such questions can also be introduced with the question
word est-ce que as in Est-ce que tu prends l’avion ou le train? and Est-ce que
vous voulez du café ou du thé? They can also be produced by inverting the
subject and the verb: Prends-tu l’avion ou le train? ‘Are you taking the plane
or the train?’ Voulez-vous du café ou du thé? ‘Do you want coffee or tea?’
A last type of questions which French has is the verificational tag type. This
is very similar in structure to English tag questions: a statement is followed
by a verificational tag phrase: C’est beau, n’est-ce pas? ‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’
It should be noted, however, that the verb in the tag remains invariant in its
form regardless of the form of the verb in the statement: Ces enfants sont très
méchants, n’est-ce pas? It is also possible to form such questions by using
non ‘no’, oui ‘yes’, or ‘ou quoi’ in place of n’est-ce pas: c’est beau, non/oui?
(lit. it’s beautiful, no/yes?) ‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’
14.3 Questions in the French creoles
Like French and English, the French creoles allow different types of question.
These include yes/no questions, information-seeking questions (i.e. wh-questions,
both short and long), indirect wh-questions, multiple wh-questions, in-situ
wh-questions, alternative questions, and verificational tag questions. Let us
examine each of these in turn, beginning with yes/no questions.
14.3.1 Yes/no questions
Like yes/no questions in French, yes/no questions in the French creoles can
be formed by using two devices: rising intonation or a generalised question
marker eski/eské/es (< Fr est-ce que). The only exception here is Karipuna, 415
14 which seems to rely exclusively on rising intonation. The following yes/no
Questions questions illustrate the use of these two devices.
(1) a. to ti truv mo kamarad? (IOC)

2s PAST see 1s friend
‘Did you see my friend?’
b. eski to ti truv mo kamarad? (IOC)
Q 2p PAST see 1s friend
‘Did you see my friend?’
(2) a. I ké vin? (Gu; Cyrille 2000: 75)

3s IRR come
‘Will he/she come?’
b. Es i ké vin? (Gu; Cyrille 2000: 75)
Q 3s IRR come
(3) a. to ka travay? (G; Damoiseau 2003: 13)

2s PRES work
‘Do you work?’
b. Es to ka travay? (G; Damoiseau 2003: 13)
Q 2s PRES work
‘Do you work?’
(4) a. ou ké mennen mwen lanmè épi ou? (M; Bernabé 2003: 64)
2s FUT take 1s sea with 2s
b. es ou ké mennen mwen lanmè épi ou? (M; Bernabé
Q 2s FUT take 1s sea with 2s 2003: 64)
(5) so mama malad tu le ju? (K; Tobler 1983: 41)

3s mother ill every day
‘Is his mother ill everyday?’
(6) a. L ap chaché kostim-yo? (H; Valdman 1978: 254)
3s PROG look-for costume-3p
‘Is he looking for their costumes?’
b. Eské l ap chaché kostim-yo? (H; Valdman 1978: 254)
Q 3s PROG look-for costume-3p
‘Is he looking for their costumes?’
(7) a. u za truve bag la? (St. L; Carrington 1984: 159)

2s already find ring DEF
‘You have already found the ring?’
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b. ès trõk la za desan? (St. L; Carrington 1984: 149) Questions in
Q bus DEF already descend the French
‘Has the bus already gone down?’ creoles
(8) a. Ena en lòt manyè? (L; Klingler 2003: 329)

Have one other manner
‘Is there another way?’
b. Eskè to monnde to tant pu la gòm – la? (L; Klingler
Q 2s ask 2s aunt for the chewing gum-DEF 2003: 329)
‘Did you ask your aunt for the chewing gum?’
These examples show that, with the exception of Karipuna, French creoles
share with their lexifier at least two of the strategies for forming yes/no ques-
tions, namely (a) superimposing a rising intonation on a declarative state-
ment, and (b) using a form of generalised question marker eski/eskè/es, which
corresponds to the French invariable est-ce que at the beginning of a state-
ment. What none of the French creoles under consideration uses is the sub-
ject-auxiliary/verb inversion strategy of French, i.e. inversion of a tensed/
finite verbal element with the subject coupled with intonation, a common
strategy in standard/formal French. The preference in the creoles seems to be
to form yes/no questions by maintaining the normal/unmarked SVO surface
word order, which is also apparently the preferred strategy in popular French,
i.e. the least change to the structure, the better, it might be argued. It is inter-
esting to point out here the parallel with classical Latin, which also had only
two strategies for forming yes/no questions, namely rising intonation and use
of sentence-initial question particle plus rising intonation (Harris 1978: 31).
Importantly, the inversion strategy in the formation of yes/no questions in

French, which existed in Old French, was increasingly at odds with the new
SVO structure of an emerging modern French. This led to the creation of
hybrid yes/no constructions such as Jean aime-t-il le vin? ‘Does John like
wine?’ in which the non-pronominal subject remains in pre-verbal position
instead of *Aime-Jean le vin? The loss of the inversion strategy in the French
creoles appears to reflect a change which would have happened in Modern
French had it not been for the fact that such hybrid yes/no questions, which
Harris (1978: 31) refers to as fausse inversion ‘false inversion’, were in use
at a time when the rules of literary French were being codified (Harris 1978:
32). It clearly represents the next logical step, which we see in the French
creoles, and the change may have been facilitated by its absence in the input.
After all, such hybrid structures as Jean aime-t-il le vin? would have been
avoided in the input given its rather awkward structuring and given that two
rather simpler strategies (rising intonation and use of question particle) were
common particularly in popular French. Rather, surprisingly, regarding the
417
14 formation of yes/no questions in the French creoles, we see a return to the
Questions strategies which existed in classical Latin.
It is worth noting that, of these two strategies, the use of rising intonation is
clearly more common, so to pu ale? (lit. you will go?) ‘Will you go?’ rather
than eski to pu ale? Although it is not surprising that est-ce que was used in
the input (the addition of a sentence-initial question particle is, after all, much
simpler than applying a complex inversion process), it is nevertheless surpris-
ing that it has been retained in all the French creoles, with, as remarked
earlier, the possible exception of Karipuna. The French est-ce que, which
itself ironically involves inversion of subject and verb, had become by the
seventeenth and eighteenth century an invariable expression (Harris 1978:
32), placed in sentence-initial position to facilitate the maintenance of the
SVO order of modern French. Its use in the input alongside the intonation
strategy makes sense, since it much more clearly differentiates an interroga-
tive from a declarative, particularly when non-French speakers were
addressed in the early period of contact. And, as we will see, it was also used
in wh-questions: Qui est-ce que tu vas voir? ‘Who are you going to see?’
14.3.2 Wh-questions
As was noted earlier, questions which seek information in English make use
of wh-words (e.g. who, what, when, and so on). The corresponding wh-
words in French begin with /k/: qui ‘who’, que/quoi ‘what’, quand ‘when’,
comment ‘how’, except où ‘where’ and pourquoi ‘why’. Also note quel/quelle
in the company of a noun: quel homme ‘which man’, quelle maison ‘which
house’. As we will see, most of these French question words have been
retained in the French creoles.
14.3.2.1 Direct wh-questions

The question words in the French creoles also begin with a /k/ phoneme. The
IOC, for instance, have the following wh-phrases: ki ‘what’, kisennla ‘who’,
kan ‘when’, kot ‘where’, kuma(n) ‘how’, konbyen/kommyen ‘how much’,
and ki-fer ‘why’. There are also other compound question words like ki-fer
‘why’, e.g. ki-manier ‘how’, ki-kote ‘where’, and others where ki combines
with a noun: ki dimunn ‘who/which person’, ki ler ‘what time’, ki-kote
‘which place/where’, ki landrwa ‘which place’, and so on. There are also
some compounds where ki combines with a preposition, e.g. ar ki ‘with
what’, dan ki ‘in what’, par ki ‘by what’, and so on. Note that ki functions
as a complement when it combines with a preposition but as a determiner
when it combines with a noun. The IOC also has wh-phrases such as lakel
and lekel for ‘which’.
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(9) a. ki to ti donn zot? (IOC) Questions in
what 2s PAST give 3p the French
‘What did you give them?’ creoles
b. kisennla to ti truve? (IOC)
who 2s PAST see
c. kan li pu vini? (IOC)
when 3s FUT come
‘When will he come?’
d. kot to pe ale? (IOC)
where 2s PROG go
e. kuma(n) zot ti fer sa? (IOC)
how 2p PAST do that
‘How did you do that?’
f. konbyen li ti kut twa? (IOC)
how much 3s PAST cost 2s
‘How much did it cost you?’
g. (pu) ki-fer to ti ale? (IOC)
for why 2s PAST go
‘Why did you go?’
Similar question words are found in the other French creoles. Louisiana
Creole, for example, has ki-mounn ‘who(m)’, sa-ki ‘who’ or ‘what’ (both as
subject only), ki ‘what’, sa (object) ‘what’, ekan (< Cajun French équand
‘when’ (Papen and Rottet 1997: 105)), kòman ‘how’ or ‘how much’, kon-
myen ‘how much’, kòfè (< Fr quoi faire or Cajun French quo’faire /kofer/)
or pouki (< Fr pourquoi) ‘why’, and aou (< Cajun French aiou/éiou) ‘where’.
Additionally, as is the case in the IOC, Louisiana Creole has compound ques-
tion words like ki-mounn which combine ki with a noun: ki lè ‘what time’,
ki kalite ‘what kind’, ki lanne ‘which year’, ki mwa ‘which month’, or with
a preposition: dan ki ‘in what’, dan lekel ‘in which’, and so on. Also, like the
IOC, it also has a wh-word for ‘which one’, which is lekè/nekèyl.
(10) a. ki-mounn zò pey pou tchòmbo legliz-lœ? (L; Klingler

Who 2p pay to maintain church-DEF 2003: 330)
‘Whom do you pay to maintain the church?’
b. sa-ki pa konnen mon? (L; Klingler 2003: 331)
who NEG know me
‘Who doesn’t know me?’
c. sa-ki san konm sa? (L; Klingler 2003: 331)
what smell like that
‘What smells like that?’
419
14 d. mè ki so non? (L; Klingler 2003: 332)
Questions but what 3s name
‘But what’s his name?’
e. ekan t e marye? (L; Klingler 2003: 334)
when 2s PROG marry
‘When are you getting married?’
f. aou to sòr? (L; Klingler 2003: 333)
where 2s come
‘Where do you come from?’
g. kòman vou vinin isi? (L; Klingler 2003: 334)
how 2p come here
‘How did you get here?’
h. aben kòfè to mànde sa? (L; Klingler 2003: 335)
well why 2s ask that
‘Why do you ask that?’
The inventory of question words in Haitian contains similar wh-phrases,

all beginning with /k/: ki ‘who’, (ki) sa ‘what’, ki moun ‘who’, ki sa ‘who’,
(ki) koté/ki bò ‘where’ (lit. which side), ki kan/ki lé ‘when’, kouman or ki
jan ‘how’, konbyen ‘how much’, pou ki ‘why’, kiles ‘which one’. The only
question word which does not begin with /k/ is lè ‘when’. As in the IOC
and Louisiana Creole, ki seems to combine productively with different
nouns in Haitian to produce complex question words; other examples are:
ki pitit ‘which child’, ki zanmi ‘which friend’, ki zouti ‘which tool’, and
so on.
(11) a. ki sa ki dansé? (H; Valdman 1978: 257)

who that dance
‘Who danced?’
b. ki mounm ou té ouè? (H; Valdman 1978: 256)
who 2p PAST see
c. sa u fè a? (H; Koopman 1982b: 211)
what 2p do DET
‘What are you doing?’
d. ki koté ou pralé? (H; Valdman 1978: 258)
where 2p go
e. ki jan ou rélé? (H; Valdman 1978: 258)
how 2p call
‘What’s your name?’
f. ki-lès yo ou achte? (H; Lefebvre 1997: 173)
which-one PLU 2s buy
420 ‘Which ones did you buy?’
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g. pou ki sa ou pa rélé nou? (H; Valdman 1978: 258) Questions in
why 2p NEG call us the French
‘Why didn’t you call us?’ creoles
h. ki lè u ap vini (H; Koopman 1982b: 213)
when 2s PROG come
‘When are you coming?’
Turning now to Martinican and Guadeloupean, the list of question words

includes: kimoun ‘who’, ka/kabiten/kisa/sa ‘what’, ola ‘where’, kijan ‘how’,
kitan/ (a)kilè ‘when’ and pouki ‘why’, kiles ‘which’. As in the other French
creoles, ki can combine with nouns to form complex question words, such
as the following from Bernabé (2003: 66) ki bagay ‘what thing/what’, ki tan
‘what time/when’, ki manniè ‘what manner/how’, ki rezon ‘what reason/
why’, and so on. It can also combine with prepositions, as in anba ki ‘under
which’ or ba ki ‘to which’ (see Bernabé (1983, 2003), Gadelii (1997), and
Damoiseau (2012)).
(12) a. kimoun ki rivé la/a? (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 740)

Who that arrive now
‘Who came?’
b. ka zò ka fè? (Gu/M; Gadelii 1997: 290)
what 2p PROG do
c. ki kote sa zot sòti? (M; Bernabé 2003: 69)
which side 3p come
‘Where do they come from?’
d. ola ou ye? (Gu/M; Gadelii 1997: 292)
where 2p be
e. kijan zò kay chayé yo? (Gu/M; Gadelii 1997: 290)
how 2p FUT carry 3p
‘How are you going to carry them?’
f. ki mannyè Pyè rann Pòl? (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 1245)
how Peter render Paul
‘How did Peter make Paul feel?’
g. kiles ki di’ w sa? (Gu/M; Damoiseau 2012: 50)
which that tell 2s that
‘Which person told you that?’
Many of the wh-words in St. Lucian are also similar to those in Martinican
and Guadeloupean, but there are a few which are different. This list contains
(ki) sa ‘what’, (ki) kote ‘where’, putŝi ‘why’, kumã ‘how’, ki lès ‘which’, ki
mun ‘who’, and ki tã ‘when’.
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14 (13) a. ki mun ki põkõ ni mõso bwa pẽ? (St. L; Carrington
Questions who that NEG-yet get piece forest bread 1984: 156)
‘Who has not yet got a piece of bread fruit?’
b. ki sa ki rive u? (St. L: Carrington 1984: 151)
what that happen 2s
‘What is wrong with you?’
c. kumã u je, iŝ mwẽ? (St. L; Carrington 1984: 152)
how 2s be child 1s
‘How are you, my child?’
d. kote i ale, bõdie? (St. L; Carrington 1984: 159)
where 3s go Lord
‘My Lord! Where has she gone?’
e. komẽ iŝ u ni? (St. L; Carrington 1984: 159)
how many child 2s have
‘How many children do you have?’
f. ki tã mwẽ sa vini? (St. L; Carrington 1984: 159)
what time 1s may come
‘When may I come?’
g. ki lès liv i je? (St. L; Carrington 1984: 152)
which book 3s be
‘Which book is it?’
As we see, it is quite common in St. Lucian too to combine ki with something

else (e.g. a noun) to form a question word, e.g. ki mun ‘who’, ki tã ‘when’,
ki kote ‘where’, ki maniè ‘how’, and so on.
According to Tobler (1983), Karipuna has an inventory of question words

which includes: ki mun ‘who’, ki (sa) ‘what’, ki tã ‘when’, kote/utxi ‘where’,
kumã ‘how’, kõbyã ‘how many’, pu ki sa ‘why’, and ki lake(l) ‘which’.
(14) a. ki mun hive aye? (K; Tobler 1983: 43)

who come yesterday
‘Who came yesterday?’
b. ki sa li dji? (K; Tobler 1983: 42)
what that 3s say
‘What did he say?’
c. a ki lakel ki txue-l? (K; Tobler 1983: 43)
Eq what which that kill-3s
‘Which (of them) killed it?’
d. kote u k- ale? (K; Tobler 1983: 44)
where 2p PROG go
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e. ki tã zót ke ale? (K; Tobler 1983: 43) Questions in
what time 2p PRES go the French
‘When are you going?’ creoles
f. kumã li kupe-l? (K; Tobler 1983: 44)
how 3s cut 3s
‘How did he cut it?’
g. pu ki sa li ale? (K; Tobler 1983: 44)
why that 3s go
‘Why did he go?’
As with the other French creoles, Karipuna too uses the strategy of combining
a wh-word with a noun to form new complex wh-phrases productively: ki
kulo ‘what colour’, ki tã ‘when’, ki ló ‘what time’; it also allows combina-
tions of kõbyẽ and nouns, as in kõbyẽ ane ‘how many years’ and so on.
Guyanese, finally, has an inventory of wh-phrases similar to that found in

Karipuna: ki moun ‘who’, (ki) sa ‘what’, kiles/kilakel ‘which’, koté ‘where’,
ki tan ‘when’, and poukisa ‘why’.
(15) a. ki moun ki di to sa? (G; Damoiseau 2003: 63)

who that tell 2s that
‘Who told you that?’
b. ki moun to wè lopital? (G; Damoiseau 2003: 62)
who 2s see hospital
‘Who did you see at the hospital?’
c. sa/kisa to lé? (G; Damoiseau 2003: 63)
what 2s want
‘What do you want?’
d. kiles/kilakel to ka pran? (G; Damoiseau 2003: 63)
which 2s PRES take
‘Which one are you taking?’
e. koté to wè dokter-a? (G; Damoiseau 2003: 126)
where 2s see doctor-DEF
‘Where did you see the doctor?’
f. ki tan i ké vini? (G; Damoiseau 2003: 151)
what time 3s FUT come
‘When will she come?’
g. poukisa Alis pa vini lanterman? (G; Damoiseau
why Alice NEG come funeral 2003: 167)
‘Why hasn’t Alice come to the funeral?’
Considering the question words in use in the French creoles, they seem to be
mostly bi-morphemic (see Muysken and Smith 1990), the result of combining
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14 Table 14.1 Question words in the French creoles
Questions
Q-word IOC H M & Gu St. L K&G L
Who kisennla/ki ki munn ki moun ki mun kimun ki mounn/

ki moun sa ki
What ki (ki) sa ka/kabiten/ ki sa (ki) sa (sa) ki
(ki)sa
Where kot/ ki kote ki kote ola/(ki) koté (ki) kote kote aou
When kan ki tan/lé lè/kitan ki tã ki tã ekan
Why (pu) kifer pou ki (pou) ki putŝi pu ki sa kòfè
rézon pou ki sa
Which lekel/lakel ki kiles/kilakel ki lès ki lake(l) lèkel/nekèl
How kuman kijan kijan/ki kumã kumã kòman
manniè/
kouman
the wh-word ki, derived most probably from French quel/quelle as in quelle
personne ‘which person’ or quel temps ‘what weather’ rather than the wh-
word que or qui, with another word, e.g. kimoun (which person) meaning
‘who’, kikote (which side) meaning ‘where’, kiler (what time) meaning
‘when’, and so on. The ki which follows a preposition in wh-phrases such as
poukisa ‘why’, (pu) ki fer ‘why’ and dan ki ‘with what’ seems likely to have
stemmed from the French interrogative pronoun quoi ‘what’ rather that
quel(le). French creoles have, however, retained a few mono-morphemic
question words. The IOC and Louisiana both have three and Haitian, Lesser
Antillean creoles and Karipuna have two, while St. Lucian has only one, and
all these originate directly from the French mono-morphemic interrogative
pronouns qui ‘what’, quand ‘when’, où ‘where’ and comment ‘how’.
Table 14.1 summarises the inventories of wh-words in the different creoles.
As the data in the table show, only a few of the French question words appear
to have survived in their original forms, and only in some of the French cre-
oles: ki (< Fr qui ‘who’), kan (< Fr quand ‘when’), kuman/kòman (< Fr com-
ment ‘how’) and lekel/lakel (< Fr lequel/laquelle ‘which’). The other French
question words have been replaced with bi-morphemic words where the first
morpheme is ki ‘wh-’: ki + moun (< Fr monde) ‘who’, ki + kote (< Fr côté)
‘where’, ki + tan (< Fr temps) ‘when’, ki + jan (< Fr genre) ‘how’, ki + maniè
(< Fr manière) ‘how’, ki + fer (< Fr faire) ‘why’, ki + rézon (< Fr raison) ‘why’, and
ki + lake (< Fr laquelle) ‘which’. Note also that Haitian and Lesser Antillean
use ler and lè for ‘when’. In this case, it would not be unreasonable to assume
that they have dropped the ki from ki + ler/lè, meaning ‘what time’. In fact,
Lesser Antillean creoles (Martinican and Guadeloupean) have an alternative
to lè, which is ki tan. Louisiana aou and Lesser Antillean ola for ‘where’
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retain the French où ‘where’, although it seems to have fused with the prepo- Questions in
sition à ‘to’ in aou (< Fr à où) and the adverb là ‘there’ in ola (< Fr où là). the French
Note also that ki- is not always initial, as we see in pou ki in Haitian and creoles
puki in Karipuna and Guyanese for ‘why’. This difference can be attributed
directly to their sources: pou/pu ki comes from French pour quoi while (pu)
kifer/kòfè comes from (pour) quoi faire; in both cases French quoi [kwa] has
changed to ki and kò.
The use of ki ‘wh-’ in forming question words seems quite productive in
the French creoles. One can combine a large number of nouns with ki-,
as shown earlier and in the following from the IOC: ki lakaz ‘which
house’, ki loto ‘which car’, ki profeser ‘which teacher’, ki zwazo ‘which
bird’, ki lasam ‘which room’, and so on. The same is true in the other
creoles: ki zouti ‘which tool’ and ki zanmi ‘which friend’ in Haitian
(DeGraff 2007: 120). Sometimes the complex wh-phrase (ki+N) is used
instead of a mono-morphemic question word: ki ler ‘what time’ or ki zur
‘what/which day’ instead of kan ‘when’, e.g. ki ler to pu ale? ‘What time
will you go?’, or ki manier ‘what manner’ instead of kuman ‘how’: ki
manier to ti fer li? ‘How did you do it?’ The use of ki + N in the French
creoles might have been preferred for its transparency (e.g. ki kote ‘where’
instead of French où or ki moun ‘who’ instead of French qui); the wh-
words où and qui may have been less obvious in speech, or they may have
been deliberately avoided in the input in favour of the more transparent
compound question words.
The other interesting observation on the wh-questions presented is that,

unlike their counterparts in standard French, they never have their verbs or
auxiliaries in front of the subject. That is, there is no inversion of subject and
finite verb or subject and auxiliary. As was pointed out, whenever a non-
subject wh-word is placed clause-initially in standard French direct wh-
questions, it induces a change in the linear order of the finite verbal element
(verb or auxiliary) such that it precedes rather than follows the subject of the
sentence. If the verb retains its base position, i.e. it follows the subject, such
questions are judged ill-formed.
(16) a. Que fais-tu?

b. *Que tu fais?
(17) a. Quand vient-il?

‘When is he coming?’
b. *Quand il vient?
The inversion of subject and the finite verb/auxiliary in such constructions is

obligatory in standard French. In popular French, by contrast, such inversion 425
14 is not necessary, and the tendency seems to be to maintain the normal,
Questions unmarked SVO word order pattern (Harris 1978). The following are all pos-
sible in popular registers.
(18) a. Où tu vas?
where 2s go
b. Quel livre vous avez lu?
Which book 2s have read
‘Which book have you read?’
c. Quand tu arriveras?
When 2s arrive
‘When will you arrive?’
d. Pourquoi le train est en retard?
why the train be in late
‘Why is the train late?’
e. Combien de livres vous avez lu?
how many of book 2s have read
‘How many books have you read?’
In the French creoles the equivalents of the questions in (16b), (17b), and
(18) are all well-formed, while the equivalents of (16a) and (17a) are not. Put
very simply, placing a question word in clause-initial position to form direct
questions in the French creoles does not induce a change in the linear order
of subject and verb or auxiliary. In this respect there is a strong parallel
between popular French and French creoles. They both can form wh-
questions without altering their SVO word order pattern. They make use of
a much simpler strategy, i.e. place the wh-word/phrase at the beginning of a
declarative statement. To place the verb or auxiliary in a wh-question in
second position, i.e. in front of the subject, results in constructions which are
ungrammatical and unacceptable even in decreolised varieties of these
creoles.
(19) a. ki to pe fer? (IOC)

what 2s PROG do
b. * ki pe to fer?
what PROG 2s do
(20) a. ki to manze midi? (IOC)

what 2s eat noon
‘What do you eat at noon?’
b. * ki manze to midi?
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(21) a. dan ki mwa nou ye astè-la? (L; Klingler 2003: 333) Questions in
in what month 1p be now the French
‘In which month are we now?’ creoles
b. * dan ki mwa ye nou astè-la?
in what month be 1p now
(22) a. ki moun ou té oué? (H; Valdman 1978: 256)

who 2p PAST see
b. * ki moun té ou oué?
what person PAST 2s see
(23) a. koté ou yé? (M; Bernabé 2003: 69)

where 2s be
b. * koté yé ou?
where be 2s
This difference between French creoles and popular French on the one hand
and standard French on the other suggests a strong preference in the former
to adopt the unmarked SVO pattern and avoid the complicated or distorted
word order pattern which results from the application of subject-auxiliary/
verb inversion. It thus seems reasonable to see the French creoles as having
continued a process which began with the emergence of modern French and
which was, and still is, common in popular French.
A further observation is that the French creoles target the same range of
grammatical functions for wh-questioning as does French. Arguments such
as subject and object (both direct and indirect) of verb, object of preposition,
and adjuncts of various types can be questioned or extracted, as shown in
the following from the IOC:
(24) a. kisennla (ki) ti vini? (Subject)

who that PAST come
‘Who came?’
b. kisennla to ti truve laba? (Direct Object)
who 2s PAST see there
‘Who did you see there?’
c. pu kisennla to ti pret to liv? (Indirect Object)
for who 2s PAST lend 2s book
‘To whom did you lend your book?’
d. dan ki tirwar to ti gard lakle la? (Complement PP)
in which drawer 2s PAST keep key DEF
‘In which drawer did you keep the key?’
427
14 e. kan zot pu al bazaar? (Temporal Adjunct)
Questions when 2p FUT go market
‘When will you go to the market?’
f. kuman to ti uver laport la? (Manner Adjunct)
how 2s PAST open door DEF
‘How did you open the door?’
g. kot zot pe ale? (Locational Adjunct)
where 2p PROG go
h. kifer zot pe plore? (Reason Adjunct)
why 2p PROG cry
‘Why are you crying?’
A similar range of functions can also be questioned in Martinican. The fol-

lowing examples are from Bernabé (2003: 64–69).
(25) a. ki moun-sa ki di ou sa? (Subject)

who that tell 2s that
‘Who told you that?’
b. kisa ou ka fè lakay mwen? (Direct Object)
what 2s PRES do house 1s
‘What are you doing in my house?’
c. ba ki jounal ou voyé let-la? (Indirect Object)
to which newspaper 2s send letter-DEF
‘To which newspaper did you send the letter?’
d. anba ki kabann ou séré lanjan-an? (Complement PP)
under what bed 2s hide money-DEF
‘Under which bed have you hidden the money?’
e. ki tan ou ké manjé? (Temporal Adjunct)
what time 2s FUT eat
‘When will you eat?’
f. kouman ou yé jòdi-a? (Manner Adjunct)
how 2s be today-DEF
‘How are you today?’
g. ki koté ou ka rété? (Location Adjunct)
which side 2s PRES live
‘Where do you live?’
h. pou ki rézon ou ka gadé mwen konsa? (Reason
for what reason 2s PRES look 1s like this Adjunct)
‘Why do you look at me like this?’
It should be clear from these examples that not only subject and object, i.e.
arguments of verbs, but also adjuncts belonging to different semantic types
(reason, manner, and so on) can be questioned by using a wh-phrase.
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These are all examples of direct wh-questions, and before turning to indirect Questions in
wh-questions, it is useful to comment on the distribution of the complemen- the French
tiser ki ‘that’. As examples (24) and (25) show, the complementiser ki ‘that’ creoles
is absent in all these wh-questions except when the subject is questioned, as
in (24a) from the IOC and (25a) from Martinican. However, note that the
complementiser is optional in the former and obligatory in the latter. The
complementiser ki is also obligatory when the subject is questioned in some
of the other French creoles, for instance Haitian Creole (11a), Lesser Antillean
creoles (12a), and St. Lucian (13a, b). Interestingly, the pattern of its distribu-
tion in Martinican and the other Atlantic creoles is similar to that of relative
pronouns in their relative clauses. They are obligatory when the subject is
questioned or relativised and impossible when the non-subject is questioned
or relativised. In Karipuna, Louisiana Creole and the IOC, on the other hand,
this pattern is slightly different. The complementiser is optional even when
the subject is questioned. Compare (26a) with (14a) and (26b) with (10b).
(26) a. kin ki save? (K; Tobler 1983: 43)

who that know
‘Who knows?’
b. ki-moun ki gen peye mon (L; Klingler 2003: 331)
who that have pay me
‘Who will pay me?’
What we can infer from the data is that whenever the subject is questioned,
the complementiser may be present in some creoles (the IOC, Karipuna,
Louisiana) but must be present in others (Haitian, St. Lucian, Martinican,
Guadeloupean, and Guyanese).
The data from the different creoles which illustrate the difference between
subject and non-subject wh-questions with respect to whether the comple-
mentiser should be present or absent seem quite robust. The general optional-
ity of the complementiser in the French creoles is probably not surprising. It
adds nothing to the interpretation of the questions. It follows then that its
obligatoriness when the subject is questioned must be due to some structural
constraint.
The possibility of both a question word and a complementiser occurring in

direct questions in the French creoles suggests that the source may have been
those wh-questions in French in which both the wh-phrase and the invariant
(fixed) question phrase/particle est-ce que occur in sentence-initial position,
as shown in the following examples.
(27) a. Qui est-ce qui a vu Marie?

who est-ce qui has see Mary
‘Who saw Mary?’ 429
14 b. Qui est-ce que vous avez vu?
Questions who est-ce que 2s have see
c. Qu’ est-ce que vous mangez?
What est-ce que 2s eat
‘What are you eating?’
d. Où (est-ce) que Marie habite?
where est-ce que Mary live
‘Where does Mary live?’
In the IOC it is possible to find the complementiser with a question word in

direct questions, except when an inanimate object is questioned. As shown
in (28c), the complementiser is impossible when the question word is ki
‘what’. Note also that examples such as (28d–h) are more likely to be heard
from speakers of the older generations, but they are generally preferred with-
out the complementiser.
(28) a. kisennla (ki) ti fer sa? (IOC)

who that PAST do that
‘Who did that?’
b. kisennla (ki) to ti truve? (IOC)
who that 2s PAST see
c. ki (*ki) to pe fer? (IOC)
What that 2s PROG do
d. ki kote (ki) li ti ale? (IOC)
which side that 3s PAST go
‘Where/which way did he go?’
e. kan (ki) li pu returne? (IOC)
when that 3s FUT return
‘When will he come back?’
f. (pu) kifer (ki) li pa finn reste? (IOC)
for why that 3s NEG PERF stay
‘Why/For what reason didn’t he stay?’
g. kuman (ki) li ti fer sa? (IOC)
how that 3s PAST do that
‘How did he do that?’
h. konbyen (ki) li ti donn twa? (IOC)
how much that 3s PAST give 2s
‘How much did he give you?’
One reason for taking the model for these questions to be direct questions
430 such as those in (27) is that they are the only direct questions in which the
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question word que is allowed sentence-initially with no concomitant change Questions in
to the normal word order. However, the presence of est-ce que is mandatory, the French
as *Que vous mangez? ‘What are you eating?’ is impossible. The other creoles
reason is the fact that ki ‘that’ occurs alongside a question word, a combina-
tion which is ruled out in English and standard French but possible in many
other languages, e.g. Moroccan Arabic, Frisian, and Irish (Radford 1988:
501) as well as popular French (Radford 1988: 501) e.g. où que tu vas?
‘Where are you going?’ and some varieties of French, e.g. Montreal French
(Lefebvre 1982a) qui qui vient? (lit. who that come) ‘Who is coming?’ and à qui
que Pierre parle? (lit. to whom that Peter speak) ‘to whom Peter is speaking?’
and Cajun French (Papen and Rottet 1997: 105): qui-c’qui reste ici? ‘Who/
What lives here?’, qui (-c’que) t’as dit? ‘What did you say?’, and comment
(-c’que) tu l’as fait? ‘How did you do it?’ Note the optionality of the question
phrase/particle -c’que (< Fr est-ce que) in the last two examples from Cajun
French, where the question word is a non-subject, as opposed to its obliga-
toriness in the first one, where the subject is questioned. The pattern we find
in the French creoles seems similar to that found in Cajun French and popular
French, although in a few creoles, e.g. Lesser Antillean creoles and Haitian,
the complementiser is impossible when the question word is a non-subject.
As was observed earlier, the complementiser ki is obligatory in some of the

French creoles (Haitian, Lesser Antillean, among others) when subject is ques-
tioned. Note, however, that in Haitian this is only the case when the comple-
mentiser is in the main clause. In a subordinate clause, its presence is optional
(DeGraff 1994). It should also be pointed out that there is some debate as to
the status of ki in Haitian. Law (1995), for instance, argues that it is not a
complementiser but a resumptive type pronoun in subject position, whereas
Koopman (1982b) and DeGraff (1994) claim that it is a complementiser.
14.3.2.2 Indirect wh-questions

French creoles, like French, allow not only direct questions, as those seen
earlier, but also indirect questions. Indirect questions are possible with certain
verbs only, particularly those which involve wondering, asking, not knowing,
and so on. In English, verbs such as wonder, ask, know, and a few others can
select complements which are indirect questions. Similarly, French verbs such
as se demander ‘wonder’, demander ‘ask’, savoir ‘know’ and so on can be
followed by indirect questions. As will be shown, French creoles use a similar
set of verbs to express indirect questions. The following examples are
illustrative.
(29) a. mo dimann mwa ki li pe fer (IOC)

1s ask 1s what 3s PROG do
‘I wonder what he is doing.’ 431
14 b. mo’nn dimann li kot so mama ete (IOC)
Questions 1s PERF ask 3s where 3s mother be
‘I asked him where his mother is.’
c. mo pa kone kan zot pu vini (IOC)
1s NEG know when 3p FUT come
‘I don’t know when they will come.’
(30) a. m mãde u ki sa yo vin šeše (H; Koopman 1982b: 215)

1s ask 2p what 3p come look for
‘I asked you what they came for.’
b. man pa rivé di yo ki lè i té yé (M; Bernabé
1s NEG arrive tell 3p what time 3s PAST be 2003: 256)
‘I didn’t manage to tell them what time it was.’
c. i mandé kibiteb zò té ka fè (Gu/M;Gadelii 1997: 316)
1s ask what 2p PAST PROG do
‘I asked what you were doing.’
d. gasõ a pa te dzè kònèt maniè pu fè i (St. L; Carrington
boy DEF NEG PAST ever know how for do 3s 1984: 157)
‘The boy hardly knew how to do it.’
e. mo ka doumandé ki moun ki di to sa (G; Damoiseau
1s PRES ask who that tell 2s that 2003: 151)
‘I ask who told you that.’
f. to konnen ki se en negwi, en? (L; Klingler 2003: 332)
2s know what a needle en
‘You know what a needle is, don’t you?’
g. Pyé dumãde – l si li hepãtxi (K; Tobler 1983: 37)
Peter ask 3s whether 3s sorry
‘Peter asked him whether he was sorry.’
Note that the embedded indirect questions in (29) and (30) have the same
structure as their corresponding direct questions, i.e. the question word is
placed in clause-initial position and the verb or auxiliary follows the subject.
Structurally, then, there is no major difference between these indirect ques-
tions and their French counterparts. In neither, for instance, is the basic word
order altered.
(31) a. Je lui ai demandé où elle avait mis mon livre

‘I asked her where she had put my book.’
b. Dites-moi pourquoi ils ont peur de vous
‘Tell me why they are afraid of you.’
c. Je ne sais pas quand il viendra
‘I don’t know when he will come.’
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Looking at embedded wh-questions in the French creoles, it is clear that they are Questions in
in many ways similar to corresponding questions in French. They are comple- the French
ments to more or less the same set of subcategorising verbs, they both place their creoles
question word clause-initially, and they both retain the unmarked S Aux V order.
14.3.2.3 Long wh-questions

A question word which is a constituent of an embedded (subordinate) clause
can be positioned not only at the beginning of that clause, as in the indirect
questions seen earlier, but also at the beginning of the containing, i.e. the main
or embedding, clause. It is well known that such a possibility only exists with
certain subcategorising (also known as ‘bridge’) verbs (for instance with the
verb say but not murmur or quip) and, interestingly, not only in English (32)
and French (33) but also in the French creoles (see the examples listed here).
(32) a. Who will they say that Mary saw?

b. * Who did they murmur/quip that Mary saw?
(33) a. Que disent-ils que les enfants ont mangé?

‘What do they say that the children have eaten?’
b. * Que murmurent-ils que les enfants ont mangé?
‘What do they murmur that the children have eaten?’
In these examples the question words who and que occur in sentence-initial posi-
tion, i.e. at the beginning of the main clause. However, they are, by virtue of
being the object of the lower verb, interpreted in its object position, that is to say,
who and que are understood as the object of the lower verbs saw and mangé
‘eat’, respectively. The two pertinent positions (i.e. sentence-initial position and
object position of the embedded clause) are related in traditional transformational-
generative grammar (Chomsky 1957, 1965, 1981) by means of a movement
transformation, as shown in (34a) or (34b), if we assume these two positions are
linked by who in the lower clause-initial position on the assumption that a wh-
phrase always moves out of one clause at a time. Note that it is only the question
word in the initial position of the main clause that is pronounced.
(34) a. [who [will they say [that [Mary saw who]]]]

b. [who [will they say [who that [Mary saw who]]]]
Similar complex long wh-questions are possible in the French creoles, as

shown in the following examples.
(35) a. ki zot ti dir (ki) bann zanfan la finn manze? (IOC)

what 3p PAST say that PLU child DEF PERF eat
‘What did they say that the children have eaten?’ 433
14 b. ki sa Žã kwẽ Mariz te fè a? (H; Koopman 1982b: 216)
Questions what John believe Maryse PAST do DET
‘What did John think Maryse did?’
c. ki mun Žã kwẽ Mariz te di (ki) te vini ã?
who John believe Mary PAST say that PAST come DET
‘Who did John think Mary said had come?’
(H; Koopman 1982b: 216)
d. kimoun ou di (ki) ké vin? (Gu/M; Gadelii 1997: 317)
who 2p say that IRR come
‘Who did you say will come?’
e. ki kalite zafè vou te kone fe pou manje?
what kind thing 2p PAST know make for eat
‘What kinds of things did you know how to cook?’
(L; Klingler 2003: 443)
In these examples too the sentence-initial question word is interpreted in the

lower clause, as the object of the verb in (35a, b, e), or its subject as in (35c,
d). Note the optionality of the complementiser in (35d), where subject is
questioned, which contrasts with its obligatoriness in direct questions (see
(12a)). As is the case in French and English, long distance wh-questions are
impossible if the verb is a ‘non-bridge’ verb, i.e. the counterpart of English
to murmur or French murmurer ‘to murmur’.
(36) a. * ki Zan pe mirmire Mari ti fer? (IOC)

what John PROG murmur Mary PAST do
b. * ki sa Mariz šišote Zã fè? (H; Koopman 1982b: 216)
what Maryse murmur John do
Such possibility of long distance wh-questions as displayed in (35) is depen-

dent not only on the type of embedding verb but also on whether a wh-phrase
is already present at the beginning of the embedded clause. If it is, long dis-
tance wh-questions are ungrammatical, as shown in the following examples
from the IOC, Lesser Antillean creoles, and Haitian.
(37) a. * ki to ti dir kan Zan ti fer? (IOC)

what 2s PAST say when John PAST do
*‘What did you say when John did?’
b. * ki pla to kone kuman Zan kwi? (IOC)
what dish 2s know how John cook
*‘Which dish do you know how John cooks?’
c. * kisennla to pa kone si pu vini? (IOC)
Who 2s NEG know if FUT come
‘Who don’t you know whether will come?’
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d. * kimoun ou mandé kimoun (ki) kontré? (Gu/M; Gadelii Questions in
who 2s ask who that meet 1997: 318) the French
*‘Who did you ask who met?’ creoles
e. * kimoun ou pral mande lapres si te mouri? (H; DeGraff
who 2s FUT ask press if PAST die 1994: 113)
*‘Who will you ask the press if died?’
14.3.2.4 Multiple wh-questions

As we saw earlier, French allows wh-questions in which more than one
question word can be present. Of these, one occurs in clause-initial posi-
tion, and the other(s) remain(s) in-situ, as shown in the following
examples.
(38) a. Qu’a-t-il dit à qui?

‘What did he say to whom?’
b. Qu’avez-vous donné à qui?
‘What did you give to whom?
c. Elle ne sait pas qui a fait quoi
‘She doesn’t know who did what.’
Similar multiple wh-questions are also possible in the French creoles, in both
main and embedded clauses, as shown in the following from the IOC and
Haitian.
(39) a. ki li ti donn kisennla? (IOC)

what 3s PAST give who
‘What did he give to whom?’
b. kisennla ti fer ki? (IOC)
who PAST do what
‘Who did what?’
c. to rapel ki li ti donn kisennla? (IOC)
2s remember what 3s PAST give who
‘Do you remember what he gave to whom?’
d. mo dimann mwa kisenla ti fer ki (IOC)
1s ask 1s who PAST do what
‘I wonder who did what.’
e. ki moun ou kwè ki renmen ki moun?
which person 2s think COMP love which person
‘Who do you think loves whom?’
(H; DeGraff 2007: 122)
435
14 14.3.2.5 Wh-in-situ questions
Questions
In this type of questions, the question word remains inside the clause either
in an argument position (if it is the subject or object) or VP-adjoined position
(if it is an adjunct). In French, wh-in-situ questions are possible both as echo
and non-echo questions. The following examples are illustrative.
(40) a. Jean a vu qui hier?

‘John saw who yesterday?’ (echo question)
‘Who did John see yesterday?’ (non-echo question)
b. Tu as fait quoi ce matin?
‘You did what this morning?’ (echo question)
‘What did you do this morning?’ (non-echo question)
c. Ils vont où?
‘They go where?’ (echo question)
‘Where are they going?’ (non-echo question)
As the translations in (40) show, these wh-in-situ questions can be interpreted

as either echo or non-echo questions. One important observation concerning
such questions in French is that they can be embedded, but not as indirect
questions, hence the contrast between (41a) and (41b).
(41) a. Il a dit que nous devons voir qui?

‘He said that we have to see whom.’
b. * Nous nous demandons si Pierre a vu qui.
‘We wonder Peter saw who.’
They are also impossible in the context of negation, as shown in (42b), and
in a subordinate clause introduced with a wh-word, as shown in (43b). How-
ever, not all native speakers find them ungrammatical (p.c. Alain Kihm).
(42) a. Elle croit qu’il a dit quoi?

‘She thinks that he said what?’
b. * Elle croit qu’il n’a pas dit quoi?
‘She thinks that he didn’t say what?’
(43) a. Qui se demande-t-il où envoyer?

‘Who does he wonder where to send?’
b. * Il se demande où envoyer qui?
‘He wonders where to send who?’
Wh-in-situ questions are also possible in the French creoles, as shown in the
examples in (44). As can be inferred from their translations, these have a
non-echo interpretation.
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(44) a. Zan ti truv kisennla yer? (IOC) Questions in
John PAST see who yesterday the French
‘Who did John see yesterday?’ creoles
b. to ti donn kisennla to liv? (IOC)
2s PAST give who 2s book
‘Who did you give your book to?’
c. ou kwè ou renmen ki moun? (H; DeGraff 2007: 122)
2s think 2s love which person
‘Who do you think you love?’
d. man ka fè kisa atjolman? (M; Bernabé 2003: 68)
1s PRES do what now
‘What am I doing now?’
e. Eliza sé ki moun? (M; Bernabé 2003: 168)
Eliza be which person
‘Who is Eliza?’
It should be noted that in spite of such examples as (44c) in Haitian Creole,

it is by no means agreed that it allows non-echo wh-in-situ questions.
Koopman (1982b: 217), for instance, notes that sentences such as (45) are
impossible, although DeGraff (2007: 122) claims that they are possible.
(45) u te wè ki mun nã? (Koopman 1982b: 217)

2s PAST see which person DEF
‘You saw who?’
We should note however that wh-in-situ questions such as (44a, b) in the IOC
can also have an echo interpretation. Example (44a), for instance, can be an
echo response to a statement such as Zan ti truv laren yer ‘John saw the
Queen yesterday’, in which case it would translated as ‘John saw who yes-
terday?’ In fact, when the wh-in-situ phrase is an adjunct, then the sentence
in which it occurs can only have an echo interpretation.
(46) a. li ti vini kan?

3s PAST come when
‘He came when?’
b. li finn travay kuman?
3s PERF work how
‘He has worked how?’
c. zot ti ale kifer?
3p PAST go why
‘They went why?’
In contrast, similar constructions are always possible as non-echo questions

in popular French. However, note that prosody plays an important role.
437
14 (47) a. Tu l’as vu où?
Questions ‘Where did you see him?’
b. Elle arrivera quand?
‘When will she arrive?
c. Marie a telephoné à qui?
‘Who did Mary phone?’
d. Elle l’a fait comment?
‘How did she do it?’
e. Vous pensez à quoi?
‘What are you thinking about?’
f. Vous venez à la piscine pourquoi? (Corne 1999: 33)
‘Why do you come to the swimming pool?’
14.3.3 Verification tag questions
Verificational tag questions, clearly modelled on French verificational tag

questions, can be found in most of the French creoles. These are expressions
such as the negative pa vre? (< Fr (c’est) pas vrai?), the negative adverb non/
nõ/en/on/õ/an? (< Fr non? ‘no’), the positive adverb wi? (< Fr oui? ‘yes’) as
well as the question particle (y)épa? (< Fr n’est-ce pas? ‘isn’t it?’).
(48) a. nu ti truv so kamarad, pa vre? (IOC)

1p PAST see 3s friend NEG true
‘We saw his friend, isn’t that true?’
b. to ti truv so kamarad, wi? (IOC)
2s PAST see 3s friend yes
‘You saw his friend, didn’t you?’
c. zot al lekol, non? (IOC)
3p go school no
‘They go to school, don’t they?
d. i ké vin on? (Gu; Cyrille 2000: 75)
3s IRR come on
e. lapòs-la ja fèmen, an? (Gu/M; Bernabé
post-office-DEF already shut, an 1983: 417)
‘Is the post-office already shut?’
f. i vin/vini, sa pa vre? (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 433)
3s come that NEG true
‘He came, isn’t that so?’
g. ou maré bèf-la, yépa/épa? (M; Bernabé 1983: 431)
2s tie ox-DEF isn’t it
‘You’ve tied the ox, haven’t you?’
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h. se iŝ u, õ? (St. L; Carrington 1984: 162) A note on
it child 2s no questions
‘It’s not your child, is it?’ in Tayo
i. u kònèt misie a, õ? (St. L; Carrington 1984: 162)
2s know man DEF no
‘You don’t know the gentleman, do you?’
j. u ke fè bét mãje, nõ? (K; Tobler 1983: 41)
2p FUT make beast eat no
‘You will make food for the beast, won’t you?
k. chwini gen plis dan ke la œs, en? (L: Klingler
jack harrow have more teeth than a harrow, en 2003: 329)
‘A jack harrow has more teeth than a harrow, doesn’t it?’
These tags clearly stem from their French counterparts, but it is interesting
that only the Lesser Antillean creoles (Martinican and Guadeloupean in
particular) have retained a form of n’est-ce pas? ‘isn’t it?’, which is no doubt
more common in formal registers than in informal ones. But even within
these languages, its use is limited to the creole spoken in the area of Basse-
Terre (Bernabé 1983: 431). The other creoles have selected tags which are
common in popular/informal registers.
14.4 A note on questions in Tayo
Tayo, just like the other French creoles, allows a similar range of questions.
The list of question words include: (s)e ki ‘who’, ki ‘what’, (se) kwa ‘what’,
u ‘where’, ka ‘when’, koma ‘how’, pukwa ‘why’, and kobja ‘how many’. The
following examples illustrate yes/no question (49), wh-questions (50), and
wh-in-situ questions (51).
(49) a. ta pa somej? (T; Ehrhart 1993: 196)

2s NEG sleep
‘Can’t you sleep?’
b. napa peti bude? (T; Ehrhart 1993: 195)
NEG small child
‘Don’t you have children?’
(50) a. se ki frer pu ta? (T; Ehrhart 1993: 196)

who brother for 2s
‘Who is your brother?’
b. ki ki le di? (T; Ehrhart 1993: 196)
who that say that
‘Who said that?’
439
14 c. se ki ta war lot ƒur? (T; Ehrhart 1993: 197)
Questions who 2s see other day
‘Who did you see the other day?’
d. se kwa sola atra de fe? (T; Ehrhart 1993: 197)
what 3p PROG to do
‘What are they doing?’
e. ka ta va ra:tre? (T; Ehrhart 1993: 198)
when 2s FUT return
‘When will you get back?’
f. . . . koma ta aple lesot? (T; Ehrhart 1993: 198)
. . . how 2s call others
‘. . . what do you call the others?’
g. aukea, Marika, pukwa ta fe kom sa? (T; Ehrhart 1993: 198)
hey Marica why 2s do like that
‘Hey, Marica, why did you behave like that?’
(51) a. ta war ki lot ƒur? (T; Ehrhart 1993: 197)

2s see who other day
‘Who did you see the other day?’
b. taler, ta fe kwa? (T; Ehrhart 1993: 197)
earlier 2s do what
‘What did you do earlier?’
c. ta fe lesiv ka? (T; Ehrhart 1993: 198)
2s do washing up when
‘When are you doing the washing up?’
d. ta arive koma? (T; Ehrhart 1993: 198)
2s arrive how
‘How did you arrive?’
e. na kobja de betaj mana? (T; Ehrhart 1993: 197)
be how many of livestock now
‘How many cattle are there now?’
f. taler ta ale u? (T; Ehrhart 1993: 198)
earlier 2s go where
‘Where did you go earlier?’
g. . . . o nete bja arive pukwa? (T; Ehrhart 1993: 198)
. . . 1p be well arrive why
‘Why did we arrive safely?
Notice that Tayo, in contrast to the other French creoles, appears to use
wh-in-situ questions in the same way that informal French uses them. A
wider range of grammatical functions can be questioned in this manner
in Tayo than in other French creoles. These are all non-echo wh-in-situ
questions. This suggests a strong infl uence of popular French on the
440 language.
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However, when it comes to the wh-questions in (50), Tayo patterns with the Concluding
other French creoles rather than French in retaining the basic word order of remarks
declarative sentences. That is to say, the normal SV order remains unchanged,
as neither the auxiliary nor the verb is placed in front of the subject, in sharp
contrast to the VS word order pattern in French wh-questions.
As far as yes/no questions are concerned, Tayo appears to use a single strategy:
rising intonation superimposed on a declarative clause, just as in popular
French: t’as mangé? ‘Have you eaten?’ The other creoles, as we saw in (1)–(8),
have an alternative way of constructing yes/no questions, which is to use the
fixed phrase derived from French est-ce que: est-ce que tu as mangé? ‘Have
you eaten?’ Tayo does not appear to form yes/no questions in this way.
Tayo also has indirect wh-questions, which can be introduced by si ‘if’, as in

(52a), or a wh-phrase, as in (52b, c). The wh-phrase can also be left inside the
indirect question, as in (52d), in which case Tayo allows indirect wh-in-situ
questions.
(52) a. ma pa kone si la vja jer (T; Ehrhart 1993: 199)

1s NEG know if 3s come yesterday
‘I don’t know if she came yesterday.’
b. ma pa kone pukwa sola fe lagrev (T; Ehrhart
1s NEG know why 3p make strike 1993: 199)
‘I don’t know why they are on strike.’
c. nu kone pa se ki ki tape lja (T; Ehrhart 1993: 199)
1p know NEG who that hit 3s
‘We don’t know who hit him.’
d. ƒe pa le ale u st er-si (T; Ehrhart 1993: 199)
know NEG 3s go where this time
‘(I) don’t know where he’s gone at this time.’
Finally, Tayo may also have verificational tag questions, but these, Ehrhart
(1993: 196) notes, are rare. If they do occur, they tend to have the negative
particle tag no (< Fr non ‘not’) or hein in clause-final position, especially
when a positive answer is expected.
This chapter has surveyed the different types of question which exist in the
French creoles under consideration including yes/no questions, information-
seeking (wh-) questions of the direct and indirect type, multiple wh-questions,
wh-in-situ questions, echo-questions and verificational tag questions. These appear
to have been modelled on their French counterparts, particularly on those found in
441
14 popular French, with expected structural similarities but also with some
Questions interesting differences. Clearly the most significant difference between them
is the absence of subject-verb and subject-auxiliary inversion in main or
independent clauses, which leads us to conclude that there was a strong need
to maintain the normal or unmarked SVO word order pattern in the input.
In fact, what we see in the French creoles is a continuation of the change in
word order pattern which had already taken place in sixteenth and seven-
teenth century French. There was a constant attempt to move to a SVO pat-
tern in questions, although, as Harris (1978: 31) points out, the codification
of the grammar of the language made such changes difficult. The other
important difference lies in the creation of bi-morphemic question words to
replace the mono-morphemic question words of French, although a few of
these mono-morphemic words have survived and co-exist alongside their
newly created bi-morphemic counterparts.
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Chapter 15
Cleft, topic, and dislocated

constructions
15.0 Introduction
This chapter deals with three constructions in the French creoles in which a
constituent is fronted, i.e. placed at the beginning of a sentence. These are
cleft, topic, and left-dislocated constructions. It begins with a brief discussion
of these constructions in English and French and then considers them in the
French creoles. It first surveys the cleft constructions and considers the simi-
larities and differences in their structure. Then it turns to topic constructions;
an interesting finding here is that some of the French creoles, just like French,
do not allow this type of construction. The other creoles do, and inevitably
the question of this difference presents itself. The chapter next considers
dislocated constructions, both left and right, and examines the similarities
and differences between the creoles. In particular, it focuses on the structure
of these constructions and on the question of whether they allow multiple
dislocated constituents.
15.1 General
Cleft, topic, and left dislocation constructions have one thing in common;
they give prominence to a constituent of a clause by placing it in a position
which takes scope over all the other constituents inside that clause. The con-
stituent chocolates in the sentence Children really love chocolates can be
clefted It’s chocolates that children really love, topicalised Chocolates chil-
dren really love, and left-dislocated Chocolates, children really love them. In
all three constructions, the highlighted constituent chocolates is interpreted
as the thematic object of the verb love even though it occurs at the beginning
of the clause. Generally, the clefted, topicalised, or left-dislocated element is
given thematic prominence and is drawn to the hearer’s attention. 443
15 Clefting in English is a kind of construction which consists of several key
Cleft, topic, elements, namely an expletive pronoun it followed by the copular verb be,
and dislocated
which in turn is followed by the clefted or highlighted constituent. This is
constructions
then followed by a clause which is introduced by a relative pronoun or com-
plementiser: It was John who saw the accident; It was the accident that John
saw; It was the accident John saw. The complementiser, as we see in the last
example, is optional. The relative pronoun, however, is obligatory when
subject is clefted, except in some varieties of English: It was John saw the
accident, in which case we could say that the clause is introduced by a zero
relative. The clefted or highlighted constituent is an NP, John or the accident
in the examples presented earlier, but it is by no means restricted to nominal
expressions. It can also be a PP, e.g. with John as in It was with John that
Mary was playing; an adverb of time, e.g. yesterday as in It was yesterday
that John saw the accident; or a clausal adjunct, e.g. because it was raining
as in It was because it was raining that John stayed at home. There are,
however, constituents of certain categories which cannot be clefted in this
way, e.g. an AP like very clever as in *It was very clever that Mary was, an
adverb of manner like very slowly *It was very slowly that he was walking,
or a VP like do his homework *It is do his homework that John should. It
should also be noted that there are certain nominal expressions which also
cannot be clefted, e.g. predicative nominal complements like a teacher in *It
was a teacher that John was or an indirect object like Mary in a double object
construction like *It was Mary that I bought a car, although this last con-
struction may be acceptable to some speakers.
In terms of their structure, cleft constructions consist of two clauses. The

first is a superordinate clause which contains the clefted or highlighted ele-
ment as a complement of the verb to be and the expletive subject it (It is/
was XP), and the second is a subordinate relative-type clause introduced by
a wh-word (e.g. who), a complementiser (e.g. that), or a zero relative ele-
ment Ø. The subordinate clause, at the surface, looks strikingly like a
restrictive relative clause. We can see this in the ambiguity of an example
such as It was the car that John drove, which structurally can be represented
either as a cleft [[ It was the car ] [ that John drove ]] or a relative clause
[ It was [ the car that John drove ]]. However, there is a difference, in that a
clefted element can be a proper noun (It was John who left early), whereas
the head of a restrictive relative clause cannot *John who left early was my
friend. It is also the case that a clefted element is a constituent independent
of the subordinate clause which follows it, while the head in a restrictive
relative is not. As expected, the clefted element can be fronted independently
of the subordinate clause: The man it was who left early. A further difference
to note is that the clefted element, unlike the head of a relative, can belong
to categories other than a noun phrase, e.g. PP, as we saw earlier. Therefore,
444 while there is some overlap between the subordinate clause in a cleft
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construction and the relative clause in a restrictive relative construction, Cleft, topic,
there are also clear differences between them. and left-
dislocated
The structure of topic constructions in English is in many ways similar to the constructions
structure of cleft constructions. They both contain an incomplete clause in in French
the sense that they have a missing argument which is linked to the clefted and
topic element, thereby making the clause complete in terms of the argument
structure of its verb. They are, however, different in that the former has a
complementiser or relative pronoun to link the clefted element and the clause,
but the latter does not. The two key elements, i.e. the topic phrase and the
clause which follows it, are simply juxtaposed.
The structure of constructions involving the left dislocation of a phrase is similar

to that of topic constructions. The left-dislocated element and the clause are
juxtaposed. In other words, there is no linker (i.e. complementiser or relative
pronoun) linking the left-dislocated phrase and the clause from which the phrase
has been dislocated. However, there is an important difference between them and
between left-dislocated constructions and clefting constructions. While the clause
in topic and cleft constructions is incomplete, the clause in left-dislocated con-
structions is complete and syntactically independent, as it contains a pronoun
which shares the referential properties of the left-dislocated phrase: John, Mary
likes him; Mary, John likes her; and John and Bill, Mary likes them.
15.2 Cleft, topic, and left-dislocated

constructions in French
Cleft constructions in French, like those in English, are bi-clausal, with a

superordinate clause which contains an expletive subject pronoun ce, fol-
lowed by the verb être ‘to be’, which in turn is followed by the clefted or
highlighted element. This is then followed by a subordinate restrictive relative-
like clause and is introduced by an obligatory complementiser, qui when the
clefted element is subject of the subordinate clause and que when it has a
function other than subject. The following examples are illustrative:
(1) a. C’est le facteur que j’ai rencontré ce matin

‘It’s the postman that I met this morning.’
b. C’est mon ami qui conduit cette voiture
‘It’s my friend who drives that car.’
c. Ce sont mes amis que je vais visiter
‘It’s my friends that I’m going to visit.’
In these examples too the subordinate clause is incomplete, in the sense

that it lacks an object, as in (1a) and (1c), and a subject, as in (1b). These 445
15 missing arguments from the subordinate clause are nevertheless under-
Cleft, topic, stood to be filled with the clefted or highlighted elements, which have been
and dislocated
placed in a focus position for emphasis or contrast. Here also there is a
constructions
parallel with restrictive relative clauses; the missing argument in a restric-
tive relative clause is filled with the head noun to which the relative clause
is subordinated. As expected, a sentence like (1a) lends itself to two differ-
ent interpretations, one cleft and the other restrictive relative. However, as
noted earlier, the similarity is only partial. For one thing, constituents
other than NPs can be clefted, and this is also the case in French: a PP (2a),
temporal adverb (2b), and clausal adjunct (2c) can be clefted, but not an
AP (2d) or a VP (2e). By contrast, the head of a restrictive relative clause
is strictly nominal.
(2) a. C’est pendant la récréation que l’accident est arrivé

‘It’s during the break that the accident happened.’
b. C’est demain que nous visiterons La Tour Eiffel
‘It’s tomorrow that we will visit the Eiffel Tower.’
c. C’est parce qu’il pleuvait qu’ils ne sont pas allés au match
‘It’s because it was raining that they didn’t go to see the match.’
d. * C’est très aimables que ses parents sont
‘It’s very nice that his parents are.’
e. * C’est nettoyer la cuisine que Marie voulait
‘It’s cleaning the kitchen that Mary wanted.’
There are several other important properties, of a formal nature, which are
worth noting: first, the complementiser, for instance, alternates between qui
and que, the form qui only surfacing when the subject is clefted; second, the
complementiser is obligatory *C’est le facteur j’ai recontré ce matin; third,
both the verb in the superordinate clause and the verb in the subordinate
clause display simultaneous agreement with the clefted or highlighted ele-
ment, as shown in (3).
(3) a. C’est l’ami de Marie qui arrive demain

‘It’s Mary’s friend who is coming tomorrow.’
b. Ce sont les amis de Marie qui arrivent demain
‘It’s Mary’s friends who are coming tomorrow.’
It will be noted, however, that agreement with the higher verb, as shown in
(3b), is required only in formal and written French – compare C’est les amis
de Marie qui arrivent demain, which is acceptable in informal registers. It is
possible that c’est has actually become a frozen or fossilised form so that not
only number agreement, as we observe in (3b), but also tense marking is lost.
This is evident in the following examples, where there is no tense matching
446 between the lower and higher verb. It is instructive to compare it with its
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English translation, where the two verbs appear to require the same tense Cleft, topic,
marking. and left
dislocated
constructions
(4) a. C’est Hollande qui a été elu Président
in the French
b. It was/?is Hollande who was elected creoles
To some extent, French c’est is more like English it is, in which the copula
verb agrees in number and person with the expletive subject pronoun to its
left and not with the clefted element to its right. Finally, it is worth recalling
that the clefted or highlighted element in French cleft constructions, just like
that in English cleft constructions, occupies a thematically or functionally
prominent position in the sentence, and it bears tonic accent or contrastive
stress.
Turning to topic constructions, French does not appear to allow them *Sa
mère, Marie adore ‘Her mother, Mary adores’, although constructions in
which an indirect object is placed in clause-initial position look very much
like topic constructions, e.g. A sa mère, Marie a vendu sa voiture ‘To her
mother, Mary has sold her car’ but not *Sa voiture, Marie a vendu à sa mère
‘Her car, Mary has sold to her mother’, in which the direct object is placed
in a topic position. Instead, French prefers left-dislocated constructions, e.g.
Sa mère, Marie l’adore ‘Her mother, Mary adores her’ and Sa voiture, Marie
l’a vendue à sa mère ‘Her car, Mary has sold it to her mother’. The reason
that A sa mère, Marie a vendu sa voiture is possible without a clitic pronoun
may have something to do with the obligatory presence of the preposition.
It is worth noting that topic constructions with non-referential or generic
topic phrases, e.g. Le jazz, Marie adore ‘Jazz, Mary loves’, are possible.
French, then, freely allows left-dislocation constructions. An important feature

of these constructions, as noted earlier, is that they contain a resumptive pro-
noun which shares the semantic (referential) features as well as the morpho-
syntactic features (person, number, and gender) of the left-dislocated phrase.
In these examples, the resumptive pronouns are the unstressed pre-verbal clitic
pronouns. Other examples which display this relation between the dislocated
element and the resumptive pronoun are Les pommes, il les a données à son
voisin ‘The apples, he gave them to his neighbours’ and Marie, on la trouve
souvent avec ses amis ‘Mary, one often sees her with her friends’.
15.3 Cleft, topic, and left dislocated constructions

in the French creoles
This section deals with these three different types of fronting or focusing
construction in the French creoles.
447
15 15.3.1 Cleft constructions
Cleft, topic,
and dislocated
As will be shown, cleft constructions occur in all of the French creoles, even
constructions
though they do not have the copula verb être ‘to be’ and do not use an exple-
tive pronoun. The following are from the IOC.
15.3.1.1 Cleft constructions in the IOC

The following examples illustrate the different constituents and different
grammatical functions which can and cannot be clefted in the IOC.
(5) a. Zan ki ti vini

John COMP PAST come
‘It was John who came.’
b. Zan ki nu ti zwenn
John COMP 1p PAST meet
‘It was John that we met.’
c. ar Zan ki mo ti pe koze
with John COMP 1s PAST PROG talk
‘It was with John that I was talking.’
d. yer ki zot ti al lamer
yesterday COMP 3p PAST go seaside
‘It was yesterday that they went to the seaside.’
e. lakoz li malad ki li pa’ nn al travay
because 3s ill COMP 3s NEG PERF go work
‘It was because he was ill that he didn’t go to work.’
f. * byen zoli ki zarden la ete
very beautiful COMP garden DEF be
‘It is very beautiful that the garden is.’
g. * enn dokter ki Zan finn vini
a doctor COM John PERF become
‘It is a doctor that John has become.’
h. * kondir bis ki Zan ule
drive bus COMP John want
‘It is drive buses that John wants.’
What is striking about these examples is the absence of a higher verb and a
higher subject. They all begin with a clefted or highlighted element: Zan in
(5a) and (5b), ar Zan in (5c), yer in (5d), and lakoz li malad in (5e). This is
then followed by the complementiser ki, which in turn is followed by the
subordinate clause. The clefted element is in a focus (thematically prominent)
position and bears contrastive stress. Thus we understand (5a) as meaning
that John and not someone else came. As is clear from the examples in (5),
448 the same range of categories which can be clefted in French and English can
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also be clefted in the IOC, namely NP (5a, b), PP (5c), temporal adverb (5d) Cleft, topic,
and reason adjunct (5e), and those categories which are excluded from this and left
focus or thematically prominent position are the same as those excluded in dislocated
constructions
French and English cleft constructions, namely the predicative adjectival and in the French
nominal complement in (5f) and (5g), respectively, and the VP in (5h). creoles
The other observation here is the optionality of the complementiser ki. The exam-
ples in (5a–e) are just as well-formed without ki as they are with it, e.g. Zan ti
vini; Zan nu ti zwenn; ar Zan mo ti pe koze; yer zot ti al lamer; lakoz li ti malad
lipa’nn al travay. Notice that an example like Zan ti vini can be differentiated
from the unmarked declarative Zan ti vini by the contrastive stress on Zan. This
may be explicitly shown as follows: ZAN ti vini and Zan ti vini, with the struc-
tures [ ZAN [ Ø [ e ti vini ]]] and [Zan ti vini] respectively. The e in the former
structure stands for the empty subject position where the clefted NP ZAN is
interpreted. Further support for claiming that Zan, in an example like (5a), is
clefted and not the subject of an unmarked declarative clause comes from the case
forms which the clefted NP displays when it is pronominal. Consider the differ-
ence between (6b) and (6c). The first person pronoun has objective case (the
disjunctive form) in the former, this being a bi-clausal cleft construction, but the
nominative/subjective form in the latter, the mono-clausal declarative sentence.
(6) a. mwa ki ti donn li sa

1s COMP PAST give 3s that
‘It was me who gave her that.’
b. MWA ti donn li sa
1s PAST give 3s that
‘It was me who gave her that.’
c. mo ti donn li sa
1s PAST give 3s that
‘I gave her that.’
Note that the objective or disjunctive form that the clefted pronoun displays
in (6a, b) is consistent with it being in a marked or focused/highlighted posi-
tion, and it carries an intonation (contrastive stress) that is consonant with
its exposed or privileged position.
It is also clear from (6a, b) that personal pronouns too can be placed in a
clefted or focus position. However, personal pronouns are not the only mem-
ber of the determiner class which can be clefted. Others, such as demonstra-
tive pronouns and numerals/quantifiers (but not indefinite negative
quantifiers), can also be clefted.
(7) a. sa (ki) li ti amene (pa lot la)

this COMP 3s PAST bring (NEG other DEF)
‘It was this that he brought (not the other one).’ 449
15 b. trwa (ki) li’ nn manze (pa kat)
Cleft, topic, three COMP 3s PERF eat (NEG four)
and dislocated
‘It was three that he ate, not four.’
constructions
c. ẽpe mem (ki) li ti manze (pa buku)
little EMPH COMP 3s PAST eat NEG much
‘It was very little that he ate (not much).’
d. * personn ki li pa ti truve
no one COMP 3s NEG PAST see
‘It was no one that he didn’t see.’
e. * naryen ki li pa dir
nothing COMP 3s NEG say
‘It is nothing that he didn’t say.’
f. * ditu ki li pa bwar
none COMP 3s NEG drink
‘It is nothing that he doesn’t drink.’
Note that the ungrammaticality of such constructions as (7d–f) provides

further support for the structural bi-clausal analysis of constructions such as
(6a, b). We have assumed that the clefted element is in a higher clause. We
can further assume that it is complement to a missing copula verb with a
missing expletive subject. Note that the IOC have an expletive pronoun li ‘it’
which is used with predicates taking expletive subject pronouns in English
and French, e.g. posib ‘possible’ li posib Zan lakaz ‘it’s possible John is at
home’, and paret ‘appear’ li paret Zan pa lakaz ‘it appears that John isn’t at
home’. However, this expletive pronoun is excluded from the subject position
of the higher clause in the cleft constructions in (6a, b) *li mwa ki ti donn li
sa (lit. it me who gave him that) ‘it’s me who gave him that’ or *li MWA ti
donn li sa (lit. it me gave him that) ‘It’s me who gave him that’.
Given that indefinite quantifying expressions such as personn ‘nobody’,
naryen ‘nothing’, and so on can occur in subject position, e.g. Personn pa ti
ale ‘no one went’, Naryen pas finn arrive ‘nothing has happened’, and Ditu
pa finn reste ‘nothing at all remains’ and that they can be topicalised, e.g.
Personn li pa ti truve ‘no one he saw’, Naryen li pa kone ‘nothing he knows’,
and Ditu li pa finn bwar ‘nothing he has drunk’, their impossibility in (7d–f)
must follow from the fact that they are either incompatible with a stressed
position (the cleft position) or they cannot be complement to a missing
(phonologically null) copula verb, possibly for the same reason that we can-
not have indefinite predicative nominals clefted in English (*It was a doctor
that Mary was) or the IOC (see (5f)). An alternative explanation for (7d–f),
which again supports the bi-clausal analysis, is that the negative quantifiers
and the negative particle pa are in different clauses. Their ungrammaticality
is expected, as negative quantifying expressions and the negative particle
450 must be within the same clause, i.e. clause-mate (see chapter 10 for more
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detail) – compare Mo ti dir personn pa ti ale ‘I said no one went’ and *Mo Cleft, topic,
pa ti dir personn ti ale ‘I didn’t say no one went’. and left
dislocated
A further argument in support of the bi-clausal analysis comes from the pos- constructions
sibility of inserting an overt tense or modal marker in front of the clefted in the French
element, as shown in the following. creoles
(8) a. ti enn zanfan byen malad ki li ti amenn lopital

PAST a child very ill COMP 3s PAST bring hospital
‘It was a very sick child that she brought to the hospital.’
b. pu enn loto ruz ki li pe kondire
FUT a car red COMP 3s PROG drive
‘It will be a red car that she is driving.’
The presence of such tense markers in front of the clefted phrase in (8a, b)
clearly suggests that there is a higher clause and it is headed by a tense
marker.
We noted earlier that cleft sentences with a definite clefted element in English
and French can also be analysed as restrictive relative clauses. Thus It was
the book that the teacher gave us and its French equivalent C’était le livre
que l’instituteur nous a donné can be analysed as a bi-clausal cleft sentence
or a mono-clausal sentence with an object, the book or le livre, being modi-
fied by a restrictive relative clause. This kind of ambiguity does not arise with
cleft sentences in the IOC, and this is because of the distribution of the defi-
nite determiner la ‘the’ in the two constructions. In cleft constructions it is
restricted to occur immediately after the clefted noun, as in (9a). In restrictive
relative constructions, however, it occurs at the end of the modifying relative
clause, as shown in (9b), thus indicating that the relative clause and the head
noun form a constituent.
(9) a. bug la ki Mari ti bate

man DEF COMP Mary PAST hit
‘It was that man that Mary hit.’ (not someone else)
b. bug ki Mari ti bate la
man COMP Mary PAST hit DEF
‘the man that Mary hit’
The determiner separates the subordinate clause and the clefted element in
(9a) but incorporates it with the head noun in (9b). This provides strong
support for the difference often claimed between the relative-type clause in
cleft constructions and the relative clause in restrictive relative constructions.
In the former it is a constituent independent of the clefted element, in the
latter it is an integral part of the nominal expression containing the head
noun, thereby forming a single constituent. 451
15 It has been claimed that French prefers cleft constructions to answer subject
Cleft, topic, wh-questions: Qui est-ce qui a pris ma voiture? ‘Who took my car?’ C’est
and dislocated
Jean (qui a pris ta voiture) ‘It was John who took your car’ rather than Jean
constructions
a pris ta voiture ‘John took your car’. In the IOC, however, subject wh-
questions do not require a cleft answer. Nor do complement and adjunct
wh-questions. In fact, using cleft constructions in reply to such questions
results in inappropriate responses. This may be because of the strong con-
strastive nature of the clefted element in the IOC.
(10) Kisennla ti pran mo loto?

who PAST take 1s car
‘Who took my car?’
a. Zan ki ti pran to loto
John COMP PAST take 2s car
‘It was John who took your car.’
b. Zan (ti pran to loto)
John PAST take 2s car
‘John took your car.’
(11) ki li pe dimann twa?

what 3s PROG ask 2s
‘What is he asking you?’
a. larzan ki li pe dimann mwa
money COMP 3s PROG ask me
‘It’s money that he is asking me.’
b. (li pe dimann mwa) larzan
3s PROG ask 1s money
‘He’s asking me for some money.’
(12) ar ki to ti uver laport la?

with what 2s PAST open door DEF
‘With what did you open the door?’
a. ar lakle ki mo ti uver laport la
with key COMP 1s PAST open door DEF
‘It was with the key that I opened the door.’
b. (mo ti uver laport la) ar lakle
1s PAST open door DEF with key
‘I opened the door with a key.’
A final observation on cleft constructions in the IOC is that a clause can

intervene between the clefted element and the subordinate relative-like clause.
(13) a. Mari ki mo ti dir pu al bazaar

Mary COMP 1s PAST say FUT go market
452 ‘It’s Mary that I said will go to the market.’
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b. lor sez ki mo ti dir zot li ti met sat la Cleft, topic,
on chair COMP 1s PAST tell 3p 3s PAST put cat DEF and left
‘It was on the chair that I told them that he put the cat.’ dislocated
constructions
in the French
This is a property that cleft constructions share with wh-questions. Like a creoles
wh-phrase (see chapter 14 for detailed discussion), a clefted element can occur
one or more clauses away from the clause in which it is interpreted.
(14) a. kisennla to ti dir pu al bazaar?

who 2s PAST say FUT go market
‘Who did you say will go to the market?’
b. kisennla to ti dir to krwa pu al bazaar?
who 2s PAST say 2s believe FUT go market
‘Who did you say you believe will go to the market?’
c. Zan ki to ti dir pu al bazaar
John COMP 2s PAST say FUT go market
‘It was John who you said will go to the market.’
d. lisjen la ki mo kone ki to pa krwa ki
dog DEF COMP 1s know that 2s NEG believe that
sat la ti apre
cat DEF PAST chase
‘It’s the dog that I know you don’t believe that the cat chased.’
Not surprisingly, cleft constructions in which the cleft element is linked to a

position inside an adjunct clause are impossible in the same way that wh-
constructions with a wh-phrase linked to such a position are impossible.
(15) a. * Kisennla to ti al Lafrik san zwenn?

who 2s PAST go Africa without meeting
‘Who did you go to Africa without meeting?’
b. * Mari ki mo ti al Lafrik san zwenn
Mary that 1s PAST go Africa without meeting
‘It was Mary that I went to Africa without meeting.’
Also, like a wh-phrase, it cannot be linked to a position inside a subject

clause. Neither the wh-question (16b) nor the cleft construction (16c) is
possible.
(16) a. ki zot ti truv Mari yer pa vre

COMP 3p PAST see Mary yesterday NEG true
‘That they saw Mary yesterday isn’t true.’
b. * kisennla ki zot ti truve yer pa vre
who COMP 3p PAST see yesterday NEG true
‘Who that they saw yesterday isn’t true.’
453
15 c. * Mari ki ki zot ti truve yer pa vre
Cleft, topic, Mary that COMP 3p PAST see yesterday NEG true
and dislocated
‘It’s Mary that they saw yesterday isn’t true.’
constructions
Cleft constructions in the IOC are therefore similar to those in French (and
English) even though they lack an expletive subject pronoun and the copula verb.
Importantly, they share the same structure and the same syntactic restrictions.
15.3.1.2 Cleft constructions in Haitian

Haitian also has cleft constructions. However, there is a wider range of cat-
egories that can be clefted in this creole. For instance we find not only nomi-
nal (17a, b), prepositional (17c), and adverbial (17d) clefts but also adjectival
and verbal (i.e. predicate) cleft constructions, (17e) and (17f), respectively.
(17) a. se Mari ki ašte flè (H; Piou 1982: 125)

it-is Mary COMP buy flower
‘It’s Mary who bought flowers.’
b. se flè Mari ašte (H; Piou 1982: 125)
it-is flower Mary buy
‘It’s flowers that Mary bought.’
c. se ak mãmã Mari al ašte flè (H; Piou 1982: 125)
it-is with mother Mary go buy flower
‘It’s with mother that Mary went to buy flowers.’
d. se la n ap ye (H; Damoiseau 2005: 146)
it-is there 1p FUT be
‘It’s there that we will be.’
e. se malad Bouki malad, li pa mouri (H; DeGraff
it-is ill Bouki ill, 3s NEG die 2007: 113)
‘Bouki is sick, not dead.’
f. se mache Bouki te mache, (H; DeGraff 2007: 113)
it-is walk Bouki PAST walk
li pa te kouri
3s NEG PAST run
‘Bouki had walked, not run.’
Clefts in Haitian are introduced with se (it-is) (< Fr c’est), a highlighter

(DeGraff 2007: 115), which is immediately followed by the clefted element.
The clefted element is in turn followed by a relative-like clause which is
introduced with ki but only if it is the subject of the verb that is clefted, as in
(17a). If other grammatical functions are clefted, the relative-like clause has
no complementiser, or it can be said to be introduced with a zero comple-
mentiser. In fact we find the same distribution of ki in cleft constructions as
454 we do in its restrictive relative clauses (see chapter 13). According to
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Damoiseau (2005: 146) and Sylvain (1936: 172), the se highlighter in (17) is Cleft, topic,
not obligatory. This means that cleft constructions in Haitian can look just and left
like those in the IOC except when the subject is clefted. dislocated
constructions
in the French
(18) a. Jaklin ki fè soup joumon an (H; Damoiseau creoles
Jacqueline who make soup pumpkin DEF 2005: 147)
‘It’s Jacqueline who made the pumpkin soup.’
b. yon wòb mwen pòte pou w (H; Damoiseau 2005: 147)
a dress 1s bring for 2s
‘It’s a dress that I brought you.’
c. bò kay la li ye (H; Damoiseau 2005: 147)
near house DEF 3s be
‘It’s near the house that he is.’
d. rele mwen rele w, ou pa tande m (H; Damoiseau
call 1s call 2s 2s NEG hear 1s 2005: 147)
‘However much I call you, you don’t hear me!’
(19) a. nã bwa-a yo rivé (H; Sylvain 1936: 172)

in wood-DEF 3p arrive
‘It’s in the wood that they arrived.’
b. ayè-mẽm-o m’té-vini (H; Sylvain 1936: 172)
yesterday-self-DEF 1s PAST-come
‘It was exactly yesterday that I came.’
The occurrence of se and the restriction on ki and the possibility of clefting

verbal and adjectival elements make Haitian clefts somewhat different from
clefts in the IOC, but structurally they are alike. Both are essentially bi-
clausal constructions, and this is more apparent in Haitian than it is in the
IOC, given, as we have seen in (17), the presence of the highlighter se. The
most important difference, however, lies in the possibility of clefting adjec-
tives and verbs, although it has to be said that these are restricted to stage-
level adjectives and verbs. Individual-level adjectives such as entèlijan
‘intelligent’ and verbs such as konnèn ‘know’ or renmen ‘love’ do not lend
themselves to clefting (see Lefebvre 1998: 368).
(20) a. * se entèlijan Jan entèlijan

it-is intelligent John intelligent
b. * se konnèn Jan konnèn lang sa a
it-is know John know language DEM DEF
c. * se renmen Jan renmen Mari
it-is love John love Mary
An important feature of adjective and verb clefting in Haitian, as we see in

the examples in (17d, e), is the doubling of the clefted adjective and verb.
455
15 Clefting, like relativisation and topicalisation, generally results in a surface
Cleft, topic, structure in which the subordinate clause is incomplete (i.e. lacking an
and dislocated
argument and sometimes an adjunct). When such constructions are inter-
constructions
preted, the missing argument or adjunct is recovered by linking it to the
clefted element. However, the clefting of adjectives and verbs in Haitian
does not result in an incomplete subordinate clause, since a copy of the
clefted adjective or clefted verb is retained inside that clause. Interestingly,
such copying is also available over long distance, as shown in (21), which
would suggest the copy has filled the empty position, possibly an instance
of a constraint against certain types of headless phrases (namely headless
APs or VPs).
(21) a. se malad li kwe yo di li malad (H; Piou 1982: 130)

It-is sick 3s believe 3p say 3s sick
‘He believes they said he is really sick.’
b. se ale li di li vle pu (H; Piou 1982: 130)
it-is go 3s say 3s want for
Ža ale ave l
John go with 3s
‘He says he wants John to go with him.’
However, such copying is impossible if the embedding verb is a non-bridge

verb such as šišote ‘to murmur’, as in (22a), or if the copied predicate is inside
a clause introduced with a wh-phrase, as in (22b).
(22) a. * se rẽmẽ Mari ap šišote u rẽmẽ (H; Piou

it-is love Mary PROG murmur 2s love 1982: 131)
b. * se malad m ap mãde m (H; Piou 1982: 133)
it-is ill 1s PROG ask 1s
kilès ki malad žodi a
who that ill today DEF
The ungrammaticality of (22a, b), in contrast to the grammaticality of

(21a, b), suggests that clefting, including predicate clefting, in Haitian is
subject to restrictions which apply to wh-questions, just as clefting in the
IOC is.
It is interesting to note that constructions with two copies of the same adjec-
tive or verb are also attested in the IOC, as shown in (23). However, these
look more like left-dislocated constructions than cleft constructions.
(23) a. zape mem li pa zape (IOC)

bark EMPH 3s NEG bark
‘As for barking, he does not bark.’
456
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b. malad ki li malad li al travay (IOC) Cleft, topic,
sick that 3s sick 3s go work and left
‘No matter how sick he is, he still goes to work.’ dislocated
constructions
in the French
Although these involve placing a predicate in a prominent position, they do creoles
not appear to have the interpretation of the Haitian cleft predicates in
(17e, f). The English expression He is very sick cannot be realised in the
IOC in the way that it is in Haitian, for instance: se malad Bouki malad
‘Bouki is very sick’ (Haitian) and *malad (ki) Bouki malad (IOC). Rather,
the examples in (23) may be analysed as left-dislocated structures with the
predicates in a focus position, and they have some form of nominal status.
Their nominal status, particularly of focused verbs, is suggested by the
fact that they can be specified by a determiner, e.g. the indefinite enn ‘a’,
and they can be modified by a relative clause, as shown in (24a) and (24b)
respectively.
(24) a. enn koze mem li pa koze (IOC)

a talk EMPH 3s NEG talk
‘He doesn’t say even a single word.’ (i.e. he can’t talk)
b. sa zape li zape la fer tu dimunn per (IOC)
this bark 3s bark DEF make all person afraid
‘The barking that he does frightens everyone.’
However, highlighting the verb in this way is not a very productive process
in the IOC. The examples in (25) are impossible.
(25) a. * ale (ki) li ale (IOC)

go COMP 3s go
b. * vini (ki) li vini (IOC)
come COMP 3s come
c. * monte (ki) li monte (IOC)
climb COMP 3s climb
Its absence in the IOC is therefore consonant with the view that the phenom-
enon of predicate clefting is restricted to the Atlantic creoles and has an
African origin (see Lefebvre 1998).
This difference aside, Haitian cleft constructions are similar to those in the
IOC and French, particularly in their structure. They are also similar to the
cleft constructions in the IOC in not requiring a complementiser except when
it is the subject which is clefted. This similarity is also clear from the fact that
their clefted elements can be separated from the subordinate relative clause
by an intervening clause, a property they share with wh-questions (see chap-
ter 14 for discussion on wh-questions).
457
15 (26) a. se Mari Jak di Jan wè (H; Lefebvre 1998: 195)
Cleft, topic, it-is Mary Jack say John see
and dislocated
‘It is Mary that Jack said that John saw.’
constructions
b. se mun nã m kõnẽ ki fè saa (H: Koopman
it-is person DEF 1s know that do that 1982a: 226)
‘It’s the person that I know that did that.’
15.3.1.3 Cleft constructions in Martinican and Guadeloupean

Like the IOC and Haitian, Lesser Antillean creoles (Martinican and Gua-
deloupean) allow elements with different grammatical roles in a clause
to be clefted. In the following examples, subject (27a), direct object
(27b), indirect object (27c), adjunct (27d), and predicate (27e, f) are
clefted. The clefted elements also belong to different categories: nominal
(27a–b), prepositional (27c), adverbial in (27d), adjectival in (27e), and
verbal in (27f).
(27) a. sé mèt-la ki palé (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 599)

It-is master-DEF COMP speak
‘It’s the headmaster who spoke.’
b. sé zanno-la Piè ba Fifi (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 604)
it-is earring-DEF Peter give Fifi
‘It’s the earrings that Peter gave to Fifi.’
c. sé ba zélèv-la mèt-la ka palè (Gu/M; Bernabé
it-is to pupil-DEF master PRES speak 1983: 605)
‘It’s to the pupil that the headmaster speaks.’
d. sé jodla Piè rive (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 606)
it-is today Peter arrive
‘It’s today that Peter arrives.’
e. sé vidjõ Pòl vidjõ (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 606)
it-is vigorous Paul vigorous
‘Paul is really vigorous.’
f. sé rivé Piè rivé an lékòl-la (Gu/M; Bernabé
it-is arrive Peter arrive in school-DEF 1983: 606)
‘Peter has really arrived in school.’
Other examples of adverbial, adjectival, and verbal clefting in these creoles

are given in (28) and (29).
(28) a. sé vitman Jak ka kouri (Gu/M; Gadelii 1997: 304)

it-is fast Jack PROG run
458 ‘Jack is running really fast.’
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b. sé malad Bouki malad (Gu/M; Gadelii 1997: 305) Cleft, topic,
it-is ill Bouki ill and left
‘Bouki is very ill.’ dislocated
constructions
(29) a. sé kouyon timanmay-tala (M; Bernabé 2003: 168) in the French
creoles
it-is dumb child -this
kouyon, i pa ka
dumb 3s NEG PROG
konpwann ayen lékol
understand nothing school
‘It’s dumb that this child is, he doesn’t understand anything at
school.’
b. (sé) pasé faktè-a pasé (M; Bernabé 2003: 38)
it-is pass postman-DEF pass
‘The postman has already been.’
As is clear from these examples, the clefted element in the Lesser Antillean
(Martinican and Guadeloupean) cleft constructions, just like the clefted element
in Haitian cleft constructions, is introduced with the highlighter sé
(< Fr c’est ‘it-is’). However, Bernabé (2003: 38) notes that it is optional (sé)
faktè-a ki pasé ‘(it’s) the postman who went by’, in which case cleft construc-
tions in these creoles look just like those in the IOC and Haitian. The highlighter
is followed by the clefted element, which in turn is followed by the relative-like
clause. However, if a subject is clefted, this clause must be introduced by the
complementiser ki, as we see in (27a). This is another feature which Martinican
and Guadeloupean share with Haitian cleft constructions but not with those in
the IOC. This is because, as we saw earlier, the complementiser ki in the IOC
occurs in a cleft construction regardless of the grammatical function which is
clefted and is always optional, even with subject clefts.
Structurally, Martinican and Guadeloupean clefts are similar to those in Hai-
tian and the IOC: the clefted element is in a thematically prominent position,
and the relative-like clause which follows it is introduced with a complemen-
tiser, although only if the clefted element is linked to the subject in the
relative-like clause. As was evident in the examples earlier, the clefted element
can be linked to other grammatical functions inside the relative-like clause,
e.g. object (direct and indirect), oblique complement, and so on. Lesser Antil-
lean creoles are also like Haitian in that they also allow predicate clefting.
Both adjectives and verbs can be clefted, as shown in (27e, f), (28b), and (29).
Concerning verbal clefting, Gadelii (1997: 305) notes that it is the head of
VP (30a) and not the whole VP (30b) which is clefted.
(30) a. sé bat Ijéni ka bat Ijenn (Gu/M; Gadelii

It-is hit Eugenia PROG hit Eugene 1997: 305)
‘Eugenia is really hitting Eugene.’ 459
15 b. * sé bat Ijenn Ijéni ka bat Ijenn
Cleft, topic, it-is hit Eugene Eugenia PROG hit
and dislocated
constructions
This is also the case with predicate clefting in Haitian, although here it seems
appropriate to differentiate between what Lefebvre (1998) calls ‘predicate
cleft proper’ and other types of predicate clefting. In the following examples,
(31a) is of the first type, the others are not. Examples (31b, c) are interpreted
as adverbial clauses and (31d) as factive, even though in all three the same
VP is clefted. Notice that the highlighter is not available when the predicate
cleft has these latter interpretations.
(31) a. se rive Jan rive (H; Lefebvre 1998: 364)

FOC arrive John arrive
‘It is arrive that John did (not e.g. leave).’
b. rive Jan rive (epi) Mari pati (H; Lefebvre 1998: 363)
arrive John arrive and Mary leave
‘As soon as John arrived, Mary left.’
c. rive Jan rive Mari pati (H; Lefebvre 1998: 363)
arrive John arrive Mary leave
‘Because John arrived, Mary left.’
d. rive Jan rive a fe (H; Lefebvre 1998: 363)
arrive John arrive DET make
manman li kontan
mother 3s happy
‘The fact that John arrived made his mother happy.’
In such cleft constructions, whether they occur in Haitian, Martinican, or

Guadeloupean, the clefted verb or adjective, unlike a clefted noun, adverb,
or prepositional phrase, always has a copy in the relative-like clause.
15.3.1.4 Cleft constructions in St. Lucian

St. Lucian has cleft constructions similar to those in the Lesser Antillean
creoles and Haitian. The following, from Carrington (1984), provide exam-
ples of nominal, prepositional, adverbial, adjectival, and verbal clefting.
Notice that these cleft constructions also start with a highlighter, which,
interestingly, can surface as se (< Fr c’est) or sete (< Fr c’était), the former
being used, according to Carrington (1984), with non-completive and the
latter with completive aspect.
(32) a. se sèpã ẑòn ki move (St. L; Carrington 1984: 147)

It-is snake yellow COMP bad
460 ‘It is yellow snakes that are bad.’
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b. se li ki mèt lekol (St. L; Carrington 1984: 147) Cleft, topic,
it-is 3s COMP master school and left
‘It’s he who is the school-master.’ dislocated
constructions
c. sete èvèk mwẽ, i te (St. L; Carrington 1984: 147) in the French
it-was with 1s 3s PAST creoles
ka ale lamè
PROG go sea
‘It was with me that he used to go to the sea.’
d. se isi mwẽ je èvèk (St. L; Carrington 1984: 148)
it-is here 1s be and
mwẽ kay rete isi
1s FUT stay here
‘I’m here and I will stay here.’
e. se kujõ i te kujõ (St. L; Carrington 1984: 148)
it-is stupid 3s PAST stupid
‘He was just plain stupid.’
f. se wè i te wè u avã i pati (St. L; Carrington
it-is see 3s PAST see 2s before 3s leave 1984: 147)
‘He really wanted to see you before you left.’
As these examples show, the highlighter se/sete is immediately followed by the

cleft constituent. From the strong/disjunctive form that the third person pro-
noun displays in (32b), compared to the weak form i that it has elsewhere in
these constructions, it seems that the cleft constituent is clearly in a thematically
prominent position. The cleft constituent is in turn followed by the relative-like
clause, which has an obligatory complementiser ki when the cleft constituent is
the subject of this clause, as in (32a–b). Notice also that the position of this
constituent inside the relative clause is empty except when the constituent is an
adjective (32e) or a verb (32f), in which case the clefted adjective or verb is
copied inside the relative clause. St. Lucian Creole, just like the other French
creoles of the Atlantic, then, also allows predicate clefting.
15.3.1.5 Cleft constructions in Guyanese

In contrast to the other Atlantic French creoles, Guyanese Creole uses a differ-
ent highlighter, namely a ‘it-is’, rather than se(te), as shown in the following.
However, the range of grammatical functions which can be clefted is the same.
(33) a. a Rafayel ki di mo sa (G; Damoiseau 2003: 137)

it-is Rafayel COMP tell 1s that
‘It’s Raphael that told me that.’
b. a lanmori nou té ka manjé (G; Damoiseau
it-is salted fish 1p PAST PROG eat 2003: 137)
‘It’s salted fish that we were eating.’
461
15 c. a Déniz i té bay ti sak-a (G; Damoiseau
Cleft, topic, it-is Denise 3s PAST give small bag-DEF 2003: 138)
and dislocated
‘It’s to Denise that he gave the small bag.’
constructions
d. a pou to mo ka palé (G; Damoiseau 2003: 138)
it-is for 2s 1s PRES speak
‘It’s to you that I’m speaking.’
e. a isi-a mo achté liv-a (G; Damoiseau 2003: 138)
it-is here-DEF 1s buy book-DEF
‘It’s here that I bought the book.’
f. a manti to ka manti pou mo (G; Damoiseau
it-is lie 2s PRES lie for 1s 2003: 138)
‘You’re really lying to me.’
g. a méchan i méchan (G; Damoiseau 2003: 139)
it-is naughty 3s naughty
‘He’s really naughty.’
This highlighter, just like se in the other creoles, is immediately followed by the
clefted constituent, e.g. NP in (33a–c), PP in (33d), AdvP in (33e), verb in (33f),
and AP in (33g), which in turn is followed by the relative-like clause. Notice
that Guyanese, like the other Atlantic French creoles, uses a complementiser
to introduce the relative-like clause only if the clefted constituent has a subject
function in that clause. This is also true when the clefted subject is a pronoun:
a li ki di mo sa ‘it’s him who told me that’. When constituents other than sub-
ject are clefted, the relative-like clause is simply juxtaposed to them without
any intervening complementiser. The other similarity between Guyanese cleft
constructions and those in the other Atlantic French creoles is the possibility
of verbal and adjectival predicate clefts, as shown in (33f) and (33g), respec-
tively. Clefting of verbal and adjectival elements also requires a copy of them
inside the relative-like clause. Damoiseau (2003: 139) observes that only the
copy (i.e. the verb or adjective inside the relative-like clause) can be comple-
ment to an auxiliary (i.e. tense marker), as shown in (33f), and only the copy
can be followed by a complement, again as shown in (33f), where manti is
followed by the goal PP pou mo. Notice that the same tense restriction
applies in St. Lucian (32e, f), Lesser Antillean (30a), and Haitian (17f). By
contrast to tense markers, the negative particle in Guyanese can occur in front
of both the clefted verbal or adjectival phrase and its copy or just in front of
the clefted phrase, as shown in the following examples. Damoiseau (2003: 139)
notes, however, that placing the negative particle in front of the copy is rare.
(34) a. a pa wè mo pa wè (Damoiseau 2003: 139)

It-is NEG see 1s NEG see
mizè ké yé
poverty with 3p
462 ‘I can say that I have known real poverty with them.’
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b. a pa vanté mo ka vanté mo kò (Damoiseau Cleft, topic,
it-is NEG boast 1s PRES boast 1s body 2003: 139) and left
‘Truly, I don’t boast.’ dislocated
constructions
in the French
creoles
15.3.1.6 Cleft constructions in Karipuna
Cleft constructions in Karipuna, as the following examples from Tobler
(1983) show, are similar to those that we find in Guyanese. These too begin
with a highlighter, a, followed by the clefted element, which in turn is fol-
lowed by a relative-like clause.
(35) a. so pitxit, a li ki fé-l (K; Tobler 1983: 51)

3s child it-is 3s COMP do 3s
‘It is his child who did it.’
b. li dji a ke Bõdje ki (K; Tobler 1983: 51)
3s say it-is with God COMP
li teka koze
3s PAST.PROG talk
‘He said that it was with God that he was talking.’
c. a li mém ki fé-l (K; Tobler 1983: 60)
it-is 3s self that make-3s
‘It is himself who made it.’
The clefted element, as the examples in (35) show, can be a pronoun either
on its own, as in (35a), or accompanied by an emphasiser, as in (35c), or it
can be a PP, as in (35b).
The other observation is that cleft constructions in Karipuna also use the
complementiser ki ‘that’ when the subject is clefted, as in (35a, b), and to
that extent it is like the other French creoles of the Atlantic in requiring a
complementiser when the subject is clefted. But note that, unlike these cre-
oles, Karipuna clefts also have the complementiser when a non-subject is
clefted, as in (35b). This is rather surprising given its general absence in the
Atlantic creoles when a non-subject is clefted.
We should also observe here the fact that cleft constructions occur in Kari-
puna not only as independent clauses, as in (35a, c), but also as embedded
complements, as in (35b).
15.3.1.7 Cleft constructions in Louisiana Creole

Cleft constructions in Louisiana Creole are also similar to those in the Antil-
lean Creoles. They begin with a highlighter, namely se ‘it-is’, which is then
followed by the clefted constituent, which in turn is followed by the 463
15 relative-like clause. The clefted element can be nominal or adjectival, as illus-
Cleft, topic, trated in the following examples.
and dislocated
constructions
(36) a. se pa tuzur le mun kuler, nõ,
it-is NEG always the people colour, no,
ki tret, na le Blan itu
COMP treat, be the White also
‘It isn’t always the coloured people but also the whites who
are healers.’
(L; Neumann 1985: 271)
b. se li ki t ape vole l mai (L; Neumann
it-is 3s COMP PAST PROG steal the corn 1985: 272)
‘It was him who was stealing the corn.’
c. se pa sa m’ole (L; Neumann 1985: 272)
it-is not that 1s want
‘It isn’t that that I want.’
d. se bèt li bèt (L; Klingler 2003: 310)
se dumb 3s dumb
‘That’s dumb he’s dumb/He’s really dumb.’
e. se gro li gro (L; Klingler 2003: 310)
se big 3s big
‘That’s big he’s big/He’s really big.’
As these examples illustrate, the clefted element can belong to different catego-
ries, e.g. an NP (36a), a personal pronoun (36b), demonstrative pronoun (36c),
and an adjective (36d, e). The examples (36a–b) also show that there is a
complementiser, ki, and it is also only present when the clefted element has a
subject role in the relative-like clause. The complementiser is absent in (36c),
where the clefted demonstrative pronoun has an object role, and in (36d, e)
which have a predicative adjective clefted. Notice that adjective clefting in
Louisiana Creole, like verb and adjective clefting in the Atlantic creoles, leaves
a copy inside the relative-like clause. It should be pointed out, however, that
predicate (adjective) clefting in Louisiana Creole, as Klingler (2003: 64) notes,
is rather rare. The few examples available show adjectival and not verbal cleft-
ing, which contrasts rather sharply with the creoles of the Atlantic.
15.3.1.8 Summary
Looking at the cleft constructions surveyed here, it is very clear that although
structurally similar, cleft constructions in the IOC are in some ways different
from those in the other creoles under consideration. First, they are never intro-
duced with a highlighter, and second, the only categories which can be clefted
are nominal, prepositional, and adverbial phrases. Adjectives and verbs are
never clefted in the IOC. Third, cleft constructions use the complementiser ki
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regardless of the grammatical role that the clefted constituent bears in relation Cleft, topic,
to the verb inside the relative-like clause, whether subject, object, or oblique, and left
and it is always optional even when the cleft element bears a subject role. In dislocated
constructions
the other French creoles, by contrast, the complementiser is not used except in the French
when the subject is clefted. Note also that when it does occur in subject clefting, creoles
it is always obligatory. It is important to point out that, without the comple-
mentiser, a construction such as Zan ti fer sa (John did that) in the IOC ends
up being three-way ambiguous. It could be interpreted as a cleft construction
or a focused construction, with a stronger emphasis on Zan, or a simple declar-
ative statement, meaning ‘John did that’, with no emphasis on ‘John’. The
difference between a cleft and a focused interpretation of this sentence is rather
subtle, but there is nonetheless a difference between them.
The obligatory versus optional nature of the complementiser when the sub-
ject is clefted is not restricted to the phenomenon of clefting; it can also be
observed in restrictive relative clauses and wh-questions (see chapter 13 and
14 respectively). It certainly presents an interesting problem, one which
relates to the licensing of clefted, relativised, and questioned subject as
opposed to that of clefted, relativised, and questioned object. It has also been
noted that in those creoles in which predicate adjectives and verbs are clefted,
the process of clefting involves making a copy of the adjective or verb in
question. However, it is far from clear as to which of the two occurrences in
a cleft construction is the original and which the copy. We have assumed here
that the one which is inside the relative-like clause is the copy of the clefted
element, and that is an assumption also made in Koopman (1984). However,
Law and Lefebvre (1995) take the first occurrence to be the copy, and the
original is said to remain in-situ inside the clause.
A further point worth noting is that clefting can interact not only with nega-
tion, as we saw earlier and as shown in (37a, b), but also with questions as
shown in (37c, d).
(37) a. se pa mwẽ ki te di u sa (St. L; Carrington

it-is NEG 1s COMP PAST say 2s that 1984: 155)
‘It wasn’t me who told you that.’
b. pa mwa ki ti dir u sa (IOC)
NEG 1s COMP PAST say 2s that
‘(It was) not me who told you that.’
c. ès se mwẽ ki bwè i? (St. L; Carrington 1984: 149)
Q it-is 1s COMP drink 3s
‘Was it I who drank it?’
d. (eski) li ki ti fer sa? (IOC)
Q 3s COMP PAST do that
‘Was it him who did that?’ 465
15 Finally, related to cleft constructions are pseudo-cleft constructions: it was
Cleft, topic, the knife that the police recovered (Cleft) versus what the police recovered
and dislocated
was the knife (Pseudo-cleft) in English and c’était un oiseau qu’il avait vu ‘it
constructions
was a bird that he saw’ (Cleft) versus ce qu’il a vu était un oiseau ‘what he
saw was a bird’ (Pseudo-cleft). Pseudo-cleft constructions also occur in some
of the French creoles. Bernabé (1983) for instance provides the following
examples from Martinican and Guadeloupean.
(38) a. sa Pyè ba Fifi a sé zanno-la/a (Bernabé

what Peter give Fifi DEF be earring-DEF 1983: 605)
‘What Peter gave Fifi was the earrings.’
b. sila/tala mèt-la ka palé (Bernabé 1983: 606)
who master-DEF PRES speak
ba’y la sé zélèv-la
to DEF be pupil-DEF
‘Who the school-master is speaking to is the pupil.’
Similar constructions in the IOC are ill-formed or, if at all possible, they may
be viewed as being directly influenced by French.
(39) a. * (se) ki Pyer ti don Fifi (se) enn bag

what Peter PAST give Fifi it-is a ring
b. *(se) ki met-lekol pe koze
who school-master PROG speak
ar li la (se) zelev la
with 3s DEF it-is pupil DEF
The only way to express (39a, b) in the IOC is to use clefting.
15.3.2 Topic constructions
Cleft constructions, as we saw earlier, are constructions with a bi-clausal

structure, a superordinate clause which contains the clefted element and a
subordinate clause which contains the relative-like clause with an empty posi-
tion in which the clefted element is interpreted. Topic constructions, by con-
trast, remain mono-clausal even though, like cleft constructions, they also
have an element which is hightlighted or topicalised. The difference between
Chocolates, children love and Children love chocolates is that the former has
a marked word order, with chocolates placed in a prominent topic position,
whereas the latter has an unmarked word order with chocolates in the object
position (i.e. its base position). In English not only nominal expressions but
other categories can be made topic, e.g. prepositional elements On the table
Mary left the book; adverbial elements Reluctantly John accepted the job;
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adjectival elements Kind John certainly can be, and verbal elements John Cleft, topic,
wants to see this film, and see this film John will. Although these fronted or and left
topic elements can be separated from the clause in which they are interpreted, dislocated
constructions
they still belong to that clause and not to any intervening clause: A good tailor, in the French
I know, John professes to be. creoles
In contrast to English, French does not usually allow topic constructions except
when the topic phrase is non-referential or generic. Examples such as *La voi-
ture, Jean a voulu conduire ‘The car, John wanted to drive’ are impossible.
Instead, French uses dislocation in which a fronted element placed outside the
clause and a resumptive pronoun placed inside the clause share the same refer-
ence: Cette voiture, Jean a voulu la conduire ‘That car, John wanted to drive it’.
Similarly, (A) sa mère, Marie y pense souvent ‘Of her mother, Mary often thinks’
or (A) Marie, nous lui avons donnée le livre ‘To Mary, we gave the book’ (lit. To
Mary we have given her the book). As we will see, the French creoles are more
like English when it comes to topic and dislocated constructions.
15.3.2.1 Topic constructions in the French creoles

One significant difference between French and the French creoles is that,
unlike the former, the latter allow topic constructions and can thus be said
to have a wider range of fronting strategies than their lexifier. To that extent
the availability of these constructions must be treated as an innovation, pos-
sibly the result of some discourse strategy.
15.3.2.1.1 TOPIC CONSTRUCTIONS IN THE IOC
The following examples illustrate topic constructions in the IOC. The topic
element is placed clause-initially, and it belongs to different grammatical
categories: sokola – nominal in (40a), lor latab – prepositional in (40b),
tro gran – adjectival in (40c), tro vit – adverbial in (40d), and desann –
verbal in (40e).
(40) a. sokola bann zanfan la byen kontan

chocolates PLU child DEF much like
‘Chocolates, the children like very much.’
b. lor latab mo pu gard liv la
on table 1s FUT keep book DEF
‘On the table I will put the book.’
c. tro gran lakaz la ete pu mwa
too big house DEF be for 1s
‘Too big that house is for me.’
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15 d. tro vit loto la ti pe rule
Cleft, topic, too fast car DEF PAST PROG go
and dislocated
‘Too fast the car was going.’
constructions
e. desann li pa kapav (desann), monte li kapav (monte)
descend 3s NEG can descend climb 3s can climb
‘Come down he can’t, go up he can.’
In the unmarked constructions corresponding to (40a–e), the elements which

have been topicalised occur postverbally: bann zanfan la byen kontan sokola,
‘The children love chocolates’, mo pu gard liv la lor latab ‘I will put the book
on the table’, lakaz la tro gran pu mwa (lit. the house too big for me) ‘The
house is too big for me’, loto la ti pe rul tro vit, ‘The car was going too fast’,
and so on. Topic constructions can also be embedded.
(41) a. mo krwar sokola bann zanfan la kontan

1s think chocolates PLU child DEF like
‘I think chocolates the children like.’
b. mo ti dir lor latab mo pu gard liv la
1s PAST tell on table 1s FUT keep book DEF
‘I said on the table I will put the book.’
c. mo ti dir tro vit loto la ti pe rule
1s PAST say too fast car DEF PAST PROG run
‘I said too fast the car was going.’
As is the case with cleft elements and wh-phrases, topic elements can be sepa-
rated from the clause from which they have been topicalised by one or more
clauses, as shown in (42) and (43).
(42) a. sokola mo krwar bann zanfan la kontan

chocolates 1s think PLU child DEF like
‘Chocolates I think the children like.’
b. tro vit mo ti dir loto la ti pe rule
very fast 1s PAST say car DEF PAST PROG go
‘Very fast I said the car was going.’
c. tro gran zot tu dir lakaz la ete pu mwa
too big 3p all say house DEF be for 1s
‘Too big they all say the house is for me.’
d. travay mo ti dir li nepli kapav
work 1s PAST tell 3s no longer can
‘Work I said he no longer can.’
(43) a. sokola mo ti dir mo krwar bann zanfan la kontan

chocolates 1s PAST say 1s think PLU child DEF like
‘Chocolates I said I think the children like.’
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b. tro gran mo krwar zot ti dir lakaz la ete pu mwa Cleft, topic,
too big 1s think 3p PAST say house DEF be for 1s and left
‘Too big I think they said the house is for me.’ dislocated
constructions
in the French
Another observation is that when we topicalise a constituent we must topi- creoles
calise the whole constituent and not a subpart thereof, as shown by the con-
trast between (44a) and (44b) and the contrast between (45a) and (45b); (44b)
shows only the head of the relative clause sokola ki mo ti amene la ‘the choco-
lates which I brought’ in topic position, while (45b) shows the possessor
specifier of the possessive phrase Zan so liv ‘John’s book’ in topic position.
(44) a. sokola ki mo ti amene la bann zanfan

chocolates REL 1s PAST bring DEF PLU child
la kontan
DEF like
‘Chocolates that I brought the children like.’
b. * sokola bann zanfan la kontan ki mo ti amene
chocolates PLU child DEF like REL I PAST bring
‘Chocolates the children like that I brought.’
(45) a. Zan so liv mo ti pran

John 3s book 1s PAST take
‘John’s book I took.’
b. * Zan mo ti pran so liv
John 1s PAST take 3s book
‘John’s I took book.’
Note that similar restrictions hold in English. The English translations in

(44b) and (45b) are ungrammatical, and we can infer from them that a sub-
part of a constituent cannot also be topicalised in English.
A further restriction worth noting is that we cannot link the topic constituent
in sentence or clause-initial position to a position inside an adjunct clause
(see (46a) and (46b)). This contrasts sharply with the possibility which exists
between the topic phrase and a position inside a complement clause, as can
be seen in (42) and (43).
(46) a. * sokola bann zanfan la ti pe plore

chocolate PLU child DEF PAST PROG cry
avan mo donn zot
before 1s give 3p
‘Chocolates the children were crying before I gave them.’
b. * travay li ti al lopital avan li ti kapav
work 3s PAST go hospital before 3s PAST can
‘Work he went to hospital before he could.’
469
15 Similarly, we cannot link a topic constituent to a position inside a subject
Cleft, topic, clause, just as we cannot link a wh-phrase to this very same position. The
and dislocated
ungrammaticality of (47a) and (47b) is therefore instructive and reinforces
constructions
further the similarity between topic and wh-constructions.
(47) a. * sokola ki bann zanfan la finn manze

chocolates COMP PLU child DEF PERF eat
byen posib
very possible
‘Chocolates that the children have eaten is very likely.’
b. * ki zafer ki bann zanfan la finn manze
what thing COMP PLU child DEF PERF eat
byen posib?
very possible
‘What that the children have eaten is very likely?’
From the data presented here it is very clear that the phenomenon of topic
constructions exists in the IOC even though it is heavily restricted in French,
and that it is subject to the same constraints which affect it in other lan-
guages. We saw for example that an element cannot be topicalised in Eng-
lish, either, if it is a subpart of a larger constituent and it cannot be linked
to a position inside an adjunct clause, as in (46) or inside a subject clause,
as in (47).
15.3.2.1.2 TOPIC CONSTRUCTIONS IN HAITIAN
Examples similar to those in (40) also occur in Haitian Creole. Given the
SVO pattern in Haitian and the other French creoles, the occurrence of
objects or complements more generally to the left of the subject inevitably
points to topic (or focused) constructions.
(48) a. zo kodenn m sousé (H; Valdman 1978: 259)

bone turkey 1s suck
‘Turkey bones, I suck.’
b. ou menm youn grenn, m vini oué (H; Valdman
2p EMPH one grain 1s come see 1978: 260)
‘You alone, I came to see.’
c. kanari- a youn grenn, piti-la poté (H; Valdman
jar-DEF one grain child-DEF bring 1978: 260)
‘Only one jar, the child brought.’
A PP, particularly one headed by ba, cannot, however, be placed in a topic

position, as shown in (49b).
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(49) a. pòté l ba li menm menm (Valdman 1978: 260) Cleft, topic,
take 3s to 3s EMPH EMPH and left
‘Take it to him only!’ dislocated
constructions
b. * ba li menm menm, pòté l in the French
to 3s EMPH EMPH take 3s creoles
‘Take it to him only.’
As far as adjectives and verbs are concerned, they can only be placed in topic
position if a copy also occurs inside the clause, resulting in constructions
which, at the surface, resemble predicate clefting constructions. An example
such as (50b), without a copy of the verb bay ‘to give’, compared to (50a),
is impossible in Haitian.
(50) a. bay kabri bay chen liv-la (H; Valdman 1978: 260)
give goat give dog book-DEF
‘The goat GAVE the dog the book.’
b. * bay kabri chen liv – la (H; Valdman 1978: 260)
give goat dog book-DEF
15.3.2.1.3 TOPIC CONSTRUCTIONS IN MARTINICAN AND

GUADELOUPEAN
Lesser Antillean creoles (Martinican and Guadeloupean) also have topic con-
structions. The following illustrate the different categories which can be
topicalised.
(51) a. fig Mari fou Jak (Gu/M; Gadelii 1997: 298)

banana Mary threw Jack
‘Some bananas, Mary threw to Jack.’
b. Jak Mari fou fig (Gu/M; Gadelii 1997: 298)
Jack Mary throw banana
‘Jack, Mary threw bananas to.’
c. ba Jak yo ka pòté fig (Gu/M; Gadelii 1997: 298)
to Jack 3p PROG bring banana
‘To Jack, they are bringing bananas.’
d. vitman Jak ka kouri (Gu/M; Gadelii 1997: 298)
fast Jack PROG run
‘Fast, Jack runs.’
As we see, Lesser Antillean creoles, like the IOC and Haitian, topicalise direct
object and indirect object NPs, as in (51a) and (51b), respectively, and
adverbs as in (51d). However, unlike Haitian, but like the IOC, Lesser Antil-
lean can also topicalise an oblique PP, as in (51c). As far as adjectives and
verbs are concerned, Lesser Antillean creoles are more like Haitian. Neither
471
15 can topicalise elements belonging to the verbal and adjectival class without
Cleft, topic, simultaneously inserting a copy inside the clause from which the topic ele-
and dislocated
ments are topicalised. Note that the highlighter sé can be placed in front of
constructions
the topic element, as in (52b), and this makes it difficult to differentiate
between topic and cleft constructions in these creoles.
(52) a. bat Ijéni ka bat Ijenn (Gu/M; Gadelii 1997: 298)

hit Eugenia PROG hit Eugene
‘Eugenia is HITTING Eugene.’
b. (sé) jwé timanmay-la ka jwé anlè (M; Bernabé 2003: 102)
it-is play child DEF PROG play on
kabann-la
bed-DEF
‘(It’s) play, the child is playing on the bed.’ (and not reading
or sleeping)
Bernabé (1983: 608) observes, however, that such verb doubling or copying
is closely linked to the process of topicalisation. The contrast between (53a)
and (53b), he notes, shows that verb fronting in Martinican and Gaudelou-
pean is restricted to sentence-initial position, which suggests that it is the
result of a topicalisation process.
(53) a. rivé Pyè rivé an lékòl-la, Pòl pati (Gu/M;

arrive Peter arrive in school-DEF Paul leave Bernabé 1983: 608)
‘As soon as Peter arrived, Paul left.’
b. * Pòl pati, rivé Pyè rivé an lékòl-la
Paul leave, arrive Peter arrive in school-DEF
Interestingly, there are in fact very few examples of topic constructions like
those in (53) in Bernabé (1983, 2003). Instead we find many examples of left
dislocation, such as those in (54), which Bernabé treats as topicalisation (see
Bernabé 2003: 35, footnote 16).
(54) a. tanbou-tala, i ka sonnen bien (M; Bernabé 2003: 35)

drum-that 3s PRES ring well
‘That bell, it rings well.’
b. tanbou-tala man ké achté i (M; Bernabé 2003: 36)
drum-that 1s FUT buy 3s
‘That drum I will buy it.’
Examples such as (55) do occur, but they are treated as cleft constructions but
without the expletive pronoun and copula. They also do not have the comple-
mentiser, as expected, given that the highlighted NP is the object of the verb.
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(55) Bèf-la Makak vòlè (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 443) Cleft, topic,
ox-DEF Makak steal and left
‘(It was) the ox (that) the Makak stole.’ dislocated
constructions
in the French
Such examples can also lend themselves to a topic analysis. If not, the ques- creoles
tion does arise as to whether Martinican and Guadeloupean are more like
French than the other creoles in restricting topic constructions while freely
allowing left-dislocated ones.
Topicalisation of nominal object is also rare in St. Lucian Creole (Carrington

1984: 148), but topicalisation of verbal, adjectival, or prepositional predi-
cates is possible. Note also that topicalised predicates, just as clefted predi-
cates, require a copy in the clause. The following examples illustrate verbal,
adjectival, and prepositional topicalisation.
(56) a. gãe mwẽ te gãe i (St. L; Carrington 1984: 148)

buy 1s PAST buy 3s
‘I did buy it.’
b. kanaj i te kanaj pu i (St. L; Carrington 1984: 148)
vulgar 3s PAST vulgar for 3s
te sa fè jo sa
PAST MOD do 3p that
‘She was really extremely vulgar to have been capable of
doing them such a deed.’
c. ã kaj la i je (St. L; Carrington 1984: 148)
in house DEF 3s be
‘It’s in the house that he is.’
15.3.2.1.4 TOPIC CONSTRUCTIONS IN KARIPUNA
Tobler (1983) provides a few examples of topic construction in Karipuna.

These show NP, PP, and AdvP topicalisation.
(57) a. de bom li bay mo (K; Tobler 1983: 52)

two tin 3s give 1s
‘Two tins he gave me.’
b. ke sa kalite mun fodha gã pasiẽs (K; Tobler
with that quality people must have patience 1983: 52)
‘With that type of people one has to have patience.’
c. laba bola ye ka hete (K; Tobler 1983: 52)
over-there yonder 3p PRES live
‘They live over there.’
473
15 These look like the topic constructions we find in the IOC, Haitian, and
Cleft, topic, Lesser Antillean creoles. The highlighted constituents are placed sentence-
and dislocated
initially, but they are linked to a complement position inside the clause. There
constructions
is also no complementiser intervening between the topic phrase and the
clause which follows it. This is significant because when we compare an
example such as (57a), which has an object as topic, and (35b), which has
an object as cleft, the difference between topic and cleft is signalled in a clear
manner. The topic construction lacks a complementiser; the cleft construction
has one. Karipuna thus displays the kind of clarity which is lacking in Mar-
tinican and Guadeloupean, as we saw earlier.
We should also note that there is an interesting difference between Karipuna

and Guyanese with respect to the occurrence of topic constructions. Guya-
nese does not appear to have these constructions, which would make it more
like Martinican and Guadeloupean than Karipuna. The preference in Guya-
nese, it seems, is to use cleft constructions, just like Martinican and Guade-
loupean, in order to emphasise or focus a constituent.
15.3.2.1.5 TOPIC CONSTRUCTIONS IN LOUISIANA CREOLE
Topic constructions such as those seen earlier seem also rather impossible or
rare in Louisiana Creole. The preferred strategy for emphasising or focusing a
constituent of the clause is to use either clefting, as we saw earlier, or left disloca-
tion. Still, a few examples of topicalisation can be found in Neumann (1985).
(58) a. to i sa pli ize ke nuzot (L; Neumann 1985: 147)

2s 3s more easy than 1p
‘For you, this was easier than for us.’
b. pu Halloween le piti te maske (L; Neumann
for Halloween the children PAST mask 1985: 147)
‘For Halloween, the children wore masks.’
These we assume involve adjunct PP topicalisation with a null preposition

head. What we do not find are cases of argument (e.g. object) topicalisa-
tion like those that we find in the IOC or Karipuna. The rarity of such
constructions in this creole is probably not surprising given its frequent
contact with Cajun French, which, like standard French, generally lacks
topic constructions.
There seems to be an interesting and rather surprising split between those

creoles which allow topic constructions and those which do not but prefer
clefting instead. Among the latter are Martinican, Guadeloupean, Guyanese,
and Louisiana. In fact, in Guyanese, clefting seems to be the only way of
focusing an argument of the verb.
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15.3.3 Dislocated constructions in the French creoles Cleft, topic,
and left
dislocated
In addition to clefting and topicalisation, the French creoles, just like French,
constructions
allow left dislocated constructions in which a constituent of the clause is in the French
fronted and placed in a thematically prominent position at the beginning creoles
of the clause. A resumptive pronoun which is co-referential with the dis-
located element occurs inside the clause. An example of left dislocation
in English is That book, no one wants to read it where that book and it
are co-referential. Structurally, left dislocated constructions and topic
constructions are alike. However, there is a difference between them in
how the position inside the clause to which the topic or the left-dislocated
element is linked is realised at the surface. In topic constructions this
position is phonologically null (empty), whereas in left dislocation it is
filled with a pronoun which matches the left dislocated element in all its
grammatical features. In addition to left dislocation, some creoles (the
IOC and the Antillean Creoles) also allow right dislocation. Here the
dislocated element in placed at the end of a clause, and it is linked to a
pronoun inside the clause in the same way that a left dislocated element
is. An example: He is in the kitchen, John. Both left and right dislocation
are also possible in French, e.g. Cette dame, je l’ai vue au marché ‘that
lady, I saw her at the market’ and Je l’ai vue au marché, cette dame ‘I saw
her at the market, this lady’.
15.3.3.1 Left dislocated constructions in the IOC
The following examples illustrate left-dislocated constructions in the IOC.
(59) a. sa misie la nu ti truv li kot bazaar

DEM man DEF 1p PAST see 3s by market
‘That man, we saw him by the market.’
b. Zan personn pa konpran li
John nobody NEG understand 3s
‘John, nobody understands him.’
c. bann pul la to bizen ferm zot dan kazot
PLU hen DEF 2s must shut 3p in coop
‘These hens, you must put them in the chicken coop.’
The examples in (59) are all object left dislocated constructions. Those in
(60) illustrate subject left dislocation.
(60) a. sa misie la li ale vini tut lazurne

DEM man DEF 3s go come all day
‘That man, he comes and goes all day.’
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15 b. Zan li p’ ena personn
Cleft, topic, John 3s NEG have nobody
and dislocated
‘John, he has nobody.’
constructions
c. bann pul la zot lager ler manze
PLU hen DEF 3p fight when eat
‘These hens, they fight when they eat.’
Interestingly, as is the case with topic and clefted elements, left dislocated
elements can be separated from the clause containing the co-referential
(resumptive) pronoun by one or more clauses.
(61) a. sa misie la mo ti dir nu ti truv

DEM man DEF 1s PAST say 1p PAST see
li kot bazaar
3s near market
‘That man, I said we saw him near the market.’
b. sa misie la Mari krwar mo ti dir nu ti
DEM man DEF Mary think 1s PAST say 1p PAST
truv li kot bazaar
see 3s near market
‘That man, Mary thinks I said we saw him by the market.’
Unlike topic and cleft elements, a left dislocated element at the beginning of
a clause can be linked to a co-referential pronoun inside a subordinate
adjunct clause, as shown in (62a), a complement clause beginning with a
wh-phrase (i.e. a wh-island clause), as shown in (62b), or inside a subject
clause, as in (62c).
(62) a. sa misie la Mari ti byen kontan apre

DEM man DEF Mary PAST very happy after
ki li’ nn marye li
that 3s PERF marry 3s
‘That man, Mary was very happy after she married him.’
b. sa misie la personn pa kone kifer dimunn
DEM man DEF nobody NEG know why people
pa kontan li
NEG like 3s
‘That man, nobody knows why people don’t like him.’
c. sa misie la ki nu ti truv li dan
DEM man DEF COMP 1p PAST see 3s in
bazaar pa vre
market NEG true
‘That man, that we saw him in the market isn’t true.’
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In the framework of transformational-generative grammar (e.g. Chomsky Cleft, topic,
1981), left-dislocated constructions are derived differently from topic or cleft and left
constructions. The latter are said to involve movement of an abstract element dislocated
constructions
(i.e. an operator) which is linked to the highlighted constituent. The former in the French
(i.e. left-dislocated constructions) do not involve any movement. Rather the creoles
left-dislocated element is assumed to be base-generated in its surface position
and is linked to the co-referential pronoun inside the clause.
Left-dislocated constructions are distinctive (i.e. different from topic and cleft
constructions) not only by virtue of being linked to a co-referential pronoun
but also by virtue of the restrictions imposed on the left-dislocated elements.
For instance, these elements cannot be indefinite.
(63) a. * enn misie nu ti truv li dan bazaar

a man 1p PAST see 3s in market
b. * enn misie li p’ ena naryen
a man 3s NEG have nothing
c. * buku liv mo ti met zot lor latab
many book 1s PAST put 3p on table
d. * tu zelev mo ti anpes zot sorti
all pupil 1s PAST forbid 3p leave
It should be noted, however, that examples such as (63a) and (63b) are possible
if enn has a numeral value one and means one of the men. However, on its
indefiniteness interpretation, it cannot occur with a dislocated nominal, and
nor can indefinite quantifiers such as buku and tu. This is to be expected given
that the personal pronouns with which they are co-referential are definite.
Left-dislocated constructions are also distinctive phonologically in having a

more perceptible pause between the dislocated element and the rest of the
clause. And it is more common to find a comma in writing after such an ele-
ment than after a topic element: This book, no one wants to read it. The
insertion of a comma is perhaps more natural with left dislocation since
functionally left-dislocated elements seem to have a greater attention-getter
role than topic elements.
A further observation on the difference between left dislocation and topi-

calisation in the IOC is that the object of a preposition can be dislocated
but not topicalised. This possibility is clearly due to the presence of the
resumptive pronoun, which helps bypass the restriction on preposition
stranding.
(64) a. sa misie la mo ti dir nu pa pu koz ar li

DEM man DEF 1s PAST say 1p NEG FUT speak to 3s
‘That man, I said we won’t talk to him.’
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15 b. * sa misie la mo ti dir nu pa pu koz ar
Cleft, topic, DEM man DEF 1s PAST say 1p NEG FUT speak to
and dislocated
constructions
15.3.3.2 Left dislocated constructions in Haitian
Turning to other French creoles, similar examples of left dislocation can be
observed. The following are from Haitian.
(65) a. Bouki, li se yon doktè (H; DeGraff 1995: 242)

Bouki 3s se a doctor
‘Bouki, he is a doctor.’
b. madam-lã-o li bèl (H; Sylvain 1936: 172)
woman-DEF 3s beautiful
‘The woman (we are talking about), she is beautiful.’
c. pitit-la li mãze (H; Sylvain 1936: 172)
child-DEF 3s eat
‘The child, she is eating.’
However, examples of an object left dislocation are not easy to come by. In
fact, Sylvain (1936: 172) appears to suggest that Haitian might be using left
dislocation for fronting a subject and topicalisation for fronting an object.
(66) a. pitit-la li mãžé (H; Sylvain 1936: 172)

child-DEF 3s eat
‘The child, he’s eating.’
b. bagay mwẽ-ã li prã (H; Sylvain 1936: 172)
thing 1s-DEF 3s take
‘My thing, he took.’
15.3.3.3 Left dislocated constructions in Martinican

and Guadeloupean
Unlike Haitian, but like the IOC, Martinican and Guadeloupean allow not only
subject and object to be left-dislocated (67a, b) but also oblique phrases (67c).
(67) a. Pyè, i mèt/mété tab-la (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 587)

Peter 3s put table-DEF
adan chanm-la/lan
in room-DEF
‘Peter, he put the table in the room.’
d. tab-la, Pyè mèt/mété’y (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 588)
table-DEF Peter put 3s
adan chanm-la/lan
in room-DEF
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‘The table, Peter put it in the room.’ Cleft, topic,
e. chanm-la/lan, Pyè mèt/mété (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 588) and left
room-DEF Peter put dislocated
constructions
tab-la, adan’y in the French
table-DEF in 3s creoles
‘The room, Peter put the table in it.’
Bernabé (1983: 588) also provides examples in which not only the dislocated
element is fronted but also a copy of the resumptive pronoun, as shown in
the following. In other words, there is, as Bernabé puts it, la dislocation
double ‘double dislocation’.
(68) a. Pyè, li, i mèt/mété tab-la (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 587)

Peter 3s 3s put table-DEF
adan chanm-la/lan
in room-DEF
‘Peter, he, he put the table in the room.’
b. tab-la, li, Pyè mèt/mété’y (Gu/M; Bernabé
table-DEF 3s Peter put 3s 1983: 588)
adan chanm-la/lan
in room-DEF
‘The table, it, Peter put it in the room.’
c. chanm-la/lan, li, Pyè mèt/mété (Gu/M; Bernabé
room-DEF 3s Peter put 1983: 588)
tab-la, adan’y
table-DEF in 3s
‘The room, it, Peter put the table in it.’
Notice that the dislocated pronoun has the strong form li, while the subject
or object pronoun has the unstressed weak form i/y. Such double dislocation
constructions are also possible in the IOC, as shown in (69a), but only when
the dislocated element is animate.
(69) a. sa lisyen la, li, li ale vini tut lazurne

DEM dog DEF 3s 3s go come all day
‘That dog, he comes and goes all day.’
b. sa lisjen la, li, nu ti truv li lor lari
DEM dog DEF 3s 1p PAST see 3s on street
‘That dog, we saw him on the road.’
c. sa misie la, li, li kontan bwar
DEM man DEF 3s 3s like drink
‘That man, he likes to drink.’
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15 d. sa misie la, li, nu kontan travay ar li
Cleft, topic, DEM man DEF 3s 1p like work with 3s
and dislocated
‘That man, we like working with him.’
constructions
e. * sa loto la, li, li rul vit
DEM car DEF, 3s, 3s run quickly
‘That car, it goes fast.’
f. * sa loto la, li, nu ti lav li yer
DEM car DEF 3s 1p PAST wash 3s yesterday
‘That car, it, we washed it yesterday.’
g. * sa loto la, li, nu ti vinn dan li yer
DEM car DEF 3s 1p PAST come in 3s yesterday
‘That car, it, we came in it yesterday.’
Constructions such as (68) and (69a–d), with double dislocation, are interest-
ing from a structural view because they suggest that there must be more than
one position at the beginning (or edge) of a clause which can be thematically
prominent. It is also worth noting that double dislocation seems marginally
possible in embedded clauses but is clearly impossible in indirect questions.
(70) a. li ti dir sa misie la, li, li kontan bwar (IOC)

3s PAST say DEM man DEF 3s 3s like drink
‘He said that that man, he likes to drink.’
b. nu kone madam la, li, Zan pa kontan li (IOC)
1p know woman DEF 3s John NEG like 3s
‘We know the woman, her, John doesn’t like her.’
b. * nu pa kone si sa misie la, li, (IOC)
1p NEG know if DEM man DEF 3s
li kontan bwar
3s like drink
‘We don’t know if that man, he, he likes drinking.’
So far the examples of dislocation from the different creoles have illustrated left
dislocation. However, there are also examples of right dislocation, as shown here.
(71) a. I mété tab-la adan chanm-la/lan, Pyè (Gu/M; Bernabé

3s put table-DEF in room-DEF Peter 1983: 591)
‘He put the table in the room, Peter.’
b. Pyè mèt y adan chanm-la/lan, tab-la (Gu/M; Bernabé
Peter put 3s in room-DEF table-DEF 1983: 591)
‘Peter put it in the room, the table.’
(72) a. zot finn dormi, bann zanfan la (IOC)

3p PERF sleep PLU child DEF
‘They are asleep, the children.’
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b. li lor latab, liv la (IOC) Cleft, topic,
3s on table book DEF and left
‘It’s on the table, the book.’ dislocated
constructions
in the French
Right dislocated elements represent more of an afterthought, functionally. By creoles
contrast, left dislocated elements are thematically contrastive and are gener-
ally used to set up or establish a topic of conversation. Right dislocation also
allows the kind of double dislocation that we saw with left dislocation, but
not in the IOC. Compare (73) and (74).
(73) a. * li pa pu ale, li, Zan (IOC)

3s NEG FUT go 3s John
b. * li pa pu ale, Zan, li (IOC)
3s NEG FUT go John 3s
(74) a. i mèt/mété tab-la adan (Gu/M; Bernabé 1983: 591)

3s put table-DEF inside
chanm-la/lan, Pyè, li
room-DEF Peter, 3s
‘He put the table in the room, Peter.’
b. Pyè mèt/mété y adan chanm-la/lan, (Gu/M; Bernabé
Peter put 3s inside room-DEF 1983: 591)
tab-la, li
table-DEF 3s
‘Peter put it in the room, the table.’
15.3.3.4 Left dislocated constructions in Guyanese and St. Lucian

While left dislocation is a common phenomenon in the IOC, Martinican, and
Guadeloupean, it is not, according to Damoiseau (2003: 137), very often used
in Guyanese. Instead, clefting is preferred as a way of bringing a particular
constituent into prominence, as discussed earlier. This would also appear to
be the case in St. Lucian, since examples of left dislocation are hard to come
by. One example which clearly illustrates left dislocation is the following.
(75) tè gra blã a, i pa (St. L; Carrington 1984: 70)

earth thick white DEF 3s NEG
dzè mèè pu fig . . .
hardly best for bananas . . .
‘Thick white earth is hardly the best for bananas . . .’
There are other examples which could be analysed as cases of left dislocation,
although they have a morpheme se instead of a regular personal pronoun like
i in (75).
481
15 (76) a. misie a se mèt lekòl (St. L; Carrington 1984: 139)
Cleft, topic, man DEF se master school
and dislocated
‘The man is the school-master.’
constructions
b. misie a se pa mèt lèkol (St. L; Carrington
man DEF se NEG master school 1984: 155)
‘The man is not the school-master.’
Carrington (1984) analyses se as a copula rather than a pronoun although its

position in relation to the negative marker would suggest the opposite. The
negative marker precedes auxiliaries and verbs in most of the French creoles,
and the following examples show that this is also the case in St. Lucian.
(77) a. i pa sa is li (St. L; Carrington 1984: 155)

3s NEG can child 3s
‘It cannot be his son.’
b. papa mwẽ pa te õ rafinè (St. L; Carrington
father 1s NEG PAST a refiner 1984: 154)
‘My father was not a refiner.’
Nevertheless, it may well be that St. Lucian, like Guyanese, prefers clefting
to dislocation as a strategy for focusing a constituent.
15.3.3.5 Left dislocated constructions in Karipuna

and Louisiana Creole
In Karipuna and Louisiana Creole, on the other hand, left dislocation is quite
common. The following examples from Tobler (1983), Neumann (1985),
and Klingler (2003) are illustrative.
(78) a. sa tab li hot (K; Tobler 1983: 31)

DEM table, 3s high
‘This table is high.’
b. myèl li duš (K; Tobler 1983: 30)
honey 3s sweet
‘Honey is sweet.’
c. (tã dji) txig ye te sa mun (K; Tobler 1983: 30)
time of jaguar 3p PAST COM people
‘(In the days when) jaguars were people.’
(79) a. mile – a m pa bèzòn trape li (L; Klingler 2003: 279)

mule DEF 1s NEG must catch 3s
‘This mule, I didn’t need to catch it.’
b. fiy-sa-la, li pa mo sè (L; Klingler 2003: 292)
girl-DEM-DEF 3s NEG 1s sister
‘That girl, she is not my sister.’
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c. mo zami, ye pa milyonè (L; Klingler 2003: 293) Cleft, topic,
1s friend 3p NEG millionaire and left
‘My friends, they are not millionaires.’ dislocated
constructions
d. mwa mo pø pa fe sa (L; Neumann 1985: 172) in the French
1s 1s can NEG do it creoles
‘Me, I can’t do it.’
e. twa to pel sa lõgle, mo (L; Neumann 1985: 172)
2s 2s call this English 1s
pel sa merikẽ
call this American
‘You, you call this English, I call it American.’
It is useful to point out here that Cajun French, like French, allows what at
the surface looks very much like left- and right-dislocated constructions.
Compare the examples in (80) and (81).
(80) a. La fille, elle, elle avait faim (Papen and Rottet 1997: 85)
the girl 3s 3s have hunger
‘The girl was hungry.’
b. Je l’ ai vue, à elle (Papen and Rottet 1997: 85)
1s 3s have see to 3s
‘I saw her.’
(81) a. moi, je vais (Harris 1978: 118)

1s 1s go
‘I’m going.’
b. je vais, moi (Harris 1978: 118)
1s go 1s
‘I’m going.’
c. il m’a vu, moi (Harris 1978: 118)
3s 1s have see 1s
‘He saw me.’
The examples in (79) must be attributed to French, possibly via the influence
of Cajun French. Interestingly, informal French also allows constructions in
which more than one argument of the verb is right dislocated. Note that the
linear order in which the dislocated elements appear reflects the order of their
positions inside the clause: (82a) is thus acceptable, but (83b–d) are unac-
ceptable or at best marginal.
(82) a. je le lui ai donné, moi, le livre, à Pierre (Harris 1978: 119)

‘I have given it to him, me, the book, to Peter.’
b. * je le lui ai donné, le livre, moi, à Pierre
483
15 c. * je le lui ai donné à Pierre, moi, le livre
Cleft, topic, ‘I have given it to him, me, the book, to Peter.’
and dislocated
d. * je le lui ai donné moi, à Pierre, le livre.
constructions
Right-dislocation constructions such as (82a) are not possible in the IOC,

and possibly in the other creoles too. The examples in (83) are clearly
ungrammatical and unacceptable.
(83) a. * mo ti donn zot li, mwa, bann (IOC)

1s PAST give 3p 1s 1s PLU
zanfan la, bul la
child DEF ball DEF
‘I gave them it, me, the children, the ball.’
b. * mo ti donn zot li, mwa, bul la, (IOC)
1s PAST give 3p 3s 1s ball DEF
bann zanfan la
PLU child DEF
‘I gave them it, me, the children, the ball.’
This chapter has surveyed three types of fronting constructions in the French
creoles, namely cleft, topic, and dislocated constructions. All three construc-
tions have the effect of emphasising a constituent of a clause by placing it in
a thematically prominent position, namely the clause-initial or sentence-initial
position. It is a way of drawing attention to this constituent, which consti-
tutes new information, while the clause which follows it is old information.
They may be seen as part of a discourse strategy which dictates how informa-
tion is organised and communicated. It is not unreasonable to suggest that
communication in contact situations which led to the creation of creoles may
have favoured such structures. Emphasising essential elements of a message
and ensuring their reception via pronoun resumption would have been of
utmost importance in such contact siuations. The distribution of these three
constructions among the French creoles is summarised in Table 15.1.
From the data gleaned from the different sources, it is clear that the IOC and
Karipuna are the only two creoles which use all three types of fronting con-
struction. In the IOC, these seem just as frequent as they are in a language
like English. Looking at these three types of construction across the creoles,
there is no doubt that clefting and left dislocation are the preferred strategy
for making prominent a constituent of the clause. The rarity of left dislocated
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Table 15.1 Topic, cleft, and left dislocation in the French creoles Concluding
remarks
IOC H M Gu St. L G K L
Topic yes limited limited limited rare rare/no yes rare

Cleft yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes
Left Dislocation yes yes yes yes rare rare yes yes
constructions in Guyanese is surprising, but as Damoiseau (2003: 135) makes

clear, the preference for Guyanese speakers is clefting. Topic constructions
are limited in three of the Atlantic creoles (Haitian, Martinican, and Guade-
loupean) and rare in St. Lucian and Louisiana, and perhaps non-existent in
Guyanese. This limitation or rarity is not surprising, in a way, given the near-
absence of topic constructions in French. The constituents which tend to get
topicalised in these creoles are verbal and adjectival predicates, and this pos-
sibility can reasonably be claimed to have stemmed from their African sub-
strates. What is surprising is the common occurrence of topic structures in
the IOC and possibly Karipuna. In the IOC, it is not only nominal and prepo-
sitional phrases which can be made topic but also adjectival, adverbial, and
verbal phrases. In a sense, it seems there may be no restriction as to what can
be topicalised. This freedom may well be a consequence of the influence of
adstrate (Indian) languages. Still, the general near-absence of topic construc-
tions in the French creoles is not surprising and must be attributed to its
absence in the lexifier language.
Finally, one interesting aspect of cleft and topic constructions, which we will
not be discussing here, is their derivation. In the generative framework
(Chomsky 1981), these constructions are said to derive via a movement
transformation, that is to say, a process which links the clefted or topicalised
element to a position inside a clause via the movement of an operator (a wh-
operator such as who(m) and which, or an abstract version of it): liv lai [ (ki)
OPi [ Zan ti lir ti ] ]. The structure assigned to cleft and topic constructions
is non-distinct; the only difference lies in the fact that the complementiser is
obligatorily absent in the latter.
485
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Index
Abney, S. 23, 48, 68 Baissac, C. 10

Aboh, E. 36, 250 Baker, M. 248
adjective 10, 14, 16, 20–3, 30–1, 33, Baker, P. 3, 5, 10, 12, 24, 59
47, 50, 67, 70, 78, 84, 86, 90, 113, bare noun 14, 20, 35–7, 39–41, 46,
126–8, 130–1, 136–49, 151–61 57, 61, 69, 70–3
adverb 10, 90, 137, 144, 155–6, Bentolila, A. 3, 280
163–73, 176–9, 258, 280–1, 302, Bernabé, J. 8, 10–11, 27, 34, 64,
304, 471 129–30, 167, 169, 213, 222, 235,
agglutination 14, 23, 24, 53, 56, 246, 252, 263, 267, 275, 278,
57, 59, 61 283, 290–1, 293–4, 329, 338, 346,
agreement 7, 16, 19, 21, 22, 79, 367–9, 395–7, 421, 428, 439, 459,
90–2, 141–4, 204, 207, 208, 211, 466, 472, 479
218–19, 240, 248, 259, 321, 322, Bickerton, D. 4, 5, 7, 39, 41, 248,
332, 335, 343, 359, 446 252, 295, 298
Aikhenvald, A. 248 Bloomfield, L. 2
alternative question 415 Bollée, A. 10, 100
Arends, J. 5, 7 Bryun, A. 223
article: definite 15, 24, 35, 41, 47–50,
52–3, 55, 57, 59, 60–1, 64, 69–73, Cajun French 7, 9, 83, 94, 114,
84, 144–5, 157, 393, 396, 397, 189, 190, 197, 200–2, 261–2,
403; indefinite 24, 26, 30, 34, 275, 301, 304–5, 307–8, 317,
47–52, 56–7, 59–61, 69, 77, 84; 332, 351, 388, 390, 401–2,
partitive 14, 51–3, 55–6 408–9, 419, 431, 474, 483
Ashby, W. 305 Carden, G. 126
aspect 201–4, 206, 208–9, 211–12, Caribbean French creoles 8, 34–5,
233, 251, 254, 256–62, 266–8, 46, 79, 83–4, 113, 167, 179, 267,
275–6, 278–85, 288, 294–5, 284, 342
297–8, 306, 308, 310, 317, 325, Carrington, L. 10, 11, 64, 167,
330, 351, 354, 460 213, 220, 222, 252, 278, 283, 294,
Atlantic creoles 3, 8, 9, 25, 35, 80, 309, 314, 329, 338, 460, 473, 482
103, 111, 212, 232, 236, 241, 252, causative verb 203, 245–7, 252,
270–2, 283, 371, 374, 377, 380, 316, 373
396, 401, 429, 457, 463–4, 485 Chaudenson, R. 3, 4, 7, 9, 10–13, 24,
Authier, J-M. 322 41, 94–5, 201, 262, 275 495
Index Chomsky, N. 189, 205, 230, 233, double dislocation see dislocation
295, 354, 358, 377, 433, 477, 485 double negation 299, 300, 304,
Cinque, G. 136, 141, 152, 163, 311, 317
165–6, 176, 178 double object 203, 223, 253, 444
clausal complement 353–4, 356–7, Dryer, M. 149
360–1, 364, 367, 369, 371, 373–4,
377, 381 ecological approach 5–6
cleft 181, 198, 355, 384, 404, 443–68, Ehrhart, S. 10, 13, 111, 124, 275–6,
471–4, 476–8, 481–82, 484–5 298, 305, 403, 441
complementiser 10, 219, 330, 333, ergative verb 203, 228–9, 252
353–7, 359–60, 364, 367, 369, exceptional clause see clause
371, 373–4, 383, 385 complement
complex transitive verb 203, 229–31 exclamative sentence 318–20, 322,
Comrie, B. 256, 275, 389, 409 353–4
control verb 203, 236–9, 245, 252 existential verb 126–34, 203, 240–4,
copula verb 143–4, 173, 201, 217–18, 247, 252, 331, 334, 337–9
342–3, 345–7, 349–52, 358, 444, expletive pronoun 85, 90, 92, 126–7,
447–8, 450, 454, 472, 482 129–30, 132, 134, 189, 339
Corne, C. 3, 7, 9–13, 24, 59, 214
count noun 15, 17, 20, 35–6, 47–8, Faine, J. 3
53, 61, 69, 259 Ferguson, C. 11
Cyrille, O. 368–9 finite clause 96, 103, 126, 155, 321,
333, 338, 356–7, 359–60, 362,
Damoiseau, R. 8, 10, 111–12, 222, 365, 380
229, 268, 281, 283, 329, 333, 339, Flûtre, L-F. 408
364, 371, 421, 455, 462, 481, 485 Fongbe 4, 77, 234
declarative sentence 154, 255, 308, free relatives see relative clauses
318, 320–2, 351, 353–5, 364, 369, French Guyana 11
371–7, 381, 410, 417–18, 426, French Overseas Departments 11, 13
441, 449, 465
definiteness marker 77, 110, 156 Gadelii, K. 10, 128, 337, 421, 459
DeGraff, M. 2, 7, 29, 36, 45, 120, Goodman, M. 3, 8–9, 97, 104, 242,
199, 200, 252, 264, 270, 282, 337, 275, 278, 279, 349
342, 345, 364, 431, 437, 454 Guadeloupe 11–12, 275, 396–7
demonstrative pronoun 61, 78, 85–6, grammaticalisation 62, 84, 119, 255,
90–1, 104–9, 449 263, 317
Deprez, V. 41, 313, 315, 337, 342 Grant, A. 24, 59
derivational 27, 29, 44–5, 163, Grenada 294
165, 167 Guilbeau, J. 388
derivational morphology 29, 44 Guiraud, P. 389
determiner 10, 16, 20–1, 23, 35, 41,
46–50, 52, 75, 77–80, 83–4, 90, Haiti 10–12, 97
104, 108–9, 112–14, 122, 381 Hancock, I. 3, 5
dislocation: double 479–81; left 443, Harris, M. 50, 52, 90, 93, 305,
445, 447, 472, 474–5, 477–8, 481, 417–18, 426, 442
484–5; right 475, 480–1, 484 Hawkins, R. 89, 93, 173, 182
ditransitive verb 195, 203–5, 214, Holm, J. 8, 13, 24, 349
220, 222–3, 252 Hopper, P. 62, 84
Dominican Creole 1, 24, 267, 294 Huddleston, R. 218, 229, 230
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Hudson, R. 48, 68 long form of verb 213–14, 308, Index
Hull, A. 408 330, 332
Louisiana 1, 12
imperative sentence 87, 88–9, 95, Ludwig, R. 278
118, 204, 208, 220, 223, 252, 316, Lumsden, J. 3
318–25, 353, 354 Lyons, C. 73–4, 408
impersonal pronoun 86, 93, 130
impersonal verb 92–3, 126, 206 MacWhorter, J. 6–7, 248
inchoative verb 217–18, 269 Malagasy 9, 13, 126
interrogative sentence 86, 308, Martinique 11, 12
318–20, 322, 333, 351, 353–4, Mauritian Creole 1, 7–10, 24, 94, 96,
362–4, 366, 369–72, 374–7, 381, 100, 281, 408; see also MC
418, 424 Mauritius 12, 242
intransitive verbs 122, 204–5, MC 67, 75–6, 78, 232, 297
224–5, 353 Meillet, A. 62, 84, 317, 408
Mercier, A. 123
Jespersen, O. 305, 316 middle verb 205, 224
Jespersen Cycle see Jespersen, O. modal verb 210 255, 258, 284,
Jourdain, E. 261, 275 300–1, 309, 315, 331, 337, 357
modality 209, 211, 255–6, 258,
Keenan, E. 389, 409 284–98, 300
Kihm, A. 13, 414 monogenesis theory 2
King, H.V. 349 mood 176, 203–4, 206, 209–11,
Klingler, T. 10, 12, 29, 64, 111–13, 254–6, 258–60, 262, 274, 282–5,
133, 179, 196, 213–14, 243, 249, 295, 297–8, 306, 308, 330, 351,
270, 272, 283, 308–9, 329, 333, 359, 399, 405
340, 349, 380, 464, 482 Mufwene, S. 5, 7
Koopman, H. 199, 365, 392, 431, multiple wh-question 414–15,
437, 465 435, 441
Muysken, P. 223, 248, 423
Labov, W. 312, 349
Lambrecht, K. 322 negation 6, 52, 61, 248, 250–2,
Larson, R. 230 256, 299–317, 323, 326, 331,
Law, P. 431, 465 346, 436, 465
Lefebvre, C. 3, 4, 8, 10, 27, 29–30, negative concord 299, 303, 312, 313
45, 77–8, 106, 120, 128, 167, Neumann, I. 10, 57, 110, 123, 132,
199–201, 213, 233–4, 238, 252, 153, 167, 189–90, 197, 213, 249,
262, 274–6, 279, 329, 333, 365, 262, 272, 279, 294, 308–9, 333,
408, 431, 455, 457, 460, 465 401, 474, 484
left dislocation see dislocation New Caledonia 1, 13
Lehmann, W. 294, 326 non-count noun 15–17, 20, 25–6, 39,
Lemoine, K. 322 61, 74
Lesser Antillean creoles 33, 34, non-finite clause 202, 321, 358–9,
98, 100, 106, 108, 121, 129, 370, 380
135, 197–8, 234, 275, 284, 294, non-finite relative see relative clause
297–8, 338, 359, 341, 367–9, 381, Noonan, M. 248
424, 429, 431, 434, 439, 458–60, noun 14–46; see also bare noun;
471, 474 count noun; non-count noun
Lobeck, A. 214 noun-noun constructions 41
497
Index NP-Accessibility Hierarchy 389, 409 Radford, A. 399, 431
N-word 300 raising verb 126, 128–9, 205–6,
231–4, 236–7, 358
Old French 24, 50, 61, 75, 77, 190, reduplication: adjective 159; adverb 178
305, 317, 325, 408, 417 reflexive pronoun 85–6, 91–2, 115,
118–25, 135
Papen 8, 10, 94–5, 114, 190, 197, reflexive verb 118, 125
200–1, 261–2, 275, 301, 304, 307, relative clause 10, 16, 67, 90, 106,
332, 388, 390, 401, 419, 431 382–7, 391–403
passive verb 205, 252 relative pronoun 383, 385–8, 402–3,
Patrick 8 408, 429
personal pronoun 85, 86–7, 89–90, relator 398–9
92–8, 100–4, 110–13, 115, 117–19, resumptive pronoun 382, 388–9,
121, 123–5, 135, 219–20, 380, 392, 408–9, 447
397, 402, 409, 449, 464, 477, 481 Réunion 11, 12–13, 24
pied-piping 198, 401 Réunion Creole 1, 8–10, 13, 24,
plural marker 31, 33–5, 46, 73–4, 156 95–6, 114, 214, 252
Pollock 332 Rickard, P. 24, 201, 316–17
Poplack 197 right dislocation see dislocation
Popular French 79, 104, 190, 200, Rizzi, L. 335
261, 275, 307, 317, 332, 389, Roberge, Y. 197, 386
401, 408, 410, 417, 425–7, 431, Roberts, S. 5
437, 440–2 Rodrigues 10, 12
Portuguese 1–3, 7, 303, 304, 349 Rodrigues Creole 1, 8–10, 12
possessive pronoun 85–6, 90–1, 110–15 Rosen, N. 197, 386
Poullet 368 Rottet, K. 94, 114, 190, 197, 200–1,
preposition 6, 10, 15, 39, 41, 44, 48, 261–2, 275, 301, 304, 307, 332,
52, 87, 93–4, 96, 110, 113, 121, 388, 390, 401, 419, 431
135, 154, 180–99
preposition stranding 180, 197, 387, Saint Domingue 10
390, 393, 401–2, 409, 477 Saint-Jacques-Fauquenoy, M. 10, 27,
pre-verbal marker see aspect; mood; 268, 278, 282–3, 395
modality; tense Saint Lucia 11
Price 61, 75, 77, 104, 190, 305 Saxon-type possessive 84
pronominal verb 206, 219–20 Sebba, M. 248
pronoun see demonstrative pronoun; serial verb 203, 248–9, 252–3
expletive pronoun; impersonal Seuren, P. 46, 248
pronoun; personal pronoun; Seychelles 10, 12
possessive pronoun; reflexive Seychelles Creole 1, 8–10, 12, 24, 75,
pronoun; relative pronoun; 94, 96, 100
resumptive pronoun Shih, C. 141
pseudo-cleft 466 short form of verb 116, 213, 308, 332
Siegel, J. 4
quantifier 16, 47–9, 52, 74, 300, small clause 117, 230–1, 316, 321,
449–50, 477 354, 358, 377, 379–80
question see alternative question; Spanish 1, 3, 7, 50, 204, 303–4, 335
tag question; wh-question; specificity marker 47, 75–6, 84
wh-question, wh-in-situ; yes-no Speedy, K. 13
question Sproat, R. 141
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Sterlin, M-D. 238 unergative verb 203–5, 214, 225–7 Index
Stewart, W. 3 universalist theory 4–5
substratist theory 3
superstratist theory 3 Valdman, A. 3, 8, 10, 12, 64, 97, 189,
Syea, A. 10, 84, 213, 223, 252, 253, 213, 263, 269, 272, 274, 293–4,
297, 349, 408 329, 333, 389, 395
Sylvain, S. 3, 10, 350, 455, 478 Valli, A. 41
Veenstra, T. 248
tag question 415, 438, 441 verb see complex-transitive verb;
Taylor, D. 3, 270, 275 control verb; copula verb;
Tayo 1, 9–10, 13, 95, 110–11, 113–14, ditransitive verb; ergative verb;
124–6, 134–5, 244, 274–5, 284, existential verb; impersonal verb;
298, 305, 350, 352, 403, 410, inchoative verb; intransitive
439–41 verb; middle verb; modal verb;
Telchid, S. 368 pronominal verb; raising verb;
tense 41, 69, 176, 200, 203–4, reflexive verb; serial verb;
206–8, 211–14, 233–4, 237–8, unaccusative verb
242–3, 248, 250–2, 254–67, verb doubling 472
269–75, 277–8, 280–3, 285, verificational tag question see tag
287, 288, 291–2, 294–5, 297–9, question
306–10, 317–19, 321, 330, 332, Voorhoeve, J. 3
343, 345–7, 349–52, 354, 359,
365–6, 377–9, 381, 405, 446–7, Wekker, H. 46
451, 462 West Africa 3, 8–9, 12, 248, 252
Thompson, R.W. 3 Whinnom, K. 2
Tobler, J. 10, 11, 27, 84, 113, 167, wh-question: direct 410, 411, 418,
170, 265, 279, 329, 398–9, 422, 425, 429; indirect 410, 411, 415,
463, 473, 482 429, 441; long 410, 414, 433,
topic 20, 39,, 68, 87, 198, 443, 445, wh-in-situ 351, 410, 414, 436–7,
447, 466–77, 484–5 439–41
topicalisation see topic Williams, E. 354, 377
Towell, R. 89, 93, 173, 182 word order 6, 23, 27, 111, 318–19,
transitive verb 204–5, 214, 216–19, 325–6, 330, 372, 410–13, 415,
222–3, 225, 229–30, 252–3 417, 426–7, 431–2, 441–2, 466
Traugott, E. 62, 84
typology 319, 322–3 yes-no question 318–19, 369, 410,
412–13, 415–18, 441
unaccusative verb 203–5, 214,
224–7, 252 zero copula 217
499

French Creoles - A Comprehensive and Comparative Grammar (PDFDrive)

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French Creoles: A Comprehensive and Comparative Grammar is the first

The book is organised to promote a thorough understanding of the grammar

Anand Syea is Reader in Linguistics at the University of Westminster

Comprehensive Grammars are available for the following languages:

Typeset in Sabon and Gill Sans

7.0 Introduction 180

9 Tense, mood, and aspect 254

11 Clause structure and word order 318

12 Clausal complements and complementisers 353

13 Relative clauses 382

2.1 Determiner-less (bare) nouns in English, French,

I am immensely grateful to Paul Bennett for his detailed comments on the

I would also like to thank members of GDRI-Seepicla group (including Anne

My thanks also to the University of Westminster for granting me research

ADVP Adverbial phrase Lit Literally

French creoles are spoken in different parts of the world, particularly on

Attitudes towards creole languages have been mostly negative. Bloomfield

1.1 Theories of creole development

1.1.1 Monogenesis theory

1.1.2 Substratist theory

1.1.3 Superstratist theory

1.1.4 Universalist theory

1.1.5 Feature pool hypothesis – an ecological approach

This approach to the formation and development of creole languages is out-

The feature pool hypothesis takes language as an essentially social rather

1.2 Contemporary debates

1.3 The comparative approach

As we will see in this book, the question of structural similarities between

Comparative studies of French creoles are by no means new. Goodman

1.4 About this book

This aim of this book is then to provide a comparative description of some

1.5 About the French creoles

1.5.1 The Atlantic French creoles

Haitian Creole is spoken by several million people on the island of Haiti

The neighbouring islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe, together with

1.5.2 The French creoles of the Americas

Karipuna Creole, according to Tobler (1983: 6) and Corne (1999: 150), is a

1.5.3 The French creoles of the Indian Ocean

The creole spoken on the island of La Réunion, however, is very different

1.5.4 The French creole of New Caledonia (Pacific)

(1) a. John is being careful

(2) a. Mary bought two chairs

Two further subcategories of nouns should also be recognised: proper and

(3) a. A/The boy left early

(4) a. I broke a bottle

2.2 Nouns in French

2.2.1 Subcategories of nouns

(5) Animate Inanimate

These subcategories can be justified in the same way that subcategories of

(9) a. Jean regarde la chaise

(10) a. Jean a vu trois étoiles

Proper nouns, except names of countries, cannot be specified by an article,

(11) a. * Le Pierre est arrivé hier

(12) a. Elle a lavé sa voiture

Such ungrammatical and semantically ill-formed sentences in French can be

(13) a. la/une fille

(14) a. cette dame

(17) a. l(e)/*la facteur/professeur/ordinateur (masculine)

(18) a. le/*la courage/montage/chomage (masculine)

(19) a. le/*la remède/cortège/système (masculine)

(20) le/*la marxisme/tourisme/romanticisme (masculine)

Some nouns can, however, be both masculine and feminine.