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12 - Negative Concord in Creole Languages: Commonality and Variation in the Perspective of Bickerton’s Legacy

from Part III - The Development of Syntax

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2025

By
Viviane Déprez
Edited by
Dany Adone  and
Astrid Gabel
Dany Adone
Affiliation:
Universität zu Köln
Astrid Gabel
Affiliation:
Universität zu Köln
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Summary

Déprez’s chapter argues that Derek Bickerton was amongst the first linguists to propose a list of properties hypothesised to be common to all creole languages in his groundbreaking Roots of Language (1981). While this list of properties has sometimes inspired research promoting creole languages as unique, Déprez argues that Bickerton’s original view should better be understood as a claim that these properties were possibly universal properties of language at least abstractly and as such instantiated the roots of all languages, not just creole ones. In her contribution she revisits and reassesses Bickerton’s observations about the generality of negative concord as a common property of creole languages and beyond, sorting out what remains of his legacy in this domain from what has been discovered since then about the nature of negation and negative dependencies in creole languages. She bases herself more specifically on a detailed comparison of the French-based creoles but appeals as well to other ones to confirm patterns discovered there or complete them with additional possibilities.

Keywords

creole languagesFrench-based creolesnegationnegative concordlanguage classifiction and diversity
Type
Chapter
Information
The Evolution, Acquisition and Development of Syntax
Insights from Creole Languages and Beyond
 , pp. 209 - 232
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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