Recent Development in Creole Studies [Reprint 2012 ed.] 9783110948318, 9783484304727

Table of contents :
Introduction: Recent Development in Creole Studies
Nasality in Haitian Creole
Evidence for Recursive Syllable Structures in Aluku and Sranan
Relexification, Reversed Interference, Double Signals and the Organization of the Mental Lexicon
Event Descriptions in Fòn and Haitian Creole
Restricted Verb Movement in Ngukurr Kriol
Licensing Conditions on Cliticization in Cape Verdean Creole
Haitian Creole Se: A Copula, a Pronoun, Both or Neither? On the Double Life of a Functional Head
Some un-French Properties of Lesser Antillean Grammar
Haitian Construct State Nominals: A Creole Contribution to the Theory of Genitive Phrases
Menage à Trois: How Promiscuous are Objects in Resultatives?
List of Contributors

Citation preview

Linguistische Arbeiten

472

Herausgegeben von Hans Altmann, Peter Blumenthal, Hans Jürgen Heringer, Ingo Plag, Beatrice Primus und Richard Wiese

Recent Development in Creole Studies Edited by Dany Adone

Max Niemeyer Verlag Tübingen 2003

Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Bibliothek Die Deutsche Bibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.ddb.de abrufbar. ISBN 3-484-30472-3

ISSN 0344-6727

© Max Niemeyer Verlag G m b H , Tübingen 2003 Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen. Printed in Germany. Gedruckt auf alterungsbeständigem Papier. Druck: Hanf Buch- und Mediendruck G m b H , Darmstadt Einband: Industriebuchbinderei Nädele, Nehren

Preface

The present book contains a series of articles on different areas within Creole studies. Due to various reasons, it took longer than anticipated to publish this book, yet I sincerely hope it is worth the wait. I am grateful to Richard Wiese, one of the editors of this series, for his constant encouragement. I would also like to thank Mrs Birgitta Zeller and Mrs Carmen Luna of Niemeyer Verlag for their support. Thank you to Hanna and Tobias for the formatting work they started, even if they could not finish it. I am very grateful to all the contributors for their patience and understanding. I would also like to thank all the people around me who gave me support. There are many of them and I don't want to name anybody in particular just in case I miss out on one, but they know who they are and will certainly appreciate it when they see the book. Special thanks go to Shaun for his time and patience with the final (and somewhat painful) formatting of the manuscripts. T o all the contributors, en mari mersi, wi, nu fin resi\ Dany Adone

Table of Contents

Dany Adone Introduction: Recent Development in Creole Studies

1

Jean-Robert Cadely Nasality in Haitian Creole

5

Norval Smith Evidence for Recursive Syllable Structures in Aluku and Sranan

31

John S. Lumsden Relexification, Reversed Interference, Double Signals and the Organization of the Mental Lexicon

53

Richard K. Larson Event Descriptions in Fan and Haitian Creole

67

Dany Adone Restricted Verb Movement in Ngukurr Kriol

91

Marlyse Baptista Licensing Conditions on Cliticization in Cape Verdean Creole

109

Viviane Déprez Haitian Creole Se: A Copula, a Pronoun, Both or Neither? On the Double Life of a Functional Head

135

Karl Erland Gadelii Some un-French Properties of Lesser Antillean Grammar

175

Alain Kihm Haitian Construct State Nomináis: A Creole Contribution to the Theory of Genitive Phrases

203

Tonjes Veenstra Menage à Trois: How Promiscuous are Objects in Resultatives?

223

List of Contributors

233

Dany Adone Introduction: Recent Development in Creole Studies

In the recent years, the field of Creole Studies has seen an enormous amount of work done in several areas. This volume contains a series of articles that address central issues in phonology, semantics, lexicon and syntax in creole languages. Although the studies are embedded in various frameworks, they contribute to the ongoing debate on creolization and allow us a deeper look into several domains. There are two contributions on phonology. These are Cadely's and Smith's papers. Cadely's paper presents a synchronic description of the process of nasalization in Haitian Creole (HC). It examines two nasalization rules that are usually presented as part of the phonology of this language: a regressive nasalization rules that applies within stems or underived morphemes and a progressive nasalization that takes place across a morpheme boundary. It is argued that these rules as described in previous work are not part of the synchronic grammar of HC. Nasalization occurs, but by other means. It is observed that nasalized and non-nasalized forms are in free variation in the speech of Haitians regardless of their linguistic status as monolingual/bilingual. This paper provides a parametric account of this phenomenon based on the composite nature of the nasal vowels. It is argued that all nasal vowels depicted in the surface form are represented in the lexicon by a combination oral vowel/floating nasal consonant. Smith's paper is a study on one aspect of the syllable structure of Sranan liquid clusters in relation to the corresponding structures in Aluku. Sranan is the creole language formerly spoken on the slave plantations in Surinam in South America. Aluku is one of the forms of speech spoken by Maroons (escapees) from the plantations in the 18th century. Smith introduces a new model of syllable structure is introduced - an extension of Levin's 1987- model of the syllable. In this extended model recursive syllable structures are allowed. In particular liquid clusters are treated as onsets containing a dependent syllable. The overall analysis is carried out in terms of the Optimality Theory framework. Aluku, like other Maroon forms of speech in Surinam, does not allow phonetic clusters. Smith claims in his article that the difference between Sranan and Aluku reflexes of European and African initial clusters is smaller than might appear. In both languages we have dependent syllables in the onset position of the main syllables in such words. The difference is that Aluku has a vowel in the nucleus of this dependent syllable, while Sranan does not. In addition, Aluku words of this type exhibit an alternate form lacking the underlying liquid. Smith explains this alternant as being due to a reordering of two constraints such that codas are disallowed in dependent syllables. Smith hopes that this analysis will point the way to analyses of the reflexes of initial liquid clusters in the other Maroon lects. There are two contributions on semantics and lexicon by Larson and Lumsden. Lumsden argues that the mental process of relexification creates an independent lexical entry representing a new phonological form and links this entry with the lexical entries of syntactic and semantic elements that are already established in the speaker's lexicon. Because the form of a word is thus manipulated independently of its meaning or its syntactic function, it follows that the lexicon is best described in a theory where the phono-

2

Dany Adone

logical, syntactic and semantic elements of each word are encoded in separate lexical entries. This hypothesis requires a minimal amount of equipment in the formal representation of relexification and it expresses the appropriate generalizations of the process. Furthermore, this representation of Relexification predicts that a learner's second language may sometimes influence the interpretations of his first language vocabulary and that contact languages may sometimes use two phonological forms (each derived from a different language) to signal particular words. Both of these predictions have empirical support. Larson argues that clausal definiteness markers can be given a revealing account under the view that they are adverbs of quantification, in the sense of Lewis (1975). He proposes that clausal definiteness markers represent a new, and hitherto unattested item in the inventory of quantificational adverbs: a definite adverb with Russellian semantics. Lefebvre (1992, 1998) and Law and Lefebvre (1995) describe an interesting set of facts concerning the distribution and interpretation of definiteness markers in the Kwa language Fongbe (hereafter Fon), and in Haitian Creole. In both Fin and Haitian, definiteness markers occur in construction with nouns as garden-variety definite articles. But definiteness markers are also reported to occur in construction with a clause. As described by Lefebvre (1992,1998), the presence of clausal definiteness markers produces a complex semantic effect on the presuppositions of its containing sentence. Furthermore, these effects are subject to a number of constraints, and appear to interact scopally with other elements in the sentence. Under this proposal, Fin and Haitian clausal fill an interesting paradigmatic "gap". Whereas parallel determiner and adverbial quantifiers exist in many cases, with definite determiners this parallelism appears to break down. Compare Some/All/Mostfflie men ate potato chips versus Sometimes/Always/Mostly/*The-ly men ate potato chips. The author suggests that Fôn and Haitian complete the paradigm, showing both nominal and adverbial definites. This semantic proposal is coupled with a plausible syntactic account of clausal definiteness markers as quantified adverbs. It is showed that the combined analysis neatly explains the various constraints and scopai interactions noted by Lefebvre. There are several contributions on various aspects of syntax in different Creoles. These include Adone's study of Australian Kriol, Baptista's study of Cape Verdean Creole, Deprez's article on Haitian Creole, Gadelii's paper on Lesser Antillean, Kihm's paper on Haitian Creole, and Veenstra's study on Saramaccan. Adone's article examines the tense, mood and aspect system of Ngukurr Kriol and argues for limited verb movement in this creole. She focuses on the study of the preverbal markers, their order with respect to negation, adverbs and floating quantifiers. She argues that similar to Capeverdean Creole, NK shows evidence for the strong correlation between verb movement and morphology. There is minimal verb movement if an INFL category has an affix status, as is the case with the aspect marker. Baptista's contribution examines the syntax of pronominals in Capeverdean Creole and focuses particularly on verbal clitics, i.e., subject and object clitics whose domain of cliticization is Verb (Klavans, 1985; 1995). She provides a definition of clitichood following Kayne (1995). Klavans (1985; 1995) parametric theory of clitics and the parameter involving clitics with "dual citizenship" form the focus of the study. Based on a clitic typology she argues that there are in Capeverdean four types of verbal clitics. The licensing conditions on cliticization in Capeverdean Creole are presented and notable constraints such as a ban on clitic clustering, as well as the incompatibility of the processes of suffixation and cliticization are discussed. Baptista puts forward the hypothesis that subject clitics

Introduction

3

in Capeverdean may be in AGR, following a proposal by Rizzi (1986a) and Brandi and Cordin (1989) for Northern Italian dialects, and DeGraff (1992) for Haitian. Based on these findings, she makes some assumptions about the pro-drop status of Capeverdean Creole and presents a different approach to this issue. Déprez evaluates the arguments for the two opposite conclusions recent work on the element se in Haitian Creole predicative constructions have reached. On the one hand, se has been argued to be a functional head in the verbal functional structure of HC. On the other hand it has been argued to be a nominal resumptive pro-form of the subject of predication. It is shown that neither perspective achieves a full unification. Elements of an alternative analysis based on some innovations of the Minimalist framework presenting a potential for a middle ground position are explored. It is suggested that se is a functional projection that alternatively licenses a thematic or an expletive subject, depending on whether it does or doesn't allow thematic checking. The proposal offers a new perspective for the dual role of se as a licenser of predication (copula se) and as the apparent subject of a type of expletive construction (pronominal se). Gadelii presents the grammar of Lesser Antillean (LA). It is compared to that of French, its superstratum, and to a minor extent to grammars of West African substratal languages. When comparing LA to French, it is found LA has more XP-movement than French, whereas French but not LA exhibits head movement. LA however at times "compensates" for the unavailability of head movement by lexicalizing functional head positions. "Lexicalization" of PRO and pro also takes place in LA unless the subject is semantically empty. The grammar of West African languages is found to be more similar to that of LA, but importantly certain substratal languages seem to exhibit head movement. This means that the grammar of LA cannot be straightforwardly derived from any of its contributor languages, but it is concluded that LA grammar is a realization of the unmarked parameter values of Universal Grammar. Kihm studies Haitian genitive phrases (e.g., manch chimiy-la /sleeve shirt-the/ 'the sleeve of the shirt') are syntactically distinct from their equivalents in the lexifier language French as well as in the (main) substrate language Fongbe. At the same time they show striking similarities with the so-called Construct State nomináis (CSN) of the Semitic languages (e.g., Egyptian Arabic kom il-qamiiS /sleeve the-shirt/ 'the sleeve of the shirt'). Significant differences are also observed, but they do not outweigh the import of the typological parallel. The latter can be shown to result from a common property of Haitian and Semitic, viz. the absence in their vocabularies of a morpheme with the syntactic and semantic features of French de that did not carry over into Haitian for apparently accidental reasons. It is argued, therefore, that allowance must be made in creolization theories for the intervention of chance interacting with the necessities of UG. No single theory can hope to explain everything in such a complex phenomenon as language genesis. Veenstra's paper is concerned with the syntactic representation of argument sharing in complex predicates. The discussion centers on internal argument sharing effects in (resultative) serial verb constructions. On the basis of ideophone placement, Case-marking configurations, and extraction patterns (of arguments as well as adjuncts), it is concluded that resultatives are best analyzed involving a Larsonian VP-shell configuration, in which the second predicate is an adjunct to the first. The 'shared' object is part of the first predicate, and (covertly) represented in the second predicate as an empty operator.

Jean-Robert

Cadely

Nasality in Haitian Creole

1.

Introduction

The process of nasal assimilation is considered by many creolists to be one of the most striking features of French-based creóles phonology. According to Tinelli (1974:343-344), "few linguists have tackled the problem and those who have, from a synchronic or a diachronic viewpoint, have mentioned the erratic aspect of that phonological domain. The systematic distribution of nasality in creóles is commonly described as anarchic, confusing and difficult to account for..." The goal of this paper is to offer another point of view. I would like to demonstrate that the process of nasal assimilation in HC can be described through some universal principles and parameters. This paper is organized as follows: the first part presents the data and examines the empirical foundations of a regressive rule and a progressive rule of nasalization. Some researchers consider that the former apply "with very few exceptions" whereas the latter is "optional" (e.g., Tinelli 1970; 1974 and Valdman 1978). An examination of these rules, however, shows that regressive nasalization fails to apply in the large majority of lexical items in HC while progressive assimilation is limited to a certain class of morphemes. Further, it is also observed that nasalized and non-nasalized variants may occur in free variation in the speech of Haitians. From a theoretical standpoint, I will assume that all nasal vowels depicted in the surface are actually instances of an oral vowel followed by a "floating nasal consonant." The second part addresses theoretical implications. In this part, I will propose a description of the nasalization process occurring within stems. The third part of this paper deals with the progressive nasalization rule. I will focus on the nasalization process of the verbal suffix /e/, the morpheme Ai/ and the definite determiner /la/. The distribution as well as the nasalization process of this last morpheme is one of the most interesting phenomena that can be observed in HC. Earlier analyses, Tinelli (1970-1974), Fournier (1977-1978), for example, have postulated several rules to account for this process. I provide another approach based on the concept of a floating segment.

2.

Oral vs. Nasal Vowels

The phonemic inventory of HC has always been presented as having both oral and nasal vowels (see, e.g., d'Ans 1968, Tinelli 1970, Valdman 1978, Dejean 1980). This assumption stemmed from the occurrence of contrastive oppositions such as those in (1):

6

Jean-Robert Cadely

(1)

/a/

Oral /ras/ 'race' /pat/ 'dough' /Saie/ 'to load'

III

Nasal /ras/ 'rancid/nonsense' /pât/ 'slope* /Sä4e/ 'to change'

/tete/ 'breast' /pate/ 'pattee'

/e/

/νε/ 'glass' Ipcsl 'plague' Isetí 'dry'

m

loi

/bo/ kiss Ifol 'false'

loi

/bö/ good Ifol 'bottom'

loi

/bo/ edge /kot/ 'rib'

loi

lböl 'good' /köt/ 'quarrel'

/e/

/ε/

/tete/

'nonsense' /patë/ 'skate' Ave/

'twenty' /pês/ 'pliers' /sëk/ 'five'

As may be seen from the above contrastive pairs, the opposition is observed in particular for the [+ Mid] and [+Low\ vowels in the syllabic contexts CV and CVC. In the last context, however, the opposition is less frequent if the syllable is closed by a nasal consonant. I will return to this point in the section on nasal assimilation. The contrastive opposition is also absent in the distribution of the [+High] vowels. The systematic distribution of the [+High] oral vowels /i/, /«/vs. their nasal counterparts /¡/, / & raises problems and has been the object of debate among researchers. These oral vowels can appear in all environments while the distribution of their nasal versions seems predictable. They occur principally in a nasal environment, for instance, when preceding a nasal consonant, as illustrated in (2). Valdman (1971) and Dejean (1980) analyse [î\ and [ΰ| as phonetic variants of /¿/ and /«/: (2)

[min] [mün] [larîm] [vüm] [jün]

'face, expression, mine' 'people, person' 'mucus' 'a lot' 'one'

7

Nasality in Haitian Creole

However, as can be observed from the examples presented below, /V and / & may also appear in environments where "a combinatory factor is not involved and where they never alternate with their oral counterparts." Based on these facts, Tinelli (1974) and Annestin (1987), among others, analyse Iii and / & as part of the phonemic inventory of HC: (3)

[ügä] [usi] [büda] [üfo] [p!ga] [kaSibo] [jü/ü nsg] [hü]

'voodoo-priest' (man) 'servant of the voodoo priest' (man/woman) 'derriere' 'voodoo temple' 'be careful' 'pipe' 'a person' 'drum'

2.1. Nasal Assimilation Writing about nasality, Elodie Jourdain (1956:294) stated that, "in all American creóles it is always the case that the consonants Imi, Ini and ΙηΙ nasalize the preceding vowel or the vowel that follows them, and often both." Researchers working in the area of HC phonology extended this statement to this language without offering convincing empirical evidence. They assumed that both rules, regressive and progressive nasalization, are at work in the phonology of HC. The strongest claim, however, has been made by Tinelli (1974: 345) who wrote that "a vowel is nasal, in Haitian, when followed in the underlying representation of a morpheme by a nasal consonant. There are few exceptions to that Morpheme Structure Condition." This section examines the empirical foundations of these rules. It is common to observe that at the surface level in HC a nasal vowel appears in the environment of a nasal consonant. This trait is considered by many creolists (see e.g., Tinelli 1974, Valdman 1978) to be one of the main differences between French and HC, and indeed a "characteristic of creolization". The nasal vowel can appear before or after the nasal consonant. Examples in (4a) and in (4b) illustrate this observation: (4)

a. [nasal vowel + nasal consonant] [fanal] 'lantern' [fênet] 'window'

[lämu] 'love' [lame] 'sea'

[kömedi] 'comedy' [fimi] 'female'

[mênai] 'girl(boy)friend'

[tômat] 'tomato'

[lânqit] 'night'

b. [nasal vowel + nasal consonant] [kapônë] 'to intimidate'

[flânë] 'to loiter'

[sônë] 'to ring'

[plîmë] 'to pluck'

[grënë] 'to scatter'

[butônê] 'to button'

[gagânë] 'to hold sb. by the throat'

Jean-Robert Cadely A difference exists between the above examples. The forms presented in (4a) are stems, monomorphemics. These items undergo regressive nasalization. Examples in (4b) are complex words, bimorphemics. They are all verbs formed with a noun and a suffix. For example, the verb: [gagäne] 'to hold sb. by the throat' contains the nominal stem [gagän] 'throat' and the suffix [e], In these forms, a rule of progressive assimilation applies across a morpheme boundary. At this point, it is worth pointing out that this rule does not affect stems. It is restricted to root-suffix combinations. It is also valuable to note that only certain types of suffix and clitics are involved, such as the verbal suffix [ê], the definite determiner [la] and the morpheme [//] third singular person (possessive and personal pronoun). As may be observed, however, from these examples, the two segments involved in the process are adjacent and both rules apply locally. The process meets what phonologists call the Locality Condition (see, e.g., Steriade 1995:121). Let us now examine the regressive nasalization rule.

2.2. Regressive Nasalization The regressive nasalization rule can be schematically stated as follows: (5)

ν

[+nasal]

/

L +cons [ +nasal

J ]

This generalization states that in HC a vowel is nasal when it precedes a nasal consonant within a morpheme. According to Tinelli (1974:345), this rule applies "with very few exceptions." As it is stated, the regressive assimilation rule clearly predicts that pattern such as : [... VW...], where V stands for an oral vowel and Ν a nasal consonant cannot be found in surface formatives. Thus, all things being equal, if this generalization is correct we can infer that: (a) both oral and nasal vowels may occur after a nasal consonant, as in [fänal] 'lantern' and [demo] 'devil' and (b) contrastive oppositions between oral vs. nasal vowels may also be found in the same environment. The following examples confirm this last assumption: (6)

/mati/ 'martyr' /mäti/ 'lie'

/nos/ /nös/

'wedding' 'nuncio'

/maä/ 'stair' /mää/ 'sleeve'

/mss/ 'mass' /mës/ 'thin'

ne/ /në/

'knot' 'nose'

/lame/ 'army' /lamé/ 'the hand'

The above generalization deserves comment. In earlier works on HC (see, e.g., Valdman 1978, Tinelli 1970, 1974), the phenomenon of nasalization has always been analyzed in correlation with the "diglossie language setting" in Haiti. Nasalizing, in particular regressive nasalization, is regarded as a distinguishing mark, a "shibboleth" of monolingual Haitians. By contrast, non-nasalizing reflects a certain "frenchification" that is not uncommon among bilingual people (French-speaking Haitians). This view, however, is not corroborated by the facts that will be presented. As it will be seen, the overall process of the distribution of nasality in HC is more complicated than it appears at first glance. The following section presents an overview of this phenomenon.

9

Nasality in Haitian Creole

2.3. Free Variation and Nasalization Yves Dejean (1977, 1980 and personal communication) who has conducted research in different areas of Haiti has drawn my attention to facts that require close attention but that, for some unknown reason, have never been mentioned in previous studies on nasality in HC. He pointed out the fact that nasalized and non-nasalized forms may occur in free variation within the same geographic area and in the speech of a same speaker without "specific discourse reasons." For example, in the area of Petit-Goâve (mostly monolingual) where this variation can be heard, he noted that the non-nasalized variant is the one that is used most. Our own inquiries to twenty-five native speakers, including myself, within the Haitian community in Miami also confirm the existence of such a variation. In the forms presented below where regressive nasalization is said to apply "with very few exceptions," it has been observed that both realizations alternate freely in communicative situations in the speech of the same speaker, regardless of his linguistic status as monolingual/bilingual: (7)

[lams] / [läms] 'the sea'

[kana] / [käna] 'duck'

[famij] / [fami] / [famij] 'family'.

[remed] / [rëmed] 'medicine'

[kamarad] / [kämarad] 'companion'

[amate] / [amate] 'lover of / ship owner'

[ame] / [âme] 'bitter'

[δεη] / [Sên] 'chain'

[ätonwa] / [ätönwa] 'funnel'

Aside from the free variation, we also observed that certain forms may undergo nasalization while the alternating (non-nasalizing) form is prohibited: (8)

[lamed] / »[lamed] 'hell / fucking'

[nam] / *[nam] 'soul'

[läm] / *[lam] 'wave (sea)'

[vën] / *[νεη] 'vein'

[wöm] / *[wom] 'rum'

[mënai] / * [menai] 'boy/girl friend'

However, one of the most striking facts is that the vast majority of lexical items escape regressive nasalization, i.e., a vowel is not nasalized when followed by a nasal consonant. These cases are divided in two groups: a group where regressive nasalization fails to apply and a second group where an underlying h i has been postulated.

2.4. Non-Nasalization A significant number of lexical items in HC where regressive nasalization is expected to occur escape this rule. These forms are of interest since (a) they constitute the largest part of the HC lexicon, and (b) previous studies has not made note of them. In the following examples, the oral vowel appears in the general context, i.e., before a nasal consonant and yet, nasalization does not apply:

10

Jean-Robert Cadely

/lamitje/ *[lämitje] [lamitje] 'friend'

/lapeson/ •[lapesôn] [lapeson] 'individual (pej.)

/telefon/ * [telefon] [telefon] 'telephone'

/batem/ *[batêm] [batem] 'baptism'

/bon/ *[bôn] [bon] 'servant'

/emosjö/ *[ëmosjô] [emosjö] 'emotion'

/fenomen/ *[fênômën] [fenomen] 'phenomenon'

/pan/ *[pân] [pan] 'breakdown'

/kamjö/ *[kâmjô] [kamjö] 'truck'

/zon/ *[zön] [zon] 'yellow'

/ramo/ *[rämo] [ramo] 'branch'

/siklon/ *[siklôn] [siklon] 'cyclone'

/zon/ *[zôn] [zon] 'area'

/kome/ /sinema/ * [körne] *[sinëma] [kome] [sinema] 'girl (pej.)" cinema'

/kamokë/ /kanif/ *[kânif] *[kâmokê] [kanif] [kamokë] 'subversive' 'pocket knife'

/pwomes/ *[pwömes] [pwomes] 'promise'

/medam/ *[medâm] [medam] 'ladies'

/talatan/ *[talatàn] [talatan] 'women's underwear'

/amen/ *[âmën] [amen] 'amen'

/onet/ *[önet] [onet] 'honest'

/woma/ *[wôma] [woma] 'lobster'

/bekan/ *[bekän] [bekan] 'bike'

/elemâ/ *[elëmâ] [elemâ] 'element'

The above forms represent a partial sample of words where that rule fails to apply regardless of the social status of the speaker or the regional variant of HC. A description that attempts to derive all nasal vowels preceding a nasal consonant from an oral vowel would be obliged to treat them as gallicisms or exceptions.

2.5. Underlying /r/ Researchers have often commented on the following cases where regressive nasalization also fails to apply: /domi/ *[dömi] [domi] 'to sleep'

/Same/ *[säme] [Same] 'to charm'

/letenel/ •[letênel] [letenel] 'eternal'

/mon/ *[mön] [mon] 'mountain'

/nomai/ * [nomai] [nomai] 'normal'

/kanaval/ *[kanaval] [kanaval] 'carnival'

/âtemâ/ *[âtëmâ] [âtemâ] 'funeral'

/guvene/ *[guvëne] [guvene] 'to govern'

To account for the lack of nasalization, earlier works on nasalization in French-based creóles (Taylor 1957) and in HC (d'Ans 1968) assumed that the lexical representation of these words contains an etymologic /r/ in postvocalic position. It follows that the presence

11

Nasality in Haitian Creole

of this historic phoneme breaks the Adjacency or Locality Condition thus preventing regressive assimilation from applying. According to this view, the underlying representation of the surface form [kanaval] would be as follows: O ι1 X I1 k O Ν C X

Ν ι1 X I1 a = = = =

C I1 X I1 r

0 Ν ι1 I1 X X ι1 1I η a [kanaval]

0 I1 X ι1 V

Ν I1 X I1 a

C I1 X I1 1

Onset Nucleus Coda Skeletal tier

From a diachronic perspective, this proposal is quite acceptable since it assumes that the HC formative [kanaval] results from an historic change of its French etymon /kamaval/. One might indeed imagine that during the process of creolization, the French word /karnaval/ was restructured into [kanaval]. Even then the question of knowing in what variant of French the postvocalic /r/ has been lost, why, when and how, still remains. From a synchronic perspective, however, this hypothesis raises questions and, as we shall see, cannot be maintained. One of its consequences is that it poses problems both on the levels of acquisition and description. On the level of acquisition, this hypothesis suggests that speakers of HC must have an historic knowledge of the language. Following Tinelli (1974:360), I myself seriously doubt that "those r's are in any sense psychologically real for monolingual speakers" and even for bilingual. On the descriptive level, this hypothesis assumes that the phonetic form [kanaval] is generated by a rule that deletes a syllable final /r/. As it is well known, one of the main characteristics of certain Frenchbased creóles is the absence of a realized postvocalic /r/, and it is worth noting that in contemporary HC, this phoneme never surfaces after a vowel either in the bilingual or unilingual variant1 of HC. Therefore, the postulation of a rule that deletes a segment in an environment where it never shows up has no raison d'être. Valdman (1974) and Dejean (1980) also question the synchronic postulation of an underlying Ir/. According to Valdman (1974), this would presuppose that the underlying representation of forms such as: fbef 'butter'; /ρε/ 'priest/fear'; fkeJ 'heart' etc., also contains this phoneme since their French etymon are respectively: /beer/; /paer/ and /kœr/. If this assumption was correct, these forms should be followed by the phonetic variant [la] of the definite determiner that always occurs after a consonant. One may observe, however, that it is the variant [(j)a] that appears after all these forms : *[bs la]/[bs (j) a ] 'the butter'; *[ke la]/[ke (j) a] 'the heart' ;*[ρε Ια]/[ρε (j) a] 'the priest'. This variant is used with morphemes ending in a vowel. These objections are in principle "correct" and legitimately justified from the viewpoint of a purely synchronic description. However, the question is what prevents regressive nasalization from applying in these forms. 1

The phoneme /r/ is used in postvocalic position in the variant of HC spoken in the northern part of Haiti (see, e.g., Etienne 1974).

12

Jean-Robert Cadely

One may suggest an alternative approach by proposing a description that links both processes, diachronic change (loss of /r/ in French etymons) and synchronic description (absence of nasalization). In spite of its limitations on an empirical level, it may be instructive to examine the feasibility as well as the plausibility of such an analysis. Empirical evidence supporting a diachronic/synchronic analysis apparently can be found from nativized loan words, i.e., the integration of forms borrowed from other languages like English into the phonology of HC. It is important to point out that English and French do not belong to the same phylum. This last remark can be extended to HC vis-à-vis English. However, one can observe that forms borrowed from English that contain a postvocalic /r/ may also lose this phoneme when incorporated into the HC phonological structure: (12)

English /forman/ 'foreman' /barman/ 'barman' /kornar/ 'corner(football)'

Haitian creole [fomân] [bamän] [kons]

These examples support Jakobson's claim (1962: 241) that "a language accepts foreign structural elements only when they correspond to its own development tendencies." Thus, we must add that there is a tendency for a large majority of French-based creóles not to have syllables closed by the segment M. The restructuring of forms borrowed from English seems to indicate that a constraint preventing this segment from occurring in postvocalic position is at work in the phonology of HC. From the point of view of nasalization, it is also important to note that regressive assimilation is blocked in these examples: (13)

*[fömän] *[bämän] *[köns]

These facts seem to dictate that the non-surfacing of the segment /r/ in syllable final position and the blocking of regressive assimilation could be closely related. If such is the case, then we must be able to find a description that expresses this correlation. As a point of departure, it probably goes without saying that an underlying segment needs not surface phonetically. Evidence can be found in many languages. According to Hyman (1970:75), what is required is that the "... the positing of non-surfacing underlying oppositions be justified by some acceptable means." Therefore, on a diachronic level it seems quite correct to posit that during the process of creolization in Haiti, French words containing a postvocalic /r/ were restructured, i.e., Irl was not realized phonetically. On a synchronic level, it also seems quite acceptable to postulate that this phonetic loss has left its trace in the syllabic representation of these morphemes. From this perspective, one can assume that the lack of regressive nasalization in the above forms may be due to the presence of an empty phonological position in the syllabic representation of these morphemes. I refer to empty position as a syllabic constituent linked to a skeletal slot or timing unit, but without segmental content. The idea of empty positions in syllabic representations has been postulated in numerous studies (see, e.g., Dresher 1985, Piggott and Singh 1985, Lowenstamm and Kaye 1986, Kaye 1989, etc.). Since the nonoccurrence of the segment /r/ in syllable-final is predictable, it is the only element that never appears in this position.

Nasality in Haitian

13

Creole

From a synchronic perspective, one can be "justified" to posit an empty phonological position that prevents regressive assimilation from applying in the form *[känaval] /[kanaval\. The postulation of an empty element would be strong enough and easier to justify if (a) one could provide cases where such an empty position blocks the application of phonological processes in HC, i.e., if it is "independently-motivated", or (b) if the presence of this element could justify the absence of regressive assimilation in other cases. The native speakers that I have consulted, including myself, have found no empirical evidence of this kind. The postulation of an empty phonological position blocking regressive assimilation seems to find a "weak motivation" only on a diachronic basis. To sum up this section, I have presented cases where regressive nasalization seems to apply, i.e., where an oral vowel preceding a nasal consonant undergoes assimilation and cases where nasalized and non-nasalized forms alternate freely in the speech of Haitians. I have also shown that regressive nasalization fails to take place in the vast majority of lexical items. From this presentation of data, one can observe that regressive assimilation occurs in "a totally haphazard way". The examples show that the spreading of nasality is not automatic and the rule seems to have more exceptions than examples. For instance, the existence of forms such as those in (9) poses a real challenge to the view that attempts to derive all nasal vowel preceding a nasal consonant from an oral vowel. Based on these facts, it would be difficult to maintain the assumption that this rule applies "with very few exceptions." Our conclusion is that the regressive nasalization rule as presented in previous analyses is not part of a synchronic grammar of HC. We contend that nasalization takes place, but by other means. The phenomenon of free variation suggests that nasality displays a "sort of independence", i.e., the nasal component of a vowel may leave its oral portion behind. Relying to some extent on studies on nasalization in French (Prunet 1986, Tranel 1974-1995), I will argue that in the lexical representation of nasal vowels in HC the nasal element must be regarded as independent or unstable. On a more formal level, I will assume that all nasal vowels depicted in the surface are actually a combination of an oral vowel followed by a "floating" nasal consonant not phonologically attached. This new approach will look at the conditions under which the floating nasal consonant is realized and discards the above idea of generating nasal vowels from oral vowels followed by a nasal consonant. The postulation of a floating segment will be a crucial factor in the description of the progressive nasalization rule. Evidence supporting this proposal can be found on both empirical and theoretical grounds. On an empirical ground, it is worth pointing out that in HC as well as in contemporary French alternations between nasal vowels and sequences of an oral vowel followed by a nasal consonant can be found. When this situation occurs in languages, researchers in general agreed to treat the nasal vowel "as an oral vowel followed by a floating nasal consonant" (e.g., Prunet 1986:52). This fact is illustrated below: [asasê] [kuzg] [pwoâë] [setg]

ë 'murder' 'cousin' 'next' 'certain'

-

vs. vs. vs. vs.

ίη/εη [asasinê] [kuzin] [pwoäen fwa] [setenmâ]

'murdered' 'cousin' 'next time' 'certainly'

14

Jean-Robert Cadely

[bö]

'good*

vs.

[kapô] [koSö]

'coward' 'dirty/pig'

vs. vs.

on [bon] [bonvwajaz] [bonane] [kapon] [koäon]

'maid' 'have a good trip' 'happy new year' 'coward (female)' 'dirty (female)'

Additional empirical evidence, to which I will return in the description of the progressive assimilation, comes from the fact that the "floating" nasal consonant can manifest itself independently from the vowel. On a theoretical basis, I will assume the following representation for all nasal vowels depicted in the surface form in HC, i.e., a combination oral vowel/floating nasal consonant: (15)

/nasal vowel/ Ν I

νη

3. The Concept of a Floating Segment

The concept of a floating segment draws a distinction between fixed segments on the one hand which are anchored, prosodically licensed and latent segments on the other hand which are floating but can become anchored "in some fashion, under certain conditions" with respect to a prosodie level. Two approaches govern the representation of latent consonants. Tranel (1997:800) refers to these approaches as "skeletal flotation" and "syllabic flotation". According to the former, segments are floating because they are not associated to a skeletal slot. This approach has been proposed by Prunet (1986), De Jong (1990a), Tranel (1990), Paradis and El Fenne (1992), among others, who addressed the issue of French liaison phenomenon. The latter makes reference to syllable nodes (e.g., Plénat 1987, Piggott 1991, Bosch 1991, among others). The representation of latent segments under "the skeletal flotation" approach is illustrated below as follows in Tranel (1996 : 801): (16)

a. Fixed segments σ /l\ XXX III cνC

b. Floating segments σ Λ XX II CVc

I propose the following representations for the forms \fänal]/\fanal]:

15

Nasality in Haitian Creole

(17)

a. O N O N C

b.

X X X X X I M I f aηη a 1 [fanal]

O N O N C X X X X X f aηη a 1 [fanal]

These representations formally express the co-occurrence of nasalized and non-nasalized forms in the HC lexicon. Thus the phenomenon of free variation (nasalization vs. nonnasalization) observed in some formatives can be captured through a parametric variation, i.e., realization vs non-realization of the nasal element. This parameter is derived from the composite nature of the vowel that allows the nasal element to be realized in the form [fänal], and to remain unassociated in \fanal]. In assuming that the underlying representation of a surfaced nasal vowel is /Vn/, i.e., an oral vowel + a floating nasal consonant which is associated under parameter, we then find a way to express the free variation, where nasalization and non-nasalization both occur in the speech of the same speaker. By the same token, this theoretical assumption clearly states that phonetic sequences [...[Nasal vowel + nasal consonant]...] and [...[Oral vowel + nasal consonant]...] can be found in the synchronic grammar of HC. Indeed, when considering the forms presented in (9) where regressive nasalization is blocked and (10) where an etymological /r/ or an empty phonological position has been postulated in both cases the vowel preceding the nasal consonant is oral. This proposal accounts for the existence of such phonetic sequences. The postulation of a floating nasal consonant and its association into a nucleus position is not uncommon and finds its motivation in the synchronic grammar of HC. Nasal sonorant consonants that may appear independently in syllabic position exist in HC: /m/ [m pa kwew] Ί don't believe you' and Μ [η pale w] 'we told you'. The description of the progressive assimilation will provide additional evidence supporting our proposal.

4. Progressive Nasalization

The progressive nasalization rule can be stated as follows: (18)

[+oral]

—» [+nasal]

/

[+nasal]

+

The progressive nasalization states that a segment is nasal when it follows a nasal segment. This rule applies across a morpheme boundary and it affects only three morphemes: the verbal suffix /e/, the third singular person personal/possessive pronoun Ai/ and the definite determiner Λα/. In assuming the generalization in (18), a clear distinction must be made between Haitian synchronic formatives and the diachronic process of creolization. I totally agree with Tinelli (1974: 348) who relates a common source of confusion in some descriptions when the structure of the French etymon is allowed to influence the analysis of Haitian phonological

16

Jean-Robert Cadely

pattern. It is not always clear whether the viewpoint expressed is concerned with a historical change or a Haitian synchronic process. For example, one might attempt to posit, as a synchronic statement, that the final vowels of the following surface forms undergo progressive nasalization: [¿une] 'day'; [në\ 'nose' [me\ 'but'; [mwë\ 'I/me'; [mônë] 'change (money)'. This statement might be true only in the perspective of a diachronic analysis if one considers these formatives as "reflexes of the past evolutive stages of HC" from the French etymons which would be respectively: /zurne/ ; /ne/ ; /me/ ; /mwa/ and /mone/, (Tinelli 1974:348). On a synchronic level, however, such an assumption cannot hold since contrastive oppositions nasal versus oral vowel exist in the context where a vowel follows a nasal consonant: (19)

/me/ 'may'

vs

/mê/ 'but'

/maS/ 'step'

vs

/mäS/ 'sleeve*

/ne/ 'knot'

vs

/ng/ 'nose'

/no/ 'north'

vs

/ηδ/ 'no'

/ämwe/ 'help'

vs

/mwë/ 'I/me'

/mes/ 'mass'

vs

/mës/ 'thin'

I also agree with Tinelli (1974:348) who states that, in the perspective of a synchronic description, the French etymons: /zäb/ 'leg'; /bädJ 'group'; /sädr/ 'ash'; /ögV 'nail' and /bob/ 'bomb* cannot be taken as the underlying forms for the HC surface formatives [zäm] ; [bän] ; [säh\ ; [zötj\ ;

[böm]}

4.1. The Data The morphemes /e/, ΛU and Λα/ bear one thing in common in that they can be attached to the preceding morpheme. While /e/ is a verbal suffix, fix/ and Λα/ are clitics (enclitics). In the following section, I examine the nasalization process of /e/ and Λϊ/. I will return later to the description of the definite determiner Λα/: (20)

a. I d -» /bobln + e/ [bobiné] 'to wind' /bläm + e/ [blâmé] 'to blame'

[ë] /butö + e/ [butônë] 'to button'

/kapö + e/ [kapônë] 'to intimidate'

/gagän + e/ [gagânë] 'to hold(throat)'

/vaksê + e/ [vaksïnê] 'to vaccinate'

d'Ans (1968:67) presented these forms to justify a process of progressive nasalization within morphemes. According to Tinelli (1974:348), d'Ans statement is actually about the evolution from French Mb, sädr, àgi, to HC Mm, sän, zog since neither *zäb or *iämb are surface formatives in HC.

17

Nasality in Haitian Creole

b. /li/ /maäln + li/ [maSIn ni] 'his car'

[ni]

/madam + li/ [madâmnî] 'his wife'

/zwën + li/ [zwën ni] 'find it'

/gasò + li/ [gasòl] 'his son'

/desê + li/ [desêl] 'his drawing'

/prä + li/ [präl] 'take it'

The above examples call for some remarks. In considering (20a), it is worth pointing out that nasalization and non-nasalization of the vowels alternate freely in certain forms. Thus, realizations such as [bobine] / [bobme],

[bufone] / [bufóne], [vaksine] / [vaksmë] occur in

the speech of Haitians (bilingual/monolingual). It is also important to observe that when the nominal stem contains an underlying final nasal consonant this segment is resyllabified in the onset position of the following syllable yielding, for instance, the phonetic forms: [bo bi ne], [blä më]. More important, however, are examples where the stems end in a nasal vowel. In these forms, as may be observed, a nasal consonant which was not part of the underlying representation surfaces and is syllabified in the onset position of the adjacent morpheme. This process gives rise to the form [bu to ne], [vak sine], [ka ρδ ne]. The realization of this consonant is not a pure coincidence and constitutes evidence for the theoretical position assumed in this paper. In assuming that in the lexical representation of a nasal vowel the nasal element is floating, it is to be expected that, "in certain contexts the nasal consonant would manifest itself independently of the preceding [...] vowel," (Prunet 1986:55). In standard French, this prediction is convincingly demonstrated by Prunet in forms such as /bo/ 'good' [ëbonami] 'a good friend' and /vile/ 'nasty' [èvilenami] 'a nasty friend'. The same situation occurs in HC when the radical ends in a nasal vowel. In this case, the floating nasal consonant is realized independently from the vowel. Two elements must be taken into consideration in the description of this process. One, the surfacing conditions of the nasal consonant and second, its resyllabification. To account for these facts, I will assume as premise that (a) vowel-initial words contain an empty onset and (b) syllable structures are subject to resyllabification in order to avoid onsetless syllables (Roca 1999:279-283, Onset Satisfaction Principle). I propose the following derivations for the forms [gagäne] and [kapônë]:

(21)

a. /gagân + ê/ O N O N C + O N I I I I I I I Χ

Χ

Χ

I I g a

Χ

Χ

I I I g aηη

X

I e

b. /kapô + ê/ O N O N + O N I I I I I I X

X

X

X

J i l l k a p o n

X

I e

i

I Resyllabification O N O N ON I I I I I I

Resyllabification O N O N ON I I I I I I

I I I l\ g a g an [gagânë]

I I I I \ / k a p o n [ka ρδ në]

X

X

X

X

X X

I/I n e

X

X

X

X

X X

\ I e

18

Jean-Robert

Cadely

In /gagän+ e/, the floating nasal consonant is associated with the nucleus and the final coda is resyllabified in the following empty onset position. In /kapö + è/, the floating nasal consonant is realized twice due to its capacity of appearing either in a nucleus or independently from the vowel. It is associated with the nucleus then manifests itself in the adjacent empty onset by virtue of resyllabification. This difference also exists in French in the representation of forms such as [tonami] 'your friend' and [bottami] 'good friend'. The "onsetting" of the consonant does not mean a lack of word final coda in HC. It is only a general tendency among many languages "to resyllabify a coda consonant to a onset suffixal vowel" (e.g., Kenstowicz 1994:283). Regarding the process of nasalization, it will be shown later in this paper that neither in [gagânë] nor in [kapônë] does the nasal onset nasalize the suffix /e/. Nasalization of this morpheme occurs toward nasal harmony between vowels. When considering examples in (20b), one may observe that nasalization and non-nasalization are in free variation when the stems end in a nasal consonant: [masmnt] / [masinli], [madämrit]

/ [madämli],

[zwënriï] / [zwënli],

H o w e v e r , the p r o c e s s is b l o c k e d in [gasöl] /

*[gasön], [desël] / *[desën], [präl] / *[prän], i.e., when the stems end in a nasal vowel. In

this case, encliticisation occurs. The morpheme ñi/ loses its vowel and the remaining consonant is attached to the preceding word. The question is why do we not have realizations such as: /gasö+li/ *[gasön] and /'prän+li/ *[prän]l In other words, why unlike Imastn + li/ [masmnt], the nasal vowel does not nasalize the liquid /IP. Let us state, at first glance, that the absence of nasalization is due to the nature of the combination /word + clitic/. It has long been recognized that clitics are deficient items that are unable to form by themselves an autonomous prosodie domain. They have to be incorporated to an adjacent host, a non-clitic element. It follows that the weak nucleus of the clitic deletes and the remaining consonant is resyllabified as coda of the preceding syllable. It should be noted that in HC the combination /host + clitic/ forms a single phonological unit namely Clitic Group (CG). Evidence supporting that view can be found from several empirical facts. For instance, there exist in HC two separate prosodie domains for stress rules (Cadely 1994). Primary stress falls on the last syllable of phonological words (PW) or rhythmic units, while it falls on the penultimate syllable in the domain of CGs.3 It is also observed that, in any variant of HC, the verbal form /ba/ 'to give' also undergoes nasalization in the same context /ba li liv la/ -> [bal liv la] 'give him the book'; but /ba mwë liv la/ -> [bäm liv la] 'give me the book' and /ba nu liv la/ [bän liv la] 'give us the book'. This difference can be observed in the following minimal pairs (primary stress is represented by means of an acute accent):

According to Etienne (1974), regressive nasalization takes place across a morpheme boundary in the northern variant of HC. This situation occurs between the enclitics [mwë] and [nu] (first singular and plural) person personal/possessive pronouns and their host: /mari ap rele mwë/

/sa pu mari fe mwë/

[mari ap relêm] [sa pu mari fêm] 'Mary is calling me' 'why does Mary need me' /pit a mwë/

/pit a nu/

[pitäm] 'my child'

[pitàn] 'our child'

19

Nasality in Haitian Creole

(22)

CG /reté +li/ stop + him [retél] 'stop him' /gadé + wu/ look + you [gadéw] 'look at you'

PW /rete + li/ stop + read [retell] 'stop reading' /gade + w ÚJ look + tire [gade wú] 'look at tires'

The explanation can be linked to the fact that a CG functions as a single word and progressive nasalization does not apply within single units. There is far more that needs to be said regarding the process by which the clitic is attached to the host. Space limitation prevents us from giving complete details. However, it is our contention in this paper to state that the constraint that prevents the liquid from nasalizing is linked to the "composite nature" of the nasal vowel and can be derived from general principles. The unstable nature of the nucleus of the morpheme Ai/ suggests that the vowel is a floating element. If we assume, for instance, that this segment is realized in order to prevent an unattested final consonant cluster from surfacing, we can account for two things. On one hand, we can find an explanation for the process by which the vowel is deleted and the remaining consonant is resyllabified. On the other hand, we can link the absence of free variation between nasalization and non-nasalization of the liquid in [gasöl] /[*gasôn] to the process of enclicization and derive this fact from a universal principle. Let us start by proposing the following representation for the morpheme Ai/: (23)

A Ν χ /maäin+l i/

The surfacing of the floating vowel allows the correct derivation of [masinli] / [masînriï], [madämli] / [madämni]. At the same time, it prevents realizations such as *[ma§ïnl] and *[madaml] from occurring since the final consonant clusters [nl] and [ml] are not attested in HC. However, when one considers the form /gasò + ///-> [gasöl] / *[gasön] there exists no unattested final consonant cluster to justify the realization of the floating vowel of the clitic. This segment remains unassociated and the liquid is incorporated to the adjacent host [gasöl]. The question now why the form *[gasön] is unacceptable, i.e., why the liquid is not nasalized becomes obvious. As may be observed, the nasalization of the liquid consonant in coda would create a context where a same floating element would be realized twice within a same syllabic domain (rhyme), a violation of the Obligatory Contour Principle (OCP). The OCP allows to understand why progressive nasalization fails to apply in [gasöl] / *[gasön], while free variation is observed in [bufone] / [butônë]. What distinguishes /gaso + li/ *[gasöri] and /butö + e/ [butônë] is due to heterosyllabicity. In the latter case, the floating nasal consonant is realized in a different syllabic domain. It is resyllabified as onset of the adjacent syllable without violating the OCP. This observation leads to the

20

Jean-Robert

Cadely

conclusion that in a combination oral vowel/floating nasal consonant, the floating element may be (given the free variation) realized independently from the vowel when it is followed by an empty adjacent onset in morphophonological derivations. In non-derivational contexts, the floating nasal element is attached to the nucleus. This description accurately supports the general observation that regressive nasalization applies within morphemes, while progressive nasalization takes place across a morpheme boundary. The derivation of the form [gasôl] is presented below: (24)

/gasò

+ li/

Syllabification Ο Ν Ο Ν + I I I I X X X X I I I g a s

ON I I X

I οη

I I l i

Cliticization Ο Ν Ο Ν

C

I I I I X X X X

I X

I g

I 1

I a

I I s οη

Nasalization/OCP violation *ON O N C I I I I X X X X I I I g a s on *[gasön]

I X η

One may also wonder why the above description does not rule out sequences [CVnN], where C stands for a consonant, Vn a nasal vowel (oral vowel + floating nasal consonant) and Ν a nasal consonant. Indeed, formatives such as [van] 'to sell'; [worn] 'rum'; [sen] 'chain', exist in HC and these realizations do not violate the OCP. In the derivation of these forms, the floating nasal consonant is linked to the nucleus. It cannot be realized independently from the vowel. The final nasal consonant, however, is lexically attached to a coda. In the form *[gasôn], by contrast, the final consonant turns out to be a second realization of the floating nasal. Let us now examine the case of the definite determiner ña/.

4.2. The Definite Determiner The HC definite determiner presents five surface forms: [la], [la], [na\, [5] and [a]. The forms [la], [nä] and [la] occur after a consonant [VC], while [ä] and [a] follow a vowel

Nasality in Haitian

21

Creole

[CV]. There is agreement among researchers to consider /la/ as the underlying form. The allomorphic variations4 are presented below: (25)

a.

[la]/CVC[+orai]

/malad + la/ [maladla] 'the sick' b. /la/

/sat + la] [satla] 'the cat'

[ n ä ] / CVC[+nas]

/kabän + la/ [kabännä] 'the bed'

/madâm + la/ [madämnä] 'the lady'

C. / l a / "> [ l ä ] / CV[+nas]C[+oral]

/bâk + la/ [bäklä] 'the bank'

/plat + la/ [plàtlà] 'the plant'

d. / l a / · > [ a ] / CV[+oral]

and /la/

/papa + la/ [papaa] 'the father' e. / l a / - [ j a ] / CV[-back; -low]

/lapli + la/ [laplija] 'the rain' f.

/la/

and /la/-> [jä] / CV[-back;-low;+nas]

/lapé + la/ [lapêjâ] 'the rabbit'

[ w a ] / CVt+round]

/labu + la/ [labuwa] 'the mud'

[ ä ] / CV[+nas] _

/laza + la/ [lazää] 'the money'

a n d / l a / - > [ w â ] / CV[+round;+nas]

/bobo + la/ [böböwä] 'the candy'

Dejean (1977:399) has presented empirical evidence showing that nasalization and nonnasalization of the five surface forms of the definite article alternate freely in the speech of Haitian speakers. The most significant are given below: (26)

[la] ~ [là] [tetla]/[t£tlä] 'the head' [pätla]/[pätlä] 'the pitch' [a] ~ [a] [piti(J)a]/[piti(j)a] 'the small one' [pö(w)a]/[pö(w)ä] 'the bridge' [nä] ~ [lä]/[la] [munnä]/[munlä]/[munla] 'the individual' [madàmnâ]/[madâmlà]/[madâmla] 'the lady'

4

An overview of the allomorphic variation of the definite determiner can also be found in Dejean (1980:143).

22

Jean-Robert Cadely

The description of the distribution of the allomorphic variants of the definite determiner has often been the Achilles' heel of many researchers. Most of the issues have been concerned with two phenomena: (a) the process by which the liquid Λ/ remains in: [maladla]/[bäklä], while it is deleted in [lazä ä]/[papa α]; and (b) the insertion of a semivowel in: [laplija]/[lapejä] and [labuwa]/[böböwä]. Working within an earlier Generative Grammar framework, Tinelli (1970) was the first who attempted to take up the challenge of describing these phenomena. There is no point in examining here his analysis in great detail since it is focused on the formulation of a set of linear rules. The ensuing discussion will present another view in the light of the concept of floating segments. To begin with, let us make some comments on the distribution of the morpheme Λα/. An overall view of the surface forms shows that in: [bäklä], [plätlä], [lapejä], [böböwä] and [lazää], a process of nasal harmony between vowels is at work. This harmony occurs when the preceding syllable contains a nasal vowel. A closer look at [kabännä] and [madämnä] shows that the liquid consonant flJ of the determiner undergoes nasalization when it precedes immediately a nasal consonant. In considering these examples, it is worth pointing out a general observation about HC phonology. It seems that nasality does not spread from vowels to consonants either regressively or progressively. This observation is illustrated by the form /bäk + la/ [bäklä] which undergoes nasal harmony between vowels and by /kabän + la/ [kabännä] where the nasal coda nasalizes the liquid in onset position. The ungrammaticality of: *[bäknä]; and *[kabänna] supports this claim. Based on these observations, the progressive nasalization of the determiner Λα/ must be considered as a dual process involving two levels of representation. In the light of Kaye, Lowenstamm and Vergnaud (KLV, 1989) and Piggott (1996), I will assume that these two levels are the vowel projection level and the skeletal level. In KLV's Government Theory a distinction is established between skeletal adjacency that requires strict locality, and adjacency via projection, which is considered as locality "tout court". The derivation of the phonetic forms [kabännä] and [bäklä] are given below: (27)

a. /kabân + la/ Ο Ν Ο Ν

C O N

Χ Χ Χ Χ k

a

b

X X X

aη

n i a

b. /bäk + la/ Ο Ν C Ο Ν χ

χ

χ

χ

χ

b aηk

i

a

Nasalization Ο Ν Ο Ν C Ο Ν

Ο Ν C Ο Ν

χ

χ

χ

I I k a

χ

χ

I I b a

χ

χ

χ

ι/ι I η 1 a

χ

χ

χ

I I I I I b a k l a

\ /

\ /

η

[kabännä]

χ

η

[bäklä]

Nasality in Haitian Creole

23

As illustrated by the representations, nasal harmony between vowels is derived via nucleus projection while at the skeletal level the nasal coda nasalizes the liquid in the adjacent onset position. The description of the nasalization process in [kabännä] and [bäklä] leads us to think that progressive nasalization applies in the same fashion when it affects the verbal morpheme /e/ and the pronoun/determiner flü. That these elements are suffixes/enclitics is a sufficient reason to consider that these morphemes also undergo nasal harmony between vowels. Furthermore, the absence of nasalization in [gasöl]/*[gasön] and [präl]/*[prän] also indicates that nasality does not spread from vowels to consonants. The vowel does not nasalise the clitic even when the full form of this morpheme is used for purposes of emphasis: /masin + li/ [mas mli]/[mas inni], /madam + li/ [madämli]/[madämni] but /gasò + li/ -> [gasöli]/*[gasöni], /prä + li/ [präli]/*[präni]. I propose the following derivations for [mastnni], [gagânê] and [kapônê]: (28)

a. /maSìn + li/ O N O N C ON

b. /gagän + e/ ONONCON

c. /kapô + e/ ONON Ο

χ χχ χ χ

χ

χ χχ χ

m a Siη η 1 i I ONONCON

g a g an η

e

e

ONON

Ο Ν

k a ρ on I ONON Ο

χ χ χ χ χ χ χ

XΧΧΧ

XX

χ χ χ χ χ

χ

I I I Μ/1 I ma s i η 1 i

g a g a

χ χχ χ

χ

χ

\ /

\

η

[masïnnî]

η η

e /

[gagânê]

Ν

Ν

I I I I I I k a ρ ο η e \ / η [kapônë]

In [masïnriî], nasalization occurs at the two levels, the floating vowel of the clitic is realized to prevent the unattested cluster [nl] from surfacing. In the derivation of [gagânê] nasal harmony between vowels and resyllabification takes place. In [kapônë], nasal harmony between vowels occurs while the floating nasal consonant is realized independently in the empty onset position. The question which now arises is how can one adequately express the process of deletion of the liquid consonant /U and the semivowel insertion in the forms illustrated below: (29)

a. /laza + la/ /sa + la/ [lazâ à] [sää] 'the money' 'the blood'

/kana + la/ [kana a] 'the duck'

/papa + la/ [papa a] 'the father'

b. /lapë + la/ [lapëjâ] 'the rabbit'

/pë + la/ [pëjâ] 'the bread'

/lari + la/ [larija] 'the street'

/lakre + la/ [lakreja] 'the chalk'

c. /böbö + la/ [böböwä] 'the candy'

/mutò + la/ [mutöwä] 'the sheep'

/labu + la/ [labuwa] 'the mud'

/bato + la/ [batowa] 'the boat'

24

Jean-Robert

Cadely

Tinelli (1970) and Fournier (1977) attempted to describe these facts by postulating two rules: a rule that deletes the liquid /\J after vowels and a rule inserting a semivowel between two vowels. The problem with these rules is that they fail to explain why the liquid is deleted, thus creating a hiatus and why a semivowel is inserted to avoid the hiatus that has been created. The description of the process by which the liquid is deleted and a semivowel is inserted is beyond the scope of a study dealing with nasalization. However, under the theoretical proposal assumed in this paper, the process of deletion/insertion can be best described if one considers the liquid Λ/ as an underlying floating consonant, i.e., a consonant which is neither attached to a syllabic position nor linked to a skeletal slot. Following the same approach in the description of the nasalization process of the suffix /e/ and the clitic /li/, I will assume that the onset position is present in the representation of the morpheme /la/ but the liquid still remains unassociated. Thus, I propose the following underlying representation for the morpheme Λα/: (30)

/la/ Ο Ν I I X I 1 a

In assuming this representation, the question that remains is to know what conditions determine the attachment of the floating segment. In other words, what determines the pronunciations: [malad la], [bäk la] and [kabän nä]?

The question of integrating a floating element into prosodie structure is the object of debate in determining whether the integration effect is governed by universal principles or derived from language-specific rules. Observing the distribution of the determiner Λα/ in Haitian and St. Lucían creóles, Nikiema (1999) proposes an analysis based on the notion of empty phonological position. According to his proposal, final consonants in these languages are onset followed by an "Ε-caduc" or schwa. For instance, the final syllable of the phonetic form [malad] is composed of the onset /d/ followed by an empty nucleus (/θ/). It follows that the realization of the liquid in [maladla] is derived from principles of "Government" that prevent a sequence of two contiguous empty positions from occurring. Nikiema's hypothesis must be discarded for the following reasons. Firstly, as it has been shown in this paper, the validity of empty phonological positions in the synchronic grammar of HC can only be justified in a diachronic perspective. Indeed, this hypothesis, if valid at all, can be postulated only for words where the spelling form of the "French etymon" is said to end in a schwa. Such an exercise requires from the speaker an etymological knowledge of the language. This proposal cannot account for a large majority of Haitian formatives ending in a consonant. It would be adventurous, even wrong, pretending that the lexical representation of [sis] 'sixth', [sa£] 'bag', [sefe/] 'coffin', [paket] 'pack', [fil] 'thread', and [gagäri] 'throat' contains a non-realized final schwa: /sise/, /sake/, /sekejd/, /paketd/ /file/, /gagäne/. Secondly, the hypothesis of a phonemic schwa goes against the structuralist principle that "the phonological interpretation of a phonetic change is dependent on the structure of the system in which it takes place". Thus, this hypothesis argues for the existence of a phoneme that is not independently motivated in the system of HC.

Nasality in Haitian Creole

25

Nikiema's proposal is aimed at demonstrating that relexification played a key role in the genesis of creóles, i.e., the phonetic properties of formatives in Haitian and St. Lucían creóles are those of French (super stratum), while the phonological representation is derived from the substratum languages. In other words, the syllabic representation of French-based creóles is CV. The analysis of French liaison phenomenon offers a better example of the integration of a floating element. According to Prunet (1986) and De Jong (1990a), in French vowel-initial words begin with an empty onset. Thus, liaison consists of associating a floating segment to an empty onset. Kaye (1990) and Paradis and El Fenne (1992) also share the view that liaison is syllabification, more specifically syllabification in the onset position. According to Tranel (1996), this analysis is convenient in the case of liaison with enchaînement: /mö ami/ [mortami] 'my friend' and /peti ami/ -> [patitami] 'boy/girlfriend' but it cannot hold for cases of liaison without enchaînement where the floating consonant can be resyllabified in coda position: /za. νε. ë. rev/ -> [za.ve.zë.rev] (enchaînement) and [za.vsz.ê.rev] (without enchaînement) Ί had a dream'. Another approach based on language-specific options has been proposed by Wetzels (1987) and Tranel (1990) who both assume that in "French, a floating consonant followed by a vowel is typically assigned a timing unit, thereby becoming phonetically available in the string for prosodie processing". This view leaves open the possibility of syllabification either in onset or in coda position. Despite empirical differences between French liaison and the HC phenomenon, the concept of floating segment provides a basis for the description of the deletion/insertion of the liquid in HC. I will assume that floating segments are associated to syllabic position by virtue of a convention. This convention can be stated as follows: (31)

Association Convention;

Floating segments must be associated to syllabic positions from right to left.

Given the above association condition, the derivation of [malad + la] is as follows: (32)

/malad + la/ Ο Ν O Ν C Ο Ν I I χ χ

I χ

I χ

I I χ

I χ

I I I m a l

I I I a d i a I Ο Ν Ο Ν C Ο Ν I I I I I I I X X X X X X X I I I I I I m a l a d i [maladla]

I a

As may be observed, the liquid consonant surfaces in onset because it is the only floating element that needed to be associated and this position is the only one available. The forms [bänklä] and [kabännä] which undergo nasalization are derived in a similar fashion. The above convention also explains the derivation of the [kapônë] where the nasal consonant

26

Jean-Robert

Cadely

surfacing in the onset position of the verbal suffix is the only floating segment in need of association. Convention (31) also makes a prediction it ensures that when a sequence of two floating elements occurs, the leftmost cannot associate to the right even if the rightmost one remains unattached. This situation is parallel to what has been observed in French (see, e.g., Prunet 1986:55). However, the question of knowing why a semivowel instead of the liquid surfaces in [larija] / [lapëjâ] and [batowa] / [mutöwä] still remains. According to Nikiema (1997:81] the appearance of the semivowel is "...un phénomène de surface [...] dont l'effet est de briser le hiatus." Tentatively, I propose the following derivations for [lapëjâ] and [mutöwä]: (33)

a. /lapë + la/ Ο Ν Ο Ν χ

χ

χ

1

a

ρ eη

Ο Ν

χ

b. /mutò + la/ Ο Ν Ο Ν χ

Ο Ν Ο Ν

χ

χ

ρ ë

χ

l a

m u t

ON

Ο Ν Ο Ν

[+cor]

1 a

O Ν

ο η 1

a

ON

[+lab]

j

m u t ò

w a

Contrary to the form /malad + la/, the above representations contain two floating elements. Given the association convention, the floating nasal consonant is linked to the nucleus. Therefore, the surface forms should be [lapëlâ] and [mutölä]. The liquid, however, does not surface. Instead a semivowel is inserted yielding [lapëjâ] and [mutöwä]. The question remains to know why HC chooses to spread the place features [+coronal] and [+labial] instead of using the liquid consonant. The surfacing of the semivowels may be related to another aspect of the phenomenon. When one considers the above representations it is observed that a hiatus, a sequence of two adjacent nuclei occurs. In HC, there exists a phonotactic constraint that prohibits such sequences. Languages in general use different strategies to avoid vocalic hiatus. A common way of dealing with this is elision of a nucleus node or epenthesis. According to Spencer (1996:63) "it is common to find that a language inserts a segment (usually a vowel, less commonly a consonant) into a string of segments which would otherwise violate the syllable structure principles of the language". The appearance of the semivowels could be related to a general tendency of languages to insert a glide to avoid a hiatus. The realizations [laplija] and [batowa] follow the same line of reasoning. However, in [papaa] and [lazää] since the vowels are identical a process of fusion occurs. The description of the process of nasalization of the definite determiner /la/ brings out a problematic aspect of the [+high]. It has been observed that nasalization may take place when this morpheme appears after a high vowel. It is important to mention that this vowel must be preceded by a nasal consonant:

27

Nasality in Haitian Creole

(34)

/mi + la/ *[mija]/[mijä] 'the wall'

vs.

/lari + la/ [larija]/[larija] 'the street'

/makowoni + la/ *[makawonija]/[makawonijâ] 'the macaroni'

/lapli + la/ [laplij a]/[ laplij â] 'the rain'

/dukunu + la/ vs. *[dukunuwa]/[dukunuwä] 'the cassava'

/laku + la/ [lakuwa]/[lakuwä] 'the courtyard'

/zuwumu + la/ *[zuwumuwa]/[zuwumuwa] 'the squash'

/tabu + la/ [täbuwa]/[täbuwä] 'the drum'

I have found no explanation for this case.

5. Conclusion

This article demonstrates that the process of nasalization in HC can be described through some universal principles and parametric values. I have considered: the Locality Principle, the Obligatory Contour Principle, the notion of Projection and the concept of Floating element. I have shown that all these principles, notions and parameters are compatible with the description of the data presented. I have also shown that nasality in HC cannot be described adequately without first determining the lexical status of the nasal vowels. Even though other problems may remain to be solved, I hope that I have proposed insights that provide a different perspective from earlier analyses and generalizations as well as new findings and interpretations about nasality in HC.

Bibliography

Annestin, Agnès-L. (1987): Structure Syllabique de l'Haitien et Nasalisation. Mémoire de Maîtrise, Université du Québec à Montréal. Bamba, Moussa (1984): Etudes Phonologiques du Mahou. Mémoire de Maîtrise, Université du Québec à Montréal. Cadely, Jean-Robert, J. (1986): Le système accentuel du Créole haitien. - In: Lefebvre et al (éds.): Recherche Afrique-Haiti. Université du Québec à Montréal. - (1987): Etudes Phonologiques du Créole Haitien. Mémoire de Maîtrise, Université du Québec à Montréal. - (1988a): Représentations syllabiques et distribution des diphtongues en créole haitien. - In: Etudes Créoles Vol. XI (1): 9-40.

28 -

Jean-Robert Cadely

(1988b): L'opposition r/w en créole haitien: Un paradoxe résolu. - In: Revue Canadienne de Linguistique 33.2, 121-42. - (1994): Aspects de le Phonologie du Créole haSien. Thèse de Doctorat, Université du Québec à Montréal. - (1995): Elision et Agglutination en Créole Haitien: Le cas des pronoms personnels. - In: Etudes Créoles Vol.XVIII, no.l, 9-38 Chaudenson, Robert. (1995): Les Créoles. Que Sais-je? Presses Universitaires de France. Clements, Georges. N. (1985): The Geometry of Phonological Features. - In: Colin Ewen et John Anderson (éds.): Phonology Year Book 2, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. d'Ans, André-Marcel (1968): Le Créole Français d'Haiti. Mouton: La Haye. De Jong, Daan. (1990a): On Floating Consonants in French. - In: Proceedings of the 21st Western Conference on Linguistics. El Paso: University of Texas. Dejean, Yves (1977): Comment Ecrire le Créole d'Haïti. Doctoral Dissertation, Indiana University. - (éd.) (1980): Comment Ecrire le Créole d'Haiti Montréal: Collectif Paroles. Dresher, B. Elan (1985): Constraints on Empty Positions in Tired Phonology. - In: Cahiers Linguistiques d'Ottawa 14, 1-52. Etienne, Gérard (1974): Le Créole du Nord d "Haiti. Etudes des niveaux de structure. Thèse de doctorat, Université de Strasbourg. Foumier, Robert (1977): N'ap fè yon ti koze sou la (La grammaire de la particule Ία'). Mémoire de Maîtrise, Université du Québec à Montréal. - (1978): De quelques anomalies dans le traitement de l'article défini par H. Tinelli (1970): Generative Phonology of Haitian creole. Amsterdam creole Studies, 2, 101-115. Hall, Robert. Jr. (1950): Nasalization in Haitian Creole. - In: Mod. Lang. Notes 65,474-78. Hyman, Larry M. (1970): How Concrete is Phonology? - In: Language 46, 58-76. Hyppolite, Michelson, P. (1949): Les origines des variations du Créole Haitien, Port-au-prince: Collection Haitiana. Itô, Junko (1986): Syllabe Theory in Prosodie Phonology. Thèse de Doctorat, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Jakobson, Roman (1962): Sur la théorie des affinités linguistiques entre les langues. Reprinted in Selected Writings /, 234-53. The Hague: Mouton. Jourdain, Elodie (1956): Du Français aux Parlers Créoles. Paris: Klincksieck. Kaye, Jonathan, Lowenstamm Jean and Vergnaud, Jean-Roger (1985): The Internai Structure of Phonological Elements: A Theory of Charm and Government. - In: C. Ewen et J. Anderson (eds.): Phonology Year Book 2, London: Cambridge University Press. - (1990): Constituent Structure and Government in Phonology. - In: Phonology 7,193-231. Leben, William (1973): Suprasegmental Phonology. Thèse de Doctorat, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Lefebvre, Ciaire et al. (1982): Syntaxe de l'Haitien. Ann Arbor: Karoma. Lowenstamm, Jean et Prunet, Jean-François (1986): Le Tigrinya et le Principe du Contour Obligatoire. - In: Revue Québécoise de Linguistique vol 16-1. McCarthy, John (1986): OCP Effect: Gemination and Antigemination. - In: Linguistic Inquiry 17(2), 207-263. Nikiema, Emmanuel (1997): De la Variation du Déterminant /la/ dans les créoles haïtien et st. lucien. - In: Lingua 107, 69-93. Odden, David (1988): Antigemination and the OCP. - In: Linguistic Inquiry 19(3), 451-475. Paradis, Carole (1990): La nasalisation dans quatre dialectes peuls: Un problème de graphie. - In: Langues Orientales Anciennes: Philologie et Linguistique 3. - & Fatimazohra El Fenne (1992): L'alternance C / 0 des verbes français: Une analyse par contraintes et stratégies de réparation. - In: Revue Québécoise de Linguistique 21, 107-140. Piggott, Glyne (1996): Implications of Consonant Nasalization for a Theory of Harmony. - In: Canadian Journal of Linguistics 41(2), 141-174. Pompilus, Pradel (1973): Contribution à l'étude comparée du Créole et du Français à partir du Créole Haitien - Phonologie et Lexicologie. Port-au-prince: Editions Caraïbes. Prunet, Jean-François (1986): Spreading and Locality Domain in Phonology. Thèse de Doctorat, McGill University, Montréal.

Nasality in Haitian Creole -

29

& Paradis, Carole (1990): On Explaining Some OCP Violations. - In: Linguistic Inquiry 21(3), 456-466. Sagey, Elizabeth (1986): The Representation of Features and Relations in Non-Linear Phonology. Thèse de Doctorat, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Singh, Rajendra (1985): Prosodie Adaptation in Interphonology. - In: Lingua 67, 269-282. Taylor, D. (1957): Review of Jourdain - In: Word 13, 357-58 Tinelli, Henri-Victor (1970): Generative Phonology of Haitian creole. Thèse de Doctorat, University of Michigan. - (1974b): Generative and Creolization Process: Nasality in Haitian Creole. - In: Lingua 33, 34366. Tranel, Bernard (1990): On Suppletion and French Liaison. - In: Probus 2, 169-208. - (1996): Current Issues in French Phonology: Liaison and Position Theories. - In: The Handbook Of Phonological Theory. Ed. John A. Goldsmith, Blackwell Publishers. Valdman, Albert (1971): Review of d'Ans (1968). - In: International Journal of American Linguistics 37, 202-208. - (1974): Long vowels and Underlying r in creole French. - In: Campbell R.J., Goldin M.G. et Wang M.C(éds.): Generative Studies in Romance Linguistics. 60-72. Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press. - (1978): Le Créole: Structure, Statut et Origine. Paris: Klincksieck. - (1991): Le Parler du 'Peuple' haïtien dans la Construction d'une Norme Ecrite du Créole. - In: Etudes Créoles vol. XIV, noi, 11-29. - The timing of latent consonants in Modem French. - In: C. Wetzels, Leo (1987). Neidle and R. Nuñez Cedeflo (eds.): Studies in Romance Languages. 283-317. Dordrecht: Foris. Yip, Moira (1988): The OCP and Phonological Rules: A Loss of Identity. - In: Linguistic Inquiry, 19(1), 65-100.

Nerval

Smith

Evidence for Recursive Syllable Structures in Aluku and Sranan

1. Introduction

This article is intended to demonstrate that the adoption of a new theoretical model of the syllable will allow us to get a clearer picture of the historical development of syllable structure in two closely related forms of creole spoken in Surinam - Sranan (the creole spoken in the former plantation area), and Aluku (a language of Maroons who fled from their plantations in the first half of the 18th century). At the present there is little uniformity in ideas concerning syllable structure. In this respect the adoption of Optimality Theory (OT) since 1993 by a large number of phonologists has not altered matters, as OT was until recently largely silent on the more subtle aspects of syllabic (as well as segmental) structure. Statements on syllable structure as formulated in the Constraints of OT were basically restricted to general propositions to which most phonologists would agree, such as the preference for Onsets, for the lack of Codas, and for Simplex Onsets and Codas. The precise details of the internal hierarchical structure, however, remained a virtually unaddressed problem. Most current approaches share a basic analysis into Onset, Nucleus and Coda,1 although some deny the existence of the Coda, and even the necessity for the recognition of a Syllable constituent as such (e.g. Government Phonology (see van der Hulst & Ritter 1999)). In particular the analysis of consonant clusters is very varied. Here, I mention the problem of the greater complexity allowed in many languages in Word-initial and Word-final positions, and the concomitant possibility that there are phonotactically relevant constituents above the syllable level. This article is concerned with a particular type of onset cluster - the Liquid Cluster. This is a kind of cluster with a special behaviour in many languages, where it is the only type to occur in Word-medial syllables (cf. Dutch). The problem of the hierarchical representation of Liquid clusters is approached through the facts of the English-derived creole languages of Surinam, where a very striking series of phenomena concerns the various means by which words are represented that in English (Portuguese, Dutch etc.) contain liquid clusters. This article is concerned with an attempt to provide a theoretical basis for the representation of the syllable in a subset of these languages. Hopefully, the range of solutions adopted in the various Surinam languages for the representation of source-language liquid clusters will appear more natural in the light of the particular syllabic theory adopted here. This theory is the approach utilized in Smith (1999) in the analysis of coda clusters in Scottish Gaelic dialects. This approach makes use of and develops the insight of GarcíaBellido (1997) that parasitic vowels are situated in syllables within syllables, that is, there is such a thing as recursive syllables. 1

This analysis was first made by Chinese phonologists in the Sui dynasty, and is first recorded in the Qie Yun rhyming dictionary (601 A.D.) (cf. Wang & Smith 1997).

32

Norval Smith

This article is focussed particularly at the situation in Aluku (Boni) and Sranan, as these two languages are very closely related - representing the outgrowth of a former dialect situation. Hopefully the ideas expressed in this article will also provide a basis for the further study of the developments of the former "liquid clusters" in the other creole languages/dialects of Surinam: Saramaccan and Ndyuka-Paramaccan-(Aluku-)Kwinti.

2. Liquid Clusters and Liquids in the Surinam Creoles

For the purposes of introducing the reader gently to the complex phenomena involved in the different creole languages of Surinam I will refer first to the creole equivalents of words of English and Portuguese origin with initial liquid clusters. In the following table the reflexes of typical initial /CI/ and /Cr/ clusters are illustrated for five creole languages (more correctly, five dialects of three languages).2 These are, in addition to Sranan and Aluku, as we have stated above: Saramaccan and Ndyuka-(Paramaccan3-)Kwinti.

(1) Language / Dialect

Sranan Aluku Kwinti Ndyuka Saramaccan

CrCrCV(i)-

Example drey 'dry' dee ~ delé 'dry'

ClCrCV(1)-

CV(l)-

deé ~ delé 'dry' deé 'dry' dee 'dry'

CV(1)CVCV-

cvcv-

Example bro 'blow' boo ~ bolo 'blow' bolo4 'blow' boó 'blow' boá 'blow'

In Sranan we find a neutralization of post-consonantal /r, 1/ of English to /r/ in nearly all cases.5 hi and IU are further in a situation of near-complementary distribution in Sranan. More radical however are the changes we find in the other languages. In the Aluku dialect of the Eastern Maroon language (Bilby 1993), we find a very interesting reflex of these liquid clusters. There are always two options. One is the same as the type also encountered in Saramaccan and Ndyuka, as we can see below - an extra lowtoned vocalic mora in the former position of the liquid, although as we will see later this correspondence is illusory. The other option involves a lateral liquid preceded by an epenthetic vowel - once again identical in quality to the following vowel. This latter is obviously an intermediate stage in the historical derivation of the liquidless variant, and can

2 3 4

5

The three "languages" are termed here: Sranan, Western Maroon (Saramaccan, Matawai), and Eastern Maroon (Ndyuka, Aluku, Paramaccan, Kwinti). I have no relevant information on Paramaccan liquid-clusters. The data available to me from Kwinti is rather limited. It is mostly drawn from Huttar & Smith (1984). The lack of a form /boo/ here should therefore not be taken as implying the non-existence of such a form. There are exceptions like blaka 'black', although braka has also been reported (probably a social variant, p.c. L. Adamson).

33

Evidence for Recursive Syllable Structures in Aluku and Sranan

also thus provide us with an explanation of how the liquidless reflexes in Saramaccan and Ndyuka have arisen (cf. Bilby 1993; Smith 1987). In another dialect of the Eastern Maroon language - Kwinti6 (cf. Huttar & Smith 1984; Smith 1993) - we may suspect, following Bilby (1993) that a similar situation pertains or pertained until recently, although the data are not entirely unambiguous here. The situation in Ndyuka may have been similar. Ndyuka (cf. Huttar & Huttar 1994) is the most widely spoken dialect7 of the Eastern Maroon language (see footnote 1). Here there is a general lack of older sources, but there is a written source, dating from approximately 1920 - utilizing a syllabic orthographic system, the Afaka script (cf. Huttar 1987, Dubelaar & Pakosie 1988; see also Bilby 1993). In this orthographic representation, items descending from English words with initial clusters frequently (though not always) show a liquid (either I or r) following an echo-vowel. So we find go-lo-n 'ground* and bolo 'blow'. It must also be noted that modern loans in Ndyuka (and Saramaccan) usually involve epenthesized clusters with l\l as the neutralized liquid, suggesting that these older orthographic representations probably corresponded to a phonetic reality. However, M does not now occur in either language.8 In Saramaccan (cf. Voorhoeve 1961), the most widely spoken dialect of the Western Maroon language (see footnote 2), all non-initial liquids in words of English origin have been lost, and nearly all in words of Portuguese origin. This has happened since the 18th century, when these liquids were still present, as is clear from Schumann's 1778 word-list (Schuchardt 1914). In the modern language however the only trace of the liquid is normally an extra vocalic mora (identical in quality with the following vowel) after the initial consonant. This extra mora bears a default low tone (except when influenced by tone-sandhi rules that are outside the scope of this article). The only language that allows complex onset clusters systematically is Sranan, where, next to clusters that basically correspond to those occurring in the European donorlanguages, we also find onset clusters of other types arising from extensive syncope. Synchronically it may be the case that some such syncopated clusters are in alternation with non-syncopated structures under conditions of emphasis or focus (cf. (3)): (2)

6

8

a. b. c. d.

skréki spún skráti ptyín

< < <
*kiri(j)á > *burujá

> *kili(j)á (kiljà) > *bulujá (bulja)

> kii(j)á > buujá

Evidence for another kind of mishearing by Schumann in Saramaccan can be found in a modern word stressed on the third syllable, and recorded by him as having an initial stopliquid cluster. (7) Portuguese form poraquè

Portuguese meaning 'electric eel'

Saramaccan (1778)

Saramaccan (20th c.)

plakkeh (cf. mod. Sranan prake)

polaké pulaké 12

Here, with our knowledge of the source form, and the modern reflex, it is quite clear that Schumann has omitted a vowel in his rendition of the 18th century Saramaccan form, and that this must have been something like /*polaké/ or /*pulake/. This for the simple reason that if Schumann had recorded it correctly, i.e. if the medial vowel no longer existed in the 18th century, the modern reflex would have been /*paaké/ (cf. Smith 1987). A third type of evidence concerns Schumann's recording of lexical items with /s(v)C/ structures (where ν indicates an unstressed vowel) followed by an onset liquid in the following syllable. (8) Portuguese form esperar erisipela escuro

12

Portuguese meaning 'hope, wait for' 'sickness, pain' 'dark'

Saramaccan (1778)

Reconstructed 1778 form

supla siprà sukru

*supelá/supilá *sipéla/sipéra *sukúru

Saramaccan (20th c.) -

zugúu, sugúu

From the joint Leiden University-Summer Institute of Linguistics-Surinam Ministry of Education Surinam creole Etymological Project.

Evidence for Recursive Syllable Structures in Aluku and Sranan

37

These forms are particularly noteworthy because in two out of the three cases the (presumably) high-toned vowel corresponding to the stressed vowel in the donor language is omitted in the 18th century source. Unfortunately two forms have not apparently survived into modern Saramaccan, but in the one form that has - the modern equivalent of escuro the high-toned syllable appears to correspond exactly to the stressed vowel in the Portuguese form, as is normal in the case of European-derived vocabulary. Here the 18th century form must have corresponded to the form I have reconstructed. The explanation for this peculiarity must, I think, be seen in the fact of Saramaccan (and conceivably early Sranan) being a tone language and not a stress language. To Schumann's German ear the first vowel of the 18th century forms of these Saramaccan words - involving in each case a vowel between a sibilant and a voiceless stop - must have had some prominence as compared to the second syllable. One possibility is that the first vowel was perceived as longer. In this respect compare also the 18th century Saramaccan forms kiljà and bulja in (6) above. Another hint is provided by Schumann's recording of Portuguese words involving a liquid situated between two other consonants in a pre-stress configuration. It doesn't matter whether the Portuguese source word has any one of the following structures: (9)

..CVLVCv.. (C=Consonant; V=Vowel; v=Accented vowel; L=Liquid;) ..CLVCv.. ..CVLCv..

(10)

-CVLVC-

-CLVC-

-CVLC-

Portuguese form aborrecer escorregar poraquè abraçar gritar pluma dormir ferver partir

Saramaccan (1778)

Saramaccan (20th c.)

Reconstructed 1778 form

brussèh krokka plakkeh brassa grità pluma drummi frebbèh prati, piati

buusé koogá (pulaké) baasá giitá puumá duumí feebé paatí

*burusé *koroká *pulaké *barasá *giritá *pulumá *durumí *ferebé *paratí, *palatí

An indication of the Eurocentric ears of Schumann is the fact that if the consonant cluster that would have resulted was not one that was possible in German or English, one is often not written. Compare the non-recording of a palato-alveolar liquid cluster in the following form:

(11) Portuguese form

Saramaccan (1778)

jardim

djaralì

Saramaccan (20th c.) djaaí

Reconstructed 1778 form djaralì

Note that a structure with two vowels appears here instead. Finally, to wind up this introduction, I will turn to the question of the most likely substrate language. As has been discussed elsewhere (Smith 1987, Smith & Veenstra 1998,

38

Norval

Smith

Migge 1998) this is one or more lects of the Gbe family/language, in particular Eastern Gbe lects, such as Fon and Phla-Phera.

5. T h e Gbe Facts

Now as is quite well known from descriptions of the Gbe languages, these allow initial clusters - principally liquid clusters. Is this not in conflict with what I am assuming for the Surinam Proto-creole - assuming the correctness of the syncope hypothesis for the moment, that it precisely did not allow clusters, including liquid clusters? Let us look at what various authors have to say about the initial clusters in Gbe languages. In Fon liquid-clusters involve I except those with an initial coronal, which take either I or r. There is in fact no contrast between I and r in Fon (or any other Gbe language), just one phoneme which we might call IV as this is its usual value. Höftmann 1993: 48 says that preceding I a weak (non-nasalized) copy of the following vowel is heard. This is not the case before the r-variant: (12)

blô fie flin db

= = =

[b°lo] [f e le] [f'li] [d 3 b] ~ [dro]

The status of these as underlying phonological clusters is guaranteed by the option of h i with coronals. If there was a phonological rather than a phonetic vowel intervening, this phonotactic relationship would be most unusual. In Gen there is also a single liquid phoneme IV with phonetic reflexes I and r. As far as clusters are concerned the situation is similar to that of Fon, except that only r appears following coronals. In Gen we also find a brief epenthetic vowel, but it appears in phonetic Cr-clusters, and not in C7-clusters - the opposite situation from in Fon. Bole-Richard 1983 suggests that an analysis of CLV¡ -clusters as underlying CV¡CV¡ would be quite reasonable for a number of reasons: (13)

a. The independence of the elements of the cluster in reduplication. The reduplication of /flù/ is indifferently /fùflù/ or /flùflù/. b. In chanting a clear vowel is heard - /fùflù/ is pronounced as [fùfùlù]. c. A very brief vowel appears in clusters involving r but not those involving I [the opposite of what we find in Fon, N.S.]. d. Borrowings from Ewe with the structure CV¡1Ví lose the first vowel in Gen. e. While there are numerous words in Gen with the structure CV¡lVj, there are none with the structure CV¡1Ví, where C I is a possible cluster. f. There exist loan doublets of the type: /sìlitì/ ~ /sriti/ (i.e. [sViti]) 'street'

Evidence for Recursive Syllable Structures in Aluku and Sranan

39

g. Falling tones are only found on lexical items in two cases. Firstly in borrowings with an original final stress, and secondly following /Cl/, cf. /kôklô/ 'hen'. BoleRichard explains this type as involving a shift from /*kòkólò/, whereby it is not necessary to specify a category of falling tones in the native lexicon. Capo, in his study of Proto-Gbe phonology (1991) claims that an epenthetic vowel is inserted to break up a liquid-cluster in slow speech, against Guédou (1976) who claims the underlying structure is disyllabic. There are also, according to Capo, clear cases where modern CCV clusters derive from Proto-Gbe disyllabic structures. In short, there seems to be evidence for the existence of a phonetic tendency towards disyllabicity in liquid clusters in Gbe, with the possibility that all present clusters are phonologically disyllabic either synchronically or diachronically, or both.

5.1.1. Gbe Words in Sranan and Aluku This is not the place for a full discussion of the Gbe lexical items occurring in the Surinam creóles. I hope in the near future to devote an article to this complex subject. In the meantime I will restrict myself to giving examples of three words from Aluku and Sranan illustrating the probable reflex of Gbe liquid-clusters in these two languages. (14) Surinam Creole

Modern

Aluku (Ndyuka Sranan (Saramaccan) Aluku-Papa 14 (Saramaccan) Sranan

koo ~ koló koo) kron-neki 13 kokóo-ma) kokolo kokólo) pegrekú

18 th century

pegrekù pejrekù

gloss

Fon

gloss

'turtle'

òklo

'turtle'

'hen'

koklô

'hen'

'Xylopia'

kpéd3eleku kpéifcereku

'spice variety'

The first item displays the variation in form with which we are already familiar with in Aluku, with the usual Ndyuka equivalent. In Sranan I suspect that the original form was an as yet unrecorded /*kro/, which was identified with the word /kron/ 'bent' from Dutch krom. This was folk-etymologized to the modern form /kron-neki/, literally 'bent neck'. For the sake of completeness I give the Saramaccan form (referred to in Donicie & Voorhoeve (1963) as a nickname) that appears to involve partial reduplication in addition to the nominalizing suffix -ma.

13

14

The first element of the Sranan compound kron-neki, literally 'bent neck' is suspiciously like the expected Sranan cognate of the Aluku form, /*kro/. Papá is the Fon-based ritual language of the Aluku, some details of which are included in Hurault (1952).

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Norval Smith

The second form is only evidenced in Aluku from the ritual Papá language, where we presumably only find the more archaic form with the liquid. This item appears to be derived from Fon /koklô/ However the remarks on the corresponding word in Gen above suggest that an older form in Fon might in fact have been /*kokólo/. The third form does not in fact go back to a Gbe cluster, but is a word borrowed by Fon from Yoruba, a language that does not have clusters. The relevance of this form is that it may be yet another piece of evidence that Schumann recorded clusters that were not in fact clusters. I interpret the variation between g and j as deriving from the well-known alternation of [k, g, q] - [tj, d3, ji] before front vowels in the Surinam creóles. Original /k/ and /tj, /g/ and l á y have been confused here. The important point is that this alternation does not actually occur in clusters whether appearing as /kr, gr/ in Modern Sranan, or as epenthesized clusters (as I claim) [kvr, kvl, gvr, gvl] in 18th century Sranan. The fact that this alternation does occur in this form suggests to my mind that what we had here was neither a cluster, nor even an epenthesized cluster, but a tetrasyllable form [pegerekú] in alternation with [ped3erekú]. The fact that this was also not a cluster in the Fon source either supports my interpretation. In modern Sranan of course the usual syncope of unstressed syllables has applied.

6. Epenthetic Vowels in General

In some languages epenthetic vowels are clearly phonologically distinguishable from full vowels. An extensive Dependency Phonology/Optimality Theory treatment of such vowels in the Scottish Gaelic dialect of Leurbost is Smith (1999). Alderete (1995) is a more standard Feature Geometry/Optimality Theory treatment of a similar phenomenon. In some Scottish Gaelic dialects epenthetic vowels (only occurring following stressed vowels) are distinguished from unstressed non-epenthetic organic vowels by the fact that the epenthetic vowels have a high tone (copied from the preceding stressed vowel). A subset of languages has special epenthesis processes arising from combinations of liquids (or sonorants) and other consonants. In addition to the above-mentioned Leurbost Gaelic, other Scottish Gaelic and Irish dialects possess such processes (of varied types), various forms of Dutch, Scots, German dialects, and as we have seen the various Gbe dialects (Fon, Gen, etc.). I am of the opinion that we must add the Surinam creóles to this list. Note that the domain of these rules is not necessarily restricted to the syllable, but appears also to extend to the foot, or some comparable suprasyllabic phonotactic constituent (cf. Smith 1999 for an illustration of this from sub-standard Dutch). Related to this question of epenthesis is the deviant status of Obstruent-liquid clusters. These may also be deviant in that they may be the only types of Onset cluster allowed in the syllable domain. For instance, this may occur in the afore-mentioned Gbe languages, Akan (at least superficially), Anyi-Baoule, and in a variety of languages belonging to the Thai family, the Miao-Yao family, the Austro-Asiatic family, and the Tibeto-Burman family. In other words, we seem to have two regional groups in West Africa, and SouthEast Asia. In addition there is a poorly described set of adjacent languages in Victoria and

Evidence for Recursive Syllable Structures in Aluku and Sranan

41

South Australia with word-initial Liquid clusters (see Wurm, 1972: 56). To these groups can be added the Western European languages. There the other main type of cluster - the sibilant cluster - can probably be seen as a feature of the phonological word not the syllable, as internal (non-compound) sibilant clusters always seem to syllabify between the sibilant and the following other consonant. So liquid clusters can be seen as the major type of cluster occurring at the syllable level in these languages.

7. Optimality T h e o r y

Optimality Theory (OT) provides linguists with a set of techniques for deciding which of a number of possible surface output forms is the best result corresponding to a particular underlying structure, and a given (language-specific) hierarchy of constraints. I will illustrate the operation of such a decision-procedure with a modern loan from Dutch in the Surinam language Sranan. The nativization of loanwords can be regarded as taking place with regard to the same constraint-hierarchy in this case. Let us take the Dutch word kaneel 'cinnamon'. This becomes /kanéri/ in Sranan. The main difference is the addition of a vowel at the word-end. I will initially only refer to one constraint - NOCODA.

(15)

NOCODA: NO syllable ends in a consonant.

The candidate outputs (generated by a general GENerator mechanism referred to as GEN) are compared in a tableau like the following: (16) Input: /kanël/ 15 ka.ner 16 ra* ka.ne.ri

NOCODA *

The relevant constraints are put in the right portion of the tableau. The most important constraint is the leftmost one (here we have only one of course). The input-form is put in the top leftmost cell, and down the left-hand side the various candidate-outputs are given. The evaluation procedure takes place on the most important constraint first proceeding (rightwards) to less important constraints. As soon as we find a unique candidate that is better than the other candidates in terms of violations of constraints we stop the evaluation, this form being best or optimal (usually indicated with a pointing finger). Asterisks indicate violations of constraints. So in this tableau, the first candidate [ka.ner] has a Coda [r]. This counts as one violation of the NOCODA constraint. The other candidate [ka.ne.ri] does not display any violations of

15

16

I will ignore the problem of the length of the vowel /ë/ in Dutch, and whether this is underlying or not (on this see Smith et al. 1989). I will also ignore the replacement of IM by M. The dots indicate the syllabification imposed by GEN.

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Norval

Smith

this constraint, so it is automatically the better candidate, and is chosen as the correct output. Another constraint that is often of relevance is the following: (17)

DEP17:

No segments may be inserted (informally).

Clearly this is of direct relevance to our example as an [i] is inserted at the end of the word. Let us re-examine the tableau in terms of these two constraints. I will assume for the moment that DEP is more important than NOCODA. Let us see what happens.

(18) Input: /kanël/ «s* ka.ner 18

DEP

ka.ne.ri

>I