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Article published In:
Diachronica
Vol. 39:4 (2022) ► pp.565–607

Preverbal a-marking in Palenquero Creole

Testing theories of grammaticalization, convergence, and inheritance

ORCID logo | Bucknell University

Formally similar grammatical features in a creole and its genetic or areal relatives may indicate substrate transfer, lexifier influence, or grammaticalization. Against this backdrop, the present study investigates the origin(s) of the preverbal past marker a in Palenquero Creole (Colombia). Results from distributional analysis and tests for significance indicate that several diachronically-related meanings are a-marked at rates approaching obligatory, suggesting advanced grammaticalization. Comparative results for Peninsular haber + PP suggest that past marking has grammaticalized much further in half the time in Palenquero Creole than in its lexifier, Spanish. Why? I argue, against traditional accounts about the origins of a, that, given the contact history of Palenquero speakers, most likely a pre-existing Kikongo prefixal form merged with an already grammaticalizing haber, thus propelling grammaticalization in the creole. The synchronic patterning shows adherence to typological patterns observed for perfectives in line with well-known constraints on competition and selection in contact languages, such as their grammatical congruence or particular social ecologies.

Keywords: Palenquero, Kikongo, Spanish creoles, grammaticalization in creoles, contact languages, congruence, convergence, competition and selection, tense-aspect marking
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Historical background
  • 3.Grammaticalization, competition, selection, and change in creoles
    • 3.1Grammaticalization and constraints on selection in contact varieties
    • 3.2Grammaticalization theory as a diagnostic tool in creole formation
    • 3.3Diachronic perspective on synchronic distributions
  • 4.Variable past expression in Palenquero (preverbal a versus zero) and grammaticalization
  • 5.Data, participants, corpus, and methods
    • 5.1The data and selection of participants
    • 5.2The corpus and transcription
    • 5.3The variationist method
    • 5.4Aspectual categories: Definitions and examples
      • Perfective
      • Perfect
      • Remote past
      • Habitual
      • Progressive
      • State exists
      • States of limited duration
  • 6.Analysis of Palenquero past reference marking: Preverbal a and zero
  • 7.Questions regarding the provenance of preverbal a
    • 7.1Spanish ya, Portuguese ja, and Papiamentu a
    • 7.2Spanish haber as a potential lexical source
    • 7.3Kikongo prefixal a- and zero as potential sources
  • 8.What about a and zero with present statives?
  • 9.Discussion: Explanatory factors regarding the selection and grammaticalization of a
  • 10.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 25 March 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/dia.20072.smi
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