Substrate features in the properties of verbs in three Atlantic creoles

The aim of this paper is to investigate a subset of the properties of verbs in three Atlantic creoles, Haitian Creole, Saramaccan and Papiamentu – all three created around the same time and sharing the same core substrate languages, but having different lexifier/superstrate languages – and to compare these properties with those of verbs in their contributing languages, that is, their substrate languages, on one hand, and their superstrate languages, on the other. The three-way comparison undertaken in this paper shows in a clear way that first, the properties of verbs in the three creoles often contrast with those of the corresponding verbs in their respective superstrate languages; second, these properties parallel those of the corresponding verbs in their substrate languages; and third, in spite of the fact that the three creoles under investigation have different lexifier languages, the properties of the substrate verbs manifest themselves in the three creoles.

Published online: 17 February 2011
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.95.09lef