Chapter published in:
Creole Studies – Phylogenetic ApproachesEdited by Peter Bakker, Finn Borchsenius, Carsten Levisen and Eeva Sippola
[Not in series 211] 2017
► pp. 79–101
Creole typology I
Comparative overview of creole languages
Peter Bakker | Aarhus University
Aymeric Daval-Markussen | Aarhus University
This chapter provides an overview of structural properties of creole languages based on widely different languages and spoken in a broad geographic range. We discuss phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon. Phonologically, creoles tend to have average properties. Creoles are generally not endowed with a rich morphological apparatus, for instance contextual inflection is largely absent, but compounding, reduplication and some derivational processes are common. Syntactically, creoles are quite diverse in their nominal structures. Preverbal markers are common in the verb phrase. A relatively fixed constituent order is found in the basic transitive sentence, mostly SVO. These creole properties are compared with a sample of non-creole languages. The results suggest that lexically, creoles seem to be less mixed than European languages.
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.
For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.
Published online: 31 May 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/z.211.05bak
https://doi.org/10.1075/z.211.05bak
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