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Creole Studies – Phylogenetic Approaches
Edited by Peter Bakker, Finn Borchsenius, Carsten Levisen and Eeva M. Sippola
[Not in series 211] 2017
► pp. 293–313

Chapter 13
Cognitive creolistics and semantic primes

A phylogenetic network analysis

| Roskilde University, Aarhus University
| Aarhus University

This study presents a semantics-driven lexical comparison of 20 creole languages and five European lexifier languages. Breaking new ground into understanding creole semantics, it utilizes insights from both cognitive semantics (in particular, the Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach) and phylogenetic approaches to linguistics comparisons. We provide an extensive study of label-meaning correlations as a way of exploring the relationship between word labels and word meanings across creoles and lexifiers. We conclude that creoles are not simply “versions” of their lexifier languages, and that it is misleading to say that creoles are “based” on European languages in their basic lexical-semantic configuration. At the same time, we find that creoles do relate more closely to their historical lexifiers than to other creoles, and that the lexical-semantic perspective adds a new dimension to the typology of creoles, nuancing the pictures from grammar-based comparisons.

Keywords: lexical semantics, cognitive creolistics, semantic primes, cross-creole comparison, creole-lexifier comparison
Article outline
  • 13.1Introduction
  • 13.2Exponents of semantic primes across creole languages
    • 13.2.1Materials
  • 13.3Character coding and phylogenetic algorithm
  • 13.4Results
  • 13.5Discussion
  • 13.6Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
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 [email protected].

Published online: 31 May 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/z.211.13lev
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