dynamics of a creole systemby derek bickerton

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Dynamics of a Creole System by Derek BickertonReview by: Johanna NicholsLanguage, Vol. 52, No. 4 (Dec., 1976), pp. 992-997Published by: Linguistic Society of AmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/413312 .

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LANGUAGE, VOLUME 52, NUMBER 4 (1976)

Dynamics of a creole system. By DEREK BICKERTON. Cambridge: University Press, 1975. Pp. viii, 224. $18.50.

Reviewed by JOHANNA NICHOLS, University of California, Berkeley

In one of the two main currents in sociolinguistics, the importance of inherent variability in language is taken to lie not in the socio-cultural correlates to which it can point, but in the purely linguistic structural facts it can reveal. This is Labov's tenet (1966:v), adopted as the central theoretical issue in Bickerton's study of synchronic variation and diachronic change in the verbal tense-aspect system of Guyanese English creole (GC). In this work, B correctly identifies and addresses himself to the two major implications of variation for linguistic theory. The first concerns ways of describing the speaker's internalized grammar: Is his competence best represented in variable rules spanning a continuum, or as discrete systems with performance factors accounting for transitional styles ? Does individual competence span the entire range of the communal grammatical system ? The second relates to our view of the diachronic processes of creolization and decreolization: What consequences follow from the view of variation as synchronic preservation of diachronic changes ?

Based on field work done in Guyana from 1967 to 1971, the book contains five chapters: Problems in the description of creole systems; The basilectal verb-phrase; From basilect to mesolect; From mesolect to acrolect; and Implications for linguistic theory. There are three appendices (Methodology; Speakers cited; A brief note on the Guyanese community), as well as a bibliography and an index.

B divides the Guyanese speech continuum into three ranges-which, he assumes, recapitulate diachronic stages. The BASILECT is the most extreme and archaic creole; the ACROLECT approximates standard English (SE) and represents nearly complete decreolization; the MESOLECT includes all intermediate varieties. Clustering of diagnostic forms within these ranges is sufficiently obvious so that no sophisti- cated statistical techniques are needed to isolate a basilectal corpus or group of speakers (24 ff.)

The basilectal tense-aspect system depends on a bifurcation of predicates into stative and non-stative; the stative class is roughly equivalent to SE statives plus modals, passives, and products of STATIVIZATION, which occurs in temporal and conditional subordinates. Only two features are needed to describe the tense-aspect categories of the realis system: Anterior (a relative tense only, neither past nor perfect) and Punctual (affecting non-statives only). The stem form of a stative verb usually corresponds to a SE non-past; that of non-stative, to a simple past. Other, marked tense-aspect categories are indicated by preposed particles: a [-Punctual] (iterative, continuative-also a marker of derived non-stativity); bin [+Anterior] (simple past for statives, past-before-past for non-statives); and the combined bina [+Anterior, -Punctual]. The irrealis system is less structured, including sa go (future and unrealized actions), modals, and the negative marker na.

The acrolect system, like SE, requires the features Past, Continual, and Perfect (B's 'perfective'), and uses a complex system of auxiliaries and inflection for morphological marking. The mesolectal realis system involves a series of restructurings: morphemes are re-analysed, and Anterior is replaced by Past; past-tense

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inflection and number concord are achieved in a series of phonological and morphological changes; have evolves from a main verb to a modal to an auxiliary, and the perfect category is acquired. In the less structured irrealis system, changes involve merely addition of rules rather than complex restructurings, and acrolectal forms predominate early. Changes in negation are formal only. The negative- attraction and negative-concord rules of SE are never attained.

B's book offers a number of substantive contributions to the fields of pidgin- creole studies, sociolinguistics, and grammatical theory, some of them only implicit. The following summary attempts to remedy B's partial failure, in his last chapter, to explicate and place in context certain theoretical consequences.

THE CREOLE VERB. Here the value of observations bearing on universal verbal categories is attenuated by B's careless definitions. The function of basilectal don (cf. SE done) as a completive marker in temporal subordinates is equated with its lexical force 'completely', as used in main clauses (argued, incidentally, from Black English rather than GC examples, 87); and the whole is associated with the perfect (54 ff.) The argument is implicitly based on assumed universals of metaphor; the fallacy lies in B's failure to consider grammaticalization, in his confusion of semantic information (as it pertains to grammatical categories) with lexico-semantic information, and in his rhetorical identification completely = [+Completive] = [+Perfect].1 There are also affinities between Completive as B describes it (185-6) and Anterior. Such matters are important because it is precisely in more rigorous definition of grammatical categories that B's analysis supports reliable diachronic comparisons. This is discussed below.

B maintains that Stative is a semantic, not a lexical, feature, and a property of the verb phrase rather than of the predicate as a lexical item. His argument is based on examples like tu an tu mekfo 'Two and two make four' and dem mek i stap 'They made him stop' (30), where the non-past vs. past force of the bare stem form follows automatically from the respectively stative or non-stative reading of the verb mek. A further, implicit argument (30-32) is that passivization and occurrence in temporal or conditional clauses-contexts of stativization, where the [-Punctual] marker is absent in basilectal constructions of verbs normally requiring it- are facts about the construction of sentences rather than lexical facts about verbs.2 B's reluc- tance to posit two verbs mek rests on a tacit appeal to the unity of the lexical item as a phonological form. But clearly, the first example shows a non-literal specialization of mek which would traditionally be described as a lexicalization or a lexical derivation, and which removes the verb so used to the separate lexical class of copulas. A more catholic approach to the problem might take the following form. STATIVE is an abstract property of predicates which permits delimitation of a lexical class (covert, in the case of GC) along universal implicational lines. It is available for lexical derivations, and it has affinities (which may have morphological implications) with such aspect-like notions as iterative, habitual, tenseless. Some of the latter are prerequisites for the formation of temporal and conditional subordinates in GC (cf. SE whenever etc.) The same holds for passives, if their stativity is indeed a semantic fact and not a

1 A glance at the traditional and structural literature would show that [+ Completive] is at best a substantive implication of [+Perfect]-one which indeed tends to dominate as the perfect undergoes cyclic grammatical change: stative-resultative > perfect > aorist (details for Indo-European alone comprise a vast literature; see Kurylowicz 1964:53 and Ch. III for theoretical interpretation). Equation of the two features would require reference to this pro- gression, and evaluation of the position of the GC category along such a scale.

2 Is stativization itself a transformational deletion of morphemes? neutralization in the structuralist sense? a semantic constraint on deep structures? We are not told.

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lexical one.3 That stativity is a lexical property should not be taken to imply that it is a lexico- semantic feature.

The features needed for the extreme basilectal verb-Anterior and Punctual-are non- deictic, signaling temporal sequence and shape. The deictic realis features of perfect and past, and the strictly deictic future in the irrealis system, are mesolectal to acrolectal acquisitions. Within the limits of B's book, where the grammar of the basilect is presented as an accidental language-specific system, the absence of deictic categories in the creole verb is of no theoretical interest, except insofar as it might have diagnostic value for pinpointing an African source (B so interprets Anterior, 58). But in subsequent work (e.g. 1974, 1975), B has adopted the position that (basilectal) creole grammar is essentially natural grammar. Within this framework, any basilectal phenomenon is ipso facto a latent universal; and B's feature analysis implies the hypothesis that deictic verbal features are marked relative to non-deictic ones.4 This is sup- ported by the fluctuation between the deictic categories of perfect and past, and the cross- linguistic instability of the future as a true tense (see, e.g., Jakobson 1957 for the modal nature of the future, and cf. Bickerton's description of the basilectal irrealis system, 42 ff.) It merits testing on other creoles as an empirical hypothesis, bearing on our understanding of creolization and simplification.

VARIATION AND DIACHRONY. No individual speaker, in B's view, is either fully variant or entirely invariant. The individual's range usually covers a limited span within the range of variation of the community grammar. (There are both SINGLE-RANGE SPEAKERS, with continuous, relatively wide, spans, and SPLIT-RANGE SPEAKERS, rather like bilinguals.) The full scale of variation, then, is a hearer competence model. But our grammatical description of the hearer's competence must be identical to that of speaker competence, if we are not to complicate linguistic theory unduly (19). Conclusion: grammar (in any of its several senses) equals hearer competence.

A complete grammar of GC cannot be framed in classical variable rules, because there are no objective environmental conditioning factors, linguistic or non-linguistic (18, 183-4). Social and stylistic parameters are subjective, the product rather than the trigger of speaker variation. Only a quantitative description can be given.

While a unified analysis (Carden 1972) is the preferred mode of description for variant speech communities, it is empirically infeasible for GC-primarily because the basilectal and acrolectal verb phrases are based on different grammatical categories, and speakers must therefore be using different sets of rules. But neither speaker competence nor (especially) the community range can be described in terms of only two polarized grammars, with performance factors accounting for intermediate phenomena. Instead, we must accept the presence of polycompe- tence: a plurality of (internalized) grammatical analyses, each structured (as the chapters devoted to the verb phrase have demonstrated). The GC grammar is not a unified system, but it links a speech community and is highly systematic.

Variation, then, is comparable to multilingualism; and on the diachronic plane, creolization and decreolization correspond to second-language learning. In all of them, differences between grammars or rules are of kind rather than of degree (167).

B proposes a view of second-language learning to flesh out our theoretical understanding in this area. It is like first-language learning in that a grammar is internalized on the basis of, and tested against, utterances of the target language. It is unlike first-language learning in that the grammar of a particular language-the native language-provides a basis for hypotheses, and will be incorporated into the grammar of the second language wherever possible. Where there

3 Passives tend to be a highly lexicalized class-especially in languages where, as in GC, they are infrequent and involve primarily deletion rather than permutation of actants (cf. Freidin 1975, and Babby & Brecht 1975 for Russian passives).

4 This may also be true of lexico-semantic deixis, as in Eng. come/go. Another source of verbal deixis, the category of person, is a concord feature and not pertinent here.

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is insufficient evidence for correction, the new grammar will fall short of the model, and a variety of intermediate levels of competence will arise. The result will be a creole continuum, a set of discrete grammars whose integration will be systematic by (rhetorical) definition: 'there are no systems but only System' [i.e. Language]; and 'any arbitary interpretation of that system has the potential of merging into any other in a principled way' (180; for the term CREOLE CONTINUUM and its background, see Bickerton 1973).

In fact, Andersen 1973 gives us a framework which can surely be extended to yield an explicit formal account of decreolization. More nearly acrolectal elements can be viewed as Andersen's A(daptive)-rules, grafted onto a more nearly basilectal grammar to yield a (possibly ambiguous) output which would in turn serve as input to a crystallizing grammar. The output of basilectal grammar plus A-rules, as well as the grammar of the next generation, could be broadly classified as mesolectal, in that they would include elements proper to neither basilect nor acrolect. At least some of the variation within GC can presumably be described in terms of changes within the A-rule system (deductive innovations) rather than interaction of discrete sets of rules (adap- tive changes, abductive innovations). Andersen's system would imply primacy of one or the other grammar as does B's account of decreolization and second-language learning, but not his view of synchronic variation (at least not when individual grammar has been equated with hearer competence and thus with community range). To be sure, Andersen deals only with phonology-he does not explicitly address himself to synchronic variation, or purport to offer an alternative to variable rules-and the relevance of second-language learning decreases within the perspective adopted in B's later work. Still, one can hardly claim that the field lacks a framework for discussing the diachronic analog to synchronic variation as B has described it.

THE MECHANISM OF MORPHOLOGIC AL CHANGE. For B, movement toward the acrolect involves change in the inventory of both categories and forms. In cases where both morph and category are new, acquisition displays a consistent pattern of form preceding function. A newly adopted superstrate element constitutes a simple lexical addition-or else mechanically replaces a more basilectal form, while the original grammatical category remains unchanged; only subsequently does the new form evolve toward its superstrate function (96, 103, 114). A grammatical category, in other words, synchronically implies a formal marker, the reverse of the diachronic situation. This is true regardless of whether the superstrate grammatical morpheme is entirely foreign to the basilect, or represents a mere phonological adaptation of a basilectal form (87-91). As a corollary, a new form once established cannot extend its range to create new environments; to create a new category, an additional form must be borrowed (103).

Acquisition of SE inflection proceeds in an implicational order of mixed phonological and grammatical environments. Acquisition of past-tense inflection follows this order: forms having syllabic [-ad] in SE; strong pasts; the remaining weak pasts. In addition, inflectional past-tense forms are used first in [+Punctual] environments, with this grammatical constraint outweighing the phonological one (154). There is reason to believe Black English (BE) may have the same grammatical constraint, likewise dominating the well-known phonological constraints (159-60). Thus the past tense of BE may differ grammatically-and that of GC does differ- from the past tense of SE.

Similarly, 3sg. -s is acquired in a pattern which in part represents hypercorrection, but also follows grammatical restrictions; it arises in the environment [-Punctual, aPast], with indefi- nite subjects apparently being among the last to trigger concord. B hypothesizes that some such factors may underlie the variability of BE number concord.

For all its readability, B's presentation fails to underscore the theoretical impact and structural unity of his observations on grammatical change. Innovation and change are concentrated in an area we can call broadly lexical: acquisition of lexical items, and phonological processes whose scope and purpose can be defined in terms of the lexicon. Grammar is more conservative. Viewed from another perspective, of course, persistence of categories in the face of formal

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innovation is central to Kurylowicz's theory of analogy and formal renewal (Ch. I); for both, change preserves the outlines of pre-existent categories. The difference is that formal renewal as Kurylowicz presents it is a purely internal phenomenon which has the effect of subdividing categories (differentiation), with subsequent extension to the entirety of the original range (integration); but the changes B describes are externally motivated, at first without grammatical effect, and they entail a later radical shift in the original category. Within B's analysis, at least, we may assume that covert categories are conservative traits rather than innovations.

CREOLIZATION AND DECREOLIZATION. With a more systematic analysis of GC verbal categories, we gain greater confidence in the validity of creole-African diachronic comparisons. B uncovers two features which may be of demonstrably African origin: the use of Anterior, rather than an absolute past-tense category (58); and the marginal form don, perfect and completive in force, sometimes clause-final rather than preverbal. Dialect geography furnishes the argument for the latter being an African innovation, originally clause-final: the analog is widely attested in Africa, less so in the Caribbean (where used in GC, it lacks combina- bility with other verb particles); and the GC clause-final use is peripheral, thus conservative (54 ff.)5 Otherwise, descriptions of African languages are not reliable enough to permit pinpointing of diagnostic elements. In addition, as a result of pre-contact (pre-slavery) multilingualism in Africa, creoles do not usually have identifiable elements from one or another specific African language, but they do tend to exhibit features characteristic of a number of African languages. (Note, in any case, that the two elements which do lend themselves to comparison are once again grammatical categories rather than morphemes.)

A more systematic analysis likewise increases the reliability of GC-BE comparisons. Three grammatical resemblances may be diagnostic shared innovations pointing to genetic unity. These include the implications that number concord and past-tense inflection in BE follow the same grammatical conditioning as in GC. Early mesolectal non-punctual, non-past dos/das (cf. SE does), in the process of being lost, overlaps briefly with be, which supplants does before acquiring SE inflection and progressive function (116-20). The result is does be, never really stabilized but functionally equivalent to BE 'consuetudinal be'. B hypothesizes that this form, with the loss of does which is attested in much of English-based creole, is the source of the BE construction. It is preserved because of the peculiar rate of evolution of BE: for socio- cultural reasons, decreolization (at first rapid) was drastically retarded after the Civil War. Thus stages and forms like (does) be, which are ephemeral in the Caribbean, are frozen in BE.

The field of pidgin-creole studies offers two major approaches to the problem of creole origins, intended to explain both the distinctiveness of these languages and their striking parallels. SIMPLIFICATION assumes that pidgin grammar (and thus that of basilectal creole, by the standard definition of creole as nativized pidgin) represents an approximation of universal grammar, from which language-specific elements of the source(s) have been pared away (excepting, of course, such accidents as the phonological shapes of lexical items). MONOGENESIS is the assumption that at least the oceanic creoles reflect RELEXIFICATION, on the basis of various source languages, of a single parent pidgin or creole which may or may not be identifiable, but which must have been known to at least some slaves. B maintains that creolization is not just simplification ('deep structure recovery'). On this basis of this state- ment of faith, never truly argued, he seeks African sources for GC phenomena,

5 B's discussion is marred only by a failure to refer to primary sources. A reader might think Bailey and Bickerton, rather than Bartoli and Schmidt, were the names to be associated with wave theory!

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implicitly regards shared features (e.g. GC-BE) as parallel innovations pointing to a unique historical source, and advances a view of second-language learning as a theory of decreolization, which then consists in rule change rather than rule addition. In spite of this stance against simplification, he nowhere argues for relexification-this despite the compatibility of the latter with his various observations supporting a view of the lexicon as the principal, if not in fact the only, arena of language change of the types he discusses. Compatibility with monogenesis should not be taken for implicit acceptance, however, since B's later writings argue for simplification, and for creole (distinct from pidgin) grammar as natural grammar-largely (1974) on the basis of verbal categories and the ordering of verbal morphemes.6 These ideas are simply underdeveloped in the volume under review. The rather rhetorical last chapter is in many ways the weakest part of the book; and it is precisely in the area of implications for linguistic theory that B's subsequent papers have provided a more rigorous framework, reversing some of the theoretical generalizations in this book, but invalidating none of its empirical claims.

But this is a defect in construction rather than in content. Bickerton's book is a landmark in thorough, insightful analysis and highly accessible presentation of raw data. It offers invaluable observations on grammatical change. It is a substantive contribution to sociolinguistics as he has defined that discipline.7

REFERENCES

ANDERSEN, HENNING. 1973. Abductive and deductive change. Lg. 49.765-93. BABBY, L. H., and R. D. BRECHT. 1975. The syntax of voice in Russian. Lg. 51.342-67. BICKERTON, D. 1973. On the nature of a creole continuum. Lg. 49.640-69.

. 1974. Creolization, linguistic universals, natural semantax, and the brain. Working Papers in Linguistics, University of Hawaii, 6.3.125-41.

-. 1975. Reference in natural semantax. MS. CARDEN, GUY. 1972. Dialect variation and abstract syntax. Some new directions in

linguistics, ed. by R. Shuy, 1-34. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. FREIDIN, ROBERT. 1975. The analysis of passives. Lg. 51.384-405. JAKOBSON, ROMAN. 1957. Shifters, verbal categories, and the Russian verb. Cambridge,

MA. [Reprinted in his Selected writings, 2.130-47. The Hague: Mouton, 1971.] KURYLOWICZ, JERZY. 1964. The inflectional categories of Indo-European. Heidelberg:

Winter. LABOV, W. 1966. The social stratification of English in New York City. Washington,

DC: CAL. TESNIERE, L. 1939. Theorie structurale des temps composes. Melanges Bally, 153-83.

Geneva.

[Received 24 December 1975.]

6 The order is: anterior, irrealis, non-punctual (cf. Ch. 2). Interestingly enough, if we read irrealis as mode, non-punctual as aspect, and anterior as either tense or aspect, there is no way to fit this sequence into Tesniere's order (1939:177): voice, aspect, tense (of aspect), mode, tense (of mode). The problem may lie wholly in the fact that differently-defined categories are being compared.

7 Technical problems are few and minor. On p. 45, the first entry in the chart should be walks (not walk); on p. 46, 1. 14, [-anterior] should read [+anterior]. A reference to Bailey 1973 lacks an entry in the bibliography. Data is variously mass and plural count; phenomena is singular; affixate seems unnecessarily heavy.

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dynamics of a creole systemby derek bickerton

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