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Introduction
This volume brings together a number of studies which try to cope with 
data from Creole (and in a few cases, Pidgin) languages from a generative 
point of view. As such its aim is two-fold: to interest scholars and students 
working on Pidgin and Creole languages in recent work in generative lin­
guistics; and to interest people who have been part of the mainstream of 
generative linguistics in new types of insights which can emerge from the 
study of Pidgin and Creole languages as evolving and dynamic systems.
Many serious scholars specialized in Pidgin and Creole linguistics have 
considered the generative paradigm to be hopelessly inadequate, for two 
reasons. Not only did they consider that artificial rigidity and uniformity 
were imposed on complex and variable data (as several critics have charged 
with regard to Beryl Bailey’s 1966 generative grammar of Jamaican basil - 
ect), but also that structures directly imported from English were imposed 
on languages which diverge markedly from the European mold (see Roberts,
1975).
Most generativeists, on the other hand, have shied away from Pidgin 
and Creole languages because of the variability hinted at or described in 
the literature. This situation may be changing somewhat as generative 
theory is becoming more focussed on intra- and interlinguistic variation.
The resulting relative independence of the study of Pidgins and Creoles 
from the generative paradigm has led to a number of refreshing insights into 
the complexity of Creole grammatical phenomena. On the other hand, we 
find that their analysis has remained relatively shallow, in spite of a feverish 
interest in the field over the last ten years or so. In contrast, the contri­
bution of Pidgin and Creole linguistics to various brances of sociolinguis­
tics, particularly variation theory, has been considerable and profound.
This volume originated under the conviction that the study of Pidgin 
and Creole languages constitutes an important part of the research pro­
gram of generative grammar for three reasons, which merit some discussion 
here.
First, an analysis of the stages through which a Pidgin develops into a 
native language, a Creole, can give us insights into the minimal require­
V I Introduction
ments for natural languages. Within the generative paradigm the process 
of creolization is seen in mentalistic terms. Systems of communication 
which have had a parasitic and grammatically peripheral status as Pidgins 
or other secondary uses, acquire native speakers. This means that they 
will have to adapt so as to be definable by the language acquisition device 
(cf. Naro, 1973). No matter what the Pidgin ancestor was like, the Creole 
will have to be learnable by the child. Since within the generative paradigm 
language acquisition is seen as an interaction between imperfect data input 
and a complex set of hypotheses on the part of the child, the process of 
creolization can give us direct insight into what kinds of hypotheses the 
child will formulate.
An alternative view of minimal adequacy conditions on natural lan­
guages appears in Labov (1971) and Sankoff & Laberge (1973). These 
articles are the beginning of a series of papers within a functionalist para­
digm, and have in common that they focus on the position of natural 
languages within the speech community, and their adequacy as systems 
of daily communication. This paradigm, which has centered on data from 
Tok Pisin, has stressed two points:
(a) There is no sudden break or qualitative jump between the Pidgin
(non-native) and Creole (native) variaties of Tok Pisin, but rather 
an increase in complexity as the Pidgin develops.
(b) The differences which do occur are mostly stylistic, having to
do with the amount of variability the system allows (Labov) or 
the amount of redundancy of the system (Sankoff & Laberge).
It is not clear to what extent the generative and the functionalist re­
search paradigms are in conflict. The type of conditions on learnability 
formulated in generative grammar are of necessity quite abstract. Further­
more, it is not obvious that structural conditions on natural languages 
are necessarily distinct from functional ones. To give but one example, the 
emergence of ia bracketed relative clauses in Tok Pisin:
[NP ia [s ........... ia]]
Sankoff & Brown argue that this construction is due to the specific dis­
course function of foregrounding in relative clauses (1976). On the other 
hand, one could claim that this development shows the generality of aa 
simple X' expansion rule as:
r  f i t  X /  f t  •X -* X ia
where X ranges over N and V. The fact that Tok Pisin relative clauses are
Introduction V II
optionally bracketed by two ia's would then be relevant from the point 
of view of discourse, but from the point of view of the syntax, relativi- 
zation results from the interaction of several independent processes, 
among them the generation of X" determiners.
A second contribution the study of Pidgin and Creole languages can 
make to the generative research program is in the domain of a theory of 
markedness. While most earlier theorizing on this point had assumed that 
Pidgins, given their reduced nature, represented unmarked systems, this 
idea is not tenable, and Bickerton (1975) launched the idea that Creole 
systems represent the unmarked case. If we believe that grammatical 
markedness develops in languages through lexical accretion, borrowing, 
the influence of factors of ease of speech perception and production, etc., 
then it is plausible that Voung languages’, such as recently emerged 
Creoles, represent the unmarked case. This idea is also problematic, how­
ever, in that Creoles can also be said to be ‘mixed’ languages, that is, 
they emerged in a multilingual contact situation. A case in point is verb 
serialization (cf. Schachter, 1974). While typologically one might distin­
guish between prepositional (or postpositional) languages and serializing 
languages, several Creole languages, eg. Sranan Tongo, show both systems. 
For this reason, the idea that Creole languages constitute the unmarked 
case should be treated with caution; nonetheless, it can be a fruitful re­
search strategy.
The third contribution is in the field of variation. Many Creole lan­
guages have as oppressed languages undergone the influence of dominant 
languages spoken in the same area, but what makes the case of Creoles 
special is that these languages are often lexically closely related to the 
Creole in question. The result is that we find very complex speech com­
munities, where a continuum of varieties is spoken ranging from the origi­
nal Creole to a colonial standard. An example is Jamaica, but there are 
many more such cases (cf. DeCamp, 1971). The extreme variability which 
goes far beyond the lexical and the phonological, even in the range of 
speech styles of individual speakers, poses particular problems for genera­
tive grammar. Even if it were possible to abstract away from the variabil­
ity with individual speakers, and focus on one single system, as Bailey 
tried to do in the case of Jamaican, how then can we relate the various 
individual systems to each other? Rather than claiming that the generative 
paradigm is inadequate, models can be developed which are plausible 
from the point of view of grammar as well as accounting for the variabil­
ity in the data.
In this volume the articles of Glenn Akers, Peter Muhlhausler, Bill 
Washabaugh, Ellen Woolford, Hilda Koopman & Claire Lefebvre attempt 
to show how grammars vary and change, by providing and analyzing data 
from different historical and developmental stages of a number of languages.
V I I I  Introduction
The papers  o f  Jan  V oorhoeve  and  Chris Corne  stress th e  independence  o f  
Creole grammars  f rom the i r  E u ro p ean  lexical ancestors .  In the  c o n t r ib u ­
t ions o f  Hans den  Besten,  Hilda K o o p m a n  & Claire Lefebvre ,  Ellen Wool- 
ford ,  and Pieter Muysken we find a t t e m p ts  to subs tan t ia te  the  universal 
claims made  in Bicker ton  (1 9 7 5 )  and to redefine t h e m  in a generative 
f ram ew ork :  w ha t  universal characteris t ics  do Creole languages have due  to 
their  being Creoles?
In no way  can this volume claim to  summarize  im p o r ta n t  w o rk  o f  the  
last ten  years.  Let us hope  it marks  a beginning.  It is certainly th e  case 
th a t  only  on  the  base o f  a large a m o u n t  o f  reliable da ta  th e  generative 
s tudy  o f  Pidgins and Creoles will progress,  as several au thors  remark  in 
this  vo lume,  and m os t  articles here do present  a considerable  a m o u n t  o f  
da ta .  O n  the  o th e r  h a n d ,  the  da ta  needed are def ined b y  the  theore t ica l  
quest ions  asked,  and we can hope  th a t  this  volume con t r ibu te s  to  those  
quest ions .
B IB LIO G R A PH Y
Bailey, B., 1966.  Jamaicain Creole Syntax. A Transformational Approach. Cam bridge  
Universi ty Press, L o n d o n .
B icker ton ,  D., 1975.  ‘C reo l iza t ion ,  Linguist ic Universals,  Natura l  S e m a n ta x  and the  
Brain’. Presented at  the Hawaii C onfe rence  on  Pidgins and  Creoles,  H ono lu lu ,  
Hawaii.
D e C a m p ,  D., 1971 .  ‘T ow ard  a generat ive analysis o f  a pos t -c reo le  speech c o n t i n u u m ’. 
In: D. Hymes  (ed.) ,  Pidginization and Creolization o f  Languages. Cam bridge  U n i­
versity Press, L o n d o n .
Labov,  W., 1971.  ‘The  adequacy  o f  na tu ra l  language. I: The  d ev e lo p m e n t  o f  t en se ’, 
m anuscr ip t .
Naro ,  A., 1973.  ‘Creol iza t ion  and Natura l  C hang e ’, m anusc r ip t .
Rober ts ,  P.A., 1975.  ‘The  A dequacy  o f  Cer ta in  Linguist ic Theor ies  for Showing  Im ­
p o r t a n t  Rela t ionsh ips  in a Creole Language’. Presen ted  at  the Hawaii  C onfe rence  
on  Pidgins and Creoles,  H ono lu lu ,  Hawaii.
Sankoff ,  G. and S. Laberge,  1973.  ‘On the acquis i t ion  o f  native speakers  by  a langu­
age’. Kivung  6: 32 -47 .
S ankof f ,  G. and P. Brown,  1976.  ‘The  origins o f  syn tax  in discourse:  a case s tudy  o f  
T ok  Pisin relatives.’ Language 52 :  6 3 1 - 6 6 6 .
Schach ter ,  P., 1974.  ‘A n o n - t r a n s fo rm a t io n a l  a c c o u n t  o f  serial verbs . ’ Studies in A fr i­
can Linguistics, S u p p le m e n t  5.


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