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Language Contact in Africa and the African Diaspora in the Americas: In honor of John V. Singler
Edited by Cecelia Cutler, Zvjezdana Vrzić and Philipp Angermeyer
[Creole Language Library 53] 2017
► pp. 251–274

Krio as the Western Maroon Creole language of Jamaica, and the /na/ isogloss

The nominal copula na appears uniquely in two sets of Atlantic English-lexifier creole languages:
a.
in what is called the Maroon Spirit Language used among the Eastern Maroons of Jamaica. Now confined to ritual use, it was formerly the daily language of the Eastern Maroons,
b.
in Krio, spoken in Sierra Leone and Fernando Po, and other places.
I will show that the contexts in which it is used are parallel in the two groups, both syntactically and semantico-pragmatically. I hypothesize that there can only be one explanation for this fact. Krio hails ultimately from the language of the Western Maroons of Jamaica who were exiled to Sierra Leone.
Keywords: Krio, Maroon, Pichi, nominal copula
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The Jamaican Maroons
  • 3.The two copulas of Atlantic English-lexifier creoles
  • 4.Nominal copula construction types
  • 5.Nominal copula constructions in the circum-Caribbean zone
  • 6.Nominal copula constructions in the West African zone
  • 7.Nominal copula constructions in the Eastern Jamaican Maroon Creole (EJMC)
  • 8.Conclusions about construction types
  • 9.Semantico-pragmatics
  • 10.Syntactic and semantico-pragmatics relationships and restrictions
  • 11.Conclusion on syntax versus semantico-pragmatics
  • 12.Conclusion on the /na/ isogloss
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 12 July 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cll.53.11smi
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