Two recent works by Carden & Stewart (1988) and Arends (1989) have tried to prove a gradual rather than a single-generational origin for Haitian and Sranan respectively. Both arguments, however, are severely flawed. The Carden-Stewart argument from Haitian reflexivization is shown to depend on misinterpretations of both bioprogram theory and generative principles. Further, their claim that early Haitian was not a full language would entail that Middle English (among others) was also not a full language. Arends' claims of radical diachronic change in Sranan involve treating as an early creole sample a fragmentary text which, given the social and historical context of seventeenth-century Suriname, was most probably produced by a second-language learner of the creole. Reanalysis of Arends' data shows that he exaggerates the significance of marginal forms and mistakenly treats the inherent variability characteristic of all languages as evidence for ongoing change. In fact, none of the data reviewed in these works is inconsistent with the emergence of Haitian and Sranan as full languages in a single generation.
2003. LANGUAGE CHANGE IN VARIATION AND FORMAL SYNTAX. The Publication of the American Dialect Society 88:1 ► pp. 223 ff.
Huttar, George L.
1995. Ingo Plag, Sentential complementation in Sranan: On the formation of an English-based creole language. (Linguistische Arbeiten, 300.) Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1993. Pp. xi, 174. Pb DM 88.00.. Language in Society 24:3 ► pp. 464 ff.
2017. Bibliography. In The Handbook of Sociolinguistics, ► pp. 453 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.