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Article published In:
Language Ecology
Vol. 1:1 (2017) ► pp.44–74

Creoles are not typologically distinct from non-Creoles

| LLF, Université Paris-Diderot
Typological approaches involving the study of Creole languages have long triggered an unsettled dispute among creolists. Some claim that Creoles do not differ from non-Creole languages, and can only be defined socio-historically and not structurally, while others claim that Creoles are ʺdistinctʺ in many respects, and/or form a special class with specific typological properties. In an attempt to settle this dispute, Bakker et al. (2011) drew on a phylogenetic approach to provide evidence that Creoles form a structurally distinguishable subgroup within the world’s languages. However, their methods and conclusions appear to be questionable, as they are likely to be flawed. Standing as a challenge to the aforementioned article, this paper will reconsider their methodological and empirical approaches by re-evaluating the sets of Creoles and non-Creoles on the basis of identical or near-identical principles. It will ultimately appear that their conclusion could be an artefact of the selection as well.
Keywords: Creole typology, Creole exceptionalism, phylogenetic network, Comparative Creole Syntax features, complexity
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Typology of Creoles
  • 3. Bakker et al.’s (2011) studies
    • 3.1 Bakker et al. (2011) – study 1
      • 3.1.1Methodology and results
      • 3.1.2Biases in Bakker et al.’s (2011) study 1?
    • 3.2 Bakker et al. (2011) – study 4
      • 3.2.1Methodology and results
        • 3.2.1.1CCS features
        • 3.2.1.2The selection of non-Creoles
        • 3.2.1.3Results of study 4
      • 3.2.2Biases in Bakker et al.’s (2011) study 4?
        • 3.2.2.1The CCS features
        • 3.2.2.2Creole features in a narrower sense
        • 3.2.2.3Empirical data
  • 4.Reworking the study
    • 4.1Empirical data
    • 4.2Phylogenetic representation
  • 5.Conclusion and future work
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References


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Published online: 13 July 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/le.1.1.04fon
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