Morphological Theory and Creole Languages

Abstract

This chapter explores the interaction between creole morphology and morphological theory by drawing on empirical evidence which illustrates that morphological similarities exist between creoles and non-creoles. Such evidence shows that morphological patterns in creoles may be used for the creation of new lexemes (through word-formation), that morphosyntactic features may be mapped onto existing lexemes (by means of inflection), or that derived words in creoles may be semantically non-compositional while inflected words may exhibit form–meaning mismatches and be part of non-predictable paradigms. Conceptually, the morphological evidence will be used to claim that creole word structure is just as principled as the morphology of non-creole languages, and that it can be naturally accounted for by applying the same formal apparatus that is used for the analysis of non-creole languages.