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Deletion as an indicator of SVO → SOV shift

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

J. Clancy Clements
J. Clancy Clements
Affiliation:
Indiana University
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Abstract

The Indo-Portuguese (IP) creoles display a well-known and uniform manner of marking the simple past and present continuous with the preposed particles ja (<Ptg. já ‘already’) and tE (<Ptg. esta ‘is’), respectively. Moreover, n3 (<Ptg. no ‘in the’) and d3 (<Ptg. de ‘of, from’ or do ‘of, from the’) are typically used as prepositions to express goal or location. Those creoles with Neoaryan adstrat languages, of which Korlai Creole Portuguese (KP) is one, theoretically possess the option of deleting these markers or prepositions if they are contextually or otherwise redundant. Using data from several sources spanning approximately 100 years, it is shown that ja, tE, n3, and d3 in KP have undergone or are undergoing gradual deletion. It is argued that this development is part of a much larger SVO → SOV shift. The status of the typological shift indicators of verb-object/complement, adposition, and adjective-noun order are shown to corroborate the findings regarding deletion.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Language Variation and Change , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , July 1990, pp. 103 - 133
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

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