Determiner blocking in complex DPs in Guianese French Creole

Jason F. Siegel, Indiana University-Bloomington

1. Introduction

French-based creole languages (FBCs) constitute an interesting group of languages for

syntacticians. Despite what is frequently hypothesized in the literature to be independent

creolization events (e.g. Baker 1987; Chaudenson 1992, 2001) which could have led to highly

variable grammars among the creoles, many of the FBCs present a great number of similarities in

syntax, from the basic structure of predicate cleft to the existence of verbal adjectives. One area

of their syntax that has started to get attention in recent years is the Determiner Phrase (DP).

Déprez (2007) in particular has attempted to provide a unifying account of the structure in all

French-based creoles, save Tayo1. The details of her model are explained in section 2, but her

principal suggestion is that the DP has a highly specified underlying architecture, and that the

variation found among FBCs can be attributed to movement within the DP guided by the general

principle that specifiers in these creoles must have filled nominal functional heads. Her account

is a semi-historical one, proposing that grammaticalization has produced the various structures in

the different FBCs. However, a historical account must be squared with a synchronic one that

plausibly represents the structure of the DP in speakers’ minds. Her model has not yet been fully

explored in depth in any of the FBCs. This paper is a first attempt to flesh out the claims and

predictions of the model, looking at the structure of the DP in the creole of French Guiana.

1 Tayo is a French-based creole that emerged in a different time and setting than the rest of the FBCs. The FBCs under discussion here all emerged during the time of the French slave trade and developed in French slave colonies, thus all the substrate languages came from Africa and the French was generally a second-dialect variety of late Middle French of people whose mother tongue was a sister dialect of French. Tayo, on the other hand, emerged in the mid-1800s in New Caledonia in a small, reclusive community where slavery was not present. The substrate languages were Melanesian languages, and the French was generally a first-dialect variety of Modern French, with some input from Reunion Creole (Speedy 2007). Although Déprez (2007) does not cite a reason for excluding Tayo (indeed, she does not even mention the language), comparing Tayo to other FBCs is not comparing like with like.

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1.1. Sociolinguistic situation of French Guiana

French Guiana is a relatively little-studied area of the globe. Situated on the northern

coast of South America, it is one of two European territories of that continent. It is France’s

largest department, but is also its most sparsely populated one, with approximately 250,000

people in a region of 84,000 square kilometers. The population is concentrated in what is called

the Shoreline Strip (‘la bande littorale’; see map in Appendix), and is currently enjoying large

population growth due in part to high birth rates, with 44% of the population under 20 and only

4% over 65 (INSEE 2010: 183). Moreover, in recent years there has been a fair amount of

development of the region, the most significant of which is the construction of a highway that

connects the western border of the country to the eastern side for the very first time, making

travel by boat along the shore or rivers no longer a necessity to cross the country or to reach

Cayenne, the metropolitan and administrative center of the region. Because Guianese is one of

the two principal vehicular languages of the department (along with French), we can expect that

with increased immigration and a growing birth rate, there will be an increase in the number of

Guianese speakers, suggesting that the language will soon have an even broader base of

speakers. In 1999, the population of Guianese Creoles (who might not all speak the language,

and who are not the only speakers of the creole) was estimated to be about 37% of the total

population of French Guiana, making them the largest ethnic group (DGLFLF 2004: 4). At the

same time as the growth of the creole-speaking population, we can expect a qualitative

decreolization, as the oldest speakers from the rural areas along the coast— previously

considered bastions of pure or true Creole— pass away, replaced demographically with speakers

of a more Frenchified Creole from Cayenne, where many rural students are sent for education.

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So the need to study the various dialects of Guianese while the speaker pool is large and before

dialect leveling and decreolization further reduce the variation found in the language is urgent.

The impact of immigration on the linguistic make-up of the region should not be

overlooked, either. Over 30% of the population of French Guiana is immigrants, making this

department far and away the most immigrant-heavy of France; the next highest department, Ile-

de-France, where Paris is located, is only 20.8% (INSEE 2012). One of the largest immigrant

groups is Haitians, who make up 28% of the immigrant population (about 5% of the overall

population) (INSEE 1999). Moreover, many residents of French Guiana come from the other

French Atlantic departments, Guadeloupe and Martinique, which are not counted in immigrant

population statistics since, from the perspective of the French government, these are people

moving within France. Though historical data tracking their migration patterns is unavailable,

recently released figures show that people born in Martinique make up two percent of the overall

population of French Guiana, and those born in Guadeloupe make up one percent (INSEE 2012).

These two regions are the largest source of French migrants, with the exception of Ile de France,

France’s most populous region. A considerable immigrant population from Saint Lucia also

exists in French Guiana, though immigration from that country has slowed considerably in recent

decades. In other words, there is a large number of speakers of other French-based Atlantic

creoles that settle in French Guiana, speak their own creoles and talk with speakers of Guianese2

as well, which potentially undermines the autonomy of the creole’s grammar (and has

contributed ambiguity specifically in the DP, as we will see in section 3).

2 A note about the names of French creoles in this article: They first appear using the formula ‘(toponymic adjective) + French Creole’. For brevity’s sake, I refer thereafter to these creoles by their region of origin, thus Haitian French Creole becomes “Haitian”, Guianese French Creole “Guianese”, etc. However, there is a dispute among creolists as to whether we should refer to e.g. Haitian Creole as “Haitian” for maximum clarity of reference or “Creole” to reflect what its users call it. My use of this shorthand should not be interpreted as a position in this debate. Rather it is to be understood as an elliptical reference.

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This immigration of French creole-speakers is not a recent phenomenon either.

Immigration from Dominica, Saint Lucia, Martinique and Guadeloupe dates back as far as the

mid-nineteenth century, when residents of those islands arrived en masse due to both a gold rush

and the end of slavery, the latter of which created a shortage of workers willing to work on

farms. All told, the 11,000 immigrants doubled the total population of the region over the course

of the century, with a large number of immigrants coming from creole-speaking areas (Bull

1992; Mam-Lam-Fouck 1987: 165). More Martinicans arrived with the eruption of the Mount

Pelée volcano in 1902. The resulting Antillean influence on Guianese vocabulary is substantial,

as documented by Bull (1992), and functional morphemes penetrated the local creole as well

(notably in the borrowing of the future morpheme ké to mostly displace Old Guianese wa).

Between immigration and the population explosion, the need for documentation of Guianese

French Creole is becoming increasingly important.

There are five dialects of Guianese spoken in French Guiana, according to Fauquenoy-St.

Jacques (1978): the dialect of the Cayenne region, the dialect of Mana and St. Laurent along the

western border with Suriname, the dialect of the eastern region, the dialect of the western

municipalities of Sinnamary and Iracoubo, and the dialect of the interior. There are also dialects

spoken by Amerindians in Amapá, the Brazilian state that borders French Guiana to the south

and east, called Karipuna and Galibi-Maworno French Creoles (usually referred to together as

‘Karipuna’) (Anonby 2007). Fauquenoy-St. Jacques (1978) provides some data illustrating the

variation between the first four dialects, though it should be noted that the data collection process

was haphazard; no systematic dialectological work has been done on Guianese. However,

broadly speaking, the characterizations of the dialects seem correct. Specifically, the western

dialect of Mana/St. Laurent shows the most influence from the Antillean creoles (e.g. the use of

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the definite article la instead of a, the ‘copula’ sé instead of sa); in fact, one consultant who was

a teacher of Guianese in a Cayenne high school says it is unclear whether the dialect is properly

described as an ‘Antilleanized Guianese Creole’ or a ‘Guianized Antillean Creole’. If a true

French creole koiné exists anywhere in French Guiana, it is probably this dialect. The Cayenne

dialect shows the most influence from French; for example, one finds the occasional presence of

front rounded vowels, as well as vocabulary such as pléré (<French pleurer) in place of kriyé ‘to

cry’. The eastern dialect seems to be the most conservative, preserving the future marker wa

instead of ké, and maintaining the separate plural and definite determiners yé la found in Old

Guianese texts such as the novel Atipa (Parépou 1885/1980); most other dialects now use the

fused ya. The dialect of Iracoubo and Sinnamary seems to be the prestige variety, less

conservative than the eastern dialect (using the future marker ké and the fused plural-definite

determiner ya), more conservative than Cayenne (preserving kriyé, not using front rounded

vowels). While there is no data from the interior dialects, Fauquenoy suggests that they are likely

quite similar to the Antillean FBCs; this makes sense given that the interior community of Saül

was populated early on largely by St. Lucians. Karipuna has a number of idiosyncrasies of its

own, including the total loss of DP-final determiners (Tobler 1986).

There are few grammatical descriptions of Guianese and no complete, scientific

grammars or dictionaries. There are two grammatical sketches by linguists (Fauquenoy-St.

Jacques 1972; Peyraud 1983), three amateur grammatical sketches separated by approximately

100 years (Saint-Quentin 1872; Horth 1949; Contout 1973), in-depth studies of particular parts

of the language such as tense/aspect/mood (Schlupp 1997; Pfänder 2000) and the lexicon (Bull

1992), and an amateur bilingual Guianese-French dictionary (Barthelemi 2007) (cf. Siegel

(2009) for detailed criticisms of this last one). There is also a grammatical sketch of Karipuna

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(Tobler 1983), as well as a bilingual, bidirectional Karipuna-Portuguese dictionary (Tobler

1987). Systematic investigation of how the other French creoles have affected the grammar of

Guianese has not yet been carried out, though the Western dialect of Guianese is generally

acknowledged to show the most influence of the Antilles, so a dialect comparison might reveal

interesting influences in the evolution of the creoles. The works of Corne (Corne 1971a-c; Corne

& Hureau 1971) might prove useful for these ends, since he presents a sketch of Guianese

Creole, but his informant was from the heavily Antilleanized Western dialect, had parents from

the Antilles, grew up in a home where only French was spoken, and was living in New

Caledonia. Chances for interference and thus distortion of the true patterns of the Western dialect

are quite high. A more complete, theoretically savvy grammar of any dialect of Guianese,

especially Cayenne’s, answering most of the questions in Comrie and Smith (1977)’s linguistic

questionnaire, still remains to be done. As a result of so few studies having been conducted,

information on the creole can be hard to find, and occasionally researchers make incorrect

assumptions or claims about Guianese. For example, both Valdman (1978) and Déprez (2007),

30 years apart, claim that the plural definite markers yé la might be fusing into ya; however, this

change was already complete in the prestige dialect of Iracoubo/Sinnamary and the numerically

dominant Cayenne dialect decades before these works were completed (see Rowe and Horth

(1951: fn. 46)). Again, this is not a criticism of the work of these scholars; rather, it is a

commentary on the state of knowledge about the structure, both synchronic and diachronic, of

Guianese Creole. My fieldwork, and thus the present study, focuses on the Cayenne variety —by

far the numerically dominant variety, albeit a bit more Frenchified than other dialects. This

fieldwork in the French Guianese capital was undertaken in large part an attempt to make the

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properties of Guianese more accessible to the linguistic community. For the moment, we will

examine properties of the Guianese DP.

1.2. Basic structure of the Guianese DP

The Guianese DP is described in a fair amount of detail in Peyraud (1983), though from

an atheoretical perspective. At its most basic, a DP can consist of a single, bare noun or a

pronoun. The bare nouns might be either mass nouns (1a-b), abstract nouns (1c), or count nouns

with ‘general number’ (Corbett 2000) (1d-f).

(1) a. Pa gannyen lafimen san difé.3 Where there’s smoke there’s fire. (Rot Kozé) NEG have smoke without fire

b. Mo, mo pa ka manjé dipen. Myself, I don’t eat bread (Désiré 2010: 69). 1S 1S NEG PRES eat bread

c. Gidigidi pa ka maré pagra. Will alone is not enough. (lit. ‘Eagerness doesn’t tie eagerness NEG PRES secure pouch the pouch.’(Fauquenoy-St. Jacques 1972: 78))

d. To pa kontan nèg, to pa kontan blang. You don’t like blacks, you don’t like whites 2S NEG like Black, 2S NEG like White (Stephenson 1988: 54)

e. Moun pa ka manjé pian isi-a. People don’t eat possum(s) around here. person NEG PRES eat possum here DEF (Peyraud 1983: 170)

f. A lapo ké chimiz. They go everywhere together. (lit. It’s like SA4 skin with shirt skin with shirts.)

3 A note about the sentences provided in this paper. Sentences that come from printed material all have their sources cited. Some of them have had their orthography normalized for consistency within the paper; such corrections are not noted in the paper, as they do not bear on the grammaticality of the sentences. Any sentences without citations are either sentences that I heard or sentences that I invented. I verified the invented sentences principally with two native speaker consultants, both of whom are male residents of Cayenne who are old enough to have adult children. Both are professionals: one is a former teacher and another works for a local NGO. For some sentences, additional judgments were made by colleagues around their age who happened to stop by, and about whom I have no other information. Sentences preceded by a question mark are considered possibly grammatical, and sentences preceded by two question marks were given conflicting grammaticality judgments from each of the two speakers.4 Cognate to Haitian Creole se, the particle sa (and its variant a) has a difficult function to characterize succinctly in a gloss, serving as a presentative (‘it’s a…’), a copula, and more. See DeGraff (1998) for a discussion of the difficulties. Following DeGraff, it is glossed in this example as SA.

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Nouns can also appear in simple NPs with a number of different elements, including indefinite

determiners (2a), definite determiners (2b), cardinal numbers (2c), quantifiers (2d-e), possessive

determiners (2f), adjectives (2g), and demonstrative determiners (2h).

(2) a. ou pouvé aplé roun dòktò You can call a doctor. (Jadfard 1997: 46) 2S can call INDEF doctor

b. pouk’sa yé rayi moun-yan konsa. …why they hate the people like that. why 3P hate person PL.DEF like.that (Ludwig 2001: 155)

c. Annou sasé dé fwiyapen mété ké li. Let’s look for two breadfruits to put with it. Let’s seek two breadfruit put with 3S (Lohier 1960/2001: 125)

d. Chak moun té gen so travay. Each person had their own work to do. each person ANT have 3S.POSS work (Armande-Lapierre & Robinson 2004: 49)

e. Oun lo moun vini. A bunch of people came. INDEF lot person come (Damoiseau 2003: 60)

f. Mès alé sasé so zouti. The man went to look for his tool(s). man go search 3S.POSS tool (Cléry 1998: 24)

g. I gen bon lidé pou nou. He has good ideas for us. (Stephenson 3S have good idea for 1P 1988: 92)

h. Kouman mo ké fè pou sòti annan sa soukou-a? How will I get out of this darkness? how 1S FUT do COMP go-out in DEM darkness DEF (Francius & Chanol 1987/2001: 257)

It is this last construction, the demonstrative found in (2h) that will be the focus of this article.

Crucially, the demonstrative determiner appears to be DP-initial, while the definite determiner

appears to be DP-final. This is true even with pre-nominal and post-nominal modifiers, even

when the post-nominal modifier is itself a noun (3a-b).

(3) a. Sa sandwich lanmori a. That cod sandwich. (Damoiseau 2003: 41) DEM sandwich cod DEF

b. Yé pa trouvé sa dé gro pyébwa gri ya. They didn’t find those two big gray trees. 3P NEG find DEM two big tree gray PL-DEF

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Notice that in (3a), the definite determiner is a, while in (3b) it is ya. This is because y appears to

mark plurality, with a being the definite article (Peyraud 1983). As noted above, ya derives

historically from independent determiners yé and la. The plural yé was and is the third-person

plural pronoun, and was the marker of plurality in Old Guianese5. The definite article la is the

form found in older texts that has now been reduced to a. Today, one finds only ya in Cayenne,

and although yé la is cited by Fauquenoy-St. Jacques (1978) as being present in the eastern

variety, it seems to be either gone or moribund today. Though clearly historically bimorphemic,

it is unclear whether the fused ya is actually two morphemes (since y appears to contribute

plurality to the definite article) or if it is a single morpheme (since y cannot appear on its own

and, as we will see later, can appear with meanings that the definite determiner cannot). For the

moment, we treat it as bimorphemic as its etymology dictates, for the sake of exposition.

DPs can also be found in larger units containing other DPs, including DPs with relative

clauses (4a), possessive structures (which surface as adjacent DPs) (4b), DPs with PP modifiers

(4c), and conjoined DPs (4d).

(4) a. Fanm an ki wè mouché a kontan wè li. The woman who saw the man is happy to woman DEF REL see mister DEF like see 3S see him.

b. Tifi mo frè kouri bokou. My brother’s daughter ran a lot. daughter 1S brother run much

c. Lyann an anba lafinèt a ka mouri. The vine beneath the window is dying. vine DEF under window DEF PRES die

d. Wonm an ké chyen yan disparèt. The man and the dogs disappeared. man DEF with dog PL.DEF disappear

Complex DPs such as these are unremarkable among the world’s languages, as recursion

of this type is a basic feature of human language (Hauser et al. 2002). More remarkable are the

restrictions on the structures in (4), specifically with respect to demonstrative determiners. As

5 Such syncretism is not unheard of in FBCs: Haitian yo works much the same way.

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shown in the demonstrative constructions of (2h) and (3), the demonstrative determiner is at the

left edge of the DP, with the definite determiner obligatorily appearing in its normal, DP-final

position. As Déprez (2007:267) shows, this order is attested in Indian Ocean French-based

creoles, but not in the Atlantic Creoles to which Guianese is more closely related. But consider

the examples in (5-8).

(5) Nou ka sasé (*sa) joujou timoun yan. We’re looking for those toys of the 1P PRES search DEM toy child PL.DEF children.

(6) (?Sa) lyann anba lafinèt a ka mouri. That vine beneath the window is dying.DEM vine under window PRES die

(7) Mo wè (*sa) pèl ké syo ya. I saw that shovel and bucket(s).1S see DEM shovel with bucket PL.DEF

(8) a. (Sa) fanm ki mouri a té kontan so pitit. That woman who died DEM woman REL die DEF ANT like 3S.POSS child loved her child.

b. (*Sa) fanm ki wè mouché a té kontan so pitit. That woman who saw the man DEM woman REL see mister DEF ANT like 3S.POSS loved her child.

The sentences in (5-8) are grammatical without the DP-initial demonstrative sa, although they

lose the deixis that this determiner provides. The versions of these sentences with complex DPs

that include DP-initial sa are judged ungrammatical. The restriction against the DP-initial

demonstrative article in complex DPs has barely been previously reported in the literature (it is

mentioned in passing in Peyraud (1983: 190), with no detail), and is not predicted merely by the

split placement of the demonstrative and definite determiners. It is this restriction that will be the

center of this inquiry. The next section will look at the proposed underlying architecture for

French-based creoles, with a particular focus on Déprez (2007) and her attempt to account for the

parametric variation of the creoles’ DP surface order by positing different orders of movement to

DP-internal specifiers. The following section will present more data from fieldwork conducted

on Guianese French Creole that evaluates the model’s ability to account for differences in the

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presence of demonstratives in simple and complex DPs. I conclude by summarizing findings and

suggesting future directions for researchers on French-based Creoles as well as on Guianese in

particular.

2. Structure of the DP in French-based Creoles

The basic properties of the determiner phrase in French-based creoles have been

investigated sporadically over the last 25 years. Déprez (2007) presents a broad overview of all

the FBCs (except Tayo). Her analysis is an attempt to give a uniform explanation for the

variation found among FBCs in terms of order of determiners, which at first glance appear quite

different from one another. For example, most of the FBCs have both DP-initial determiners and

post-nominal determiners, while one, Seychellois French Creole, has only prenominal

determiners; none have only post-nominal determiners. FBC determiners mark definiteness or

plurality, or serve a deictic function. These latter two categories are the ones that present that

greatest variation among the creoles, varying not only in position (pre- or post -N), but also in

terms of order within that position. The various orders are shown with their corresponding

morphemes in Table 1 from Déprez (2007)6.

6 Key: RC = Reunion Creole, SC = Seychellois Creole, MauC = Mauritian Creole, StLC = St. Lucian Creole, MarC = Martinican Creole, GuaC = Guadelopean Creole, MLC = mesolectal Louisiana Creole, BLC = basilectal Louisiana Creole, GuyC = Guianese Creole, HC = Haitian Creole

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(Déprez 2007: 267)

Here, a base-generation account is difficult to defend conceptually. It would require that

in most of the FBCs, some functional categories are base-generated before the lexical categories

that they usually dominate; for example, in Guianese, the definite and plural determiners would

be generated even before there was a lexical category for them to attach to, while the

demonstrative would be generated afterward. However, functional categories only exist to

modify (in the loose sense of the word) lexical categories. A movement-based account is

therefore more likely, since it allows for the proper order of base-generation while allowing for a

variety of possible constituent orders. In order to account for the variation we see in Table 1

among the FBCs using the Minimalist framework (Chomsky 1995), Déprez adopts a detailed

architecture with separate projections for Number Phrase (NumP), Demonstrative Phrase

(DemP), and Definite Phrase (DP), each of which corresponds to independent determiners in

most of the FBCs, and is attested in languages other than FBCs, including some found in Africa.

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This is a somewhat novel architecture. NumP, at least, has a well-established history in

the literature. Ritter (1992) in particular presents cross-linguistic evidence from Modern Hebrew,

Haitian, and Hungarian for the need for an intermediate projection between NP and DP that can

serve as a host for the uninterpretable Number feature. We will focus for the moment on Haitian,

since it is the most relevant to the larger discussion. Ritter discusses the post-nominal article yo,

which seems at first glance to mark both definiteness and plurality (Holm 1988: 193), appearing

in the same position as the definite determiner (l)a (e.g. chat la ~ chat yo ‘the cat’ ~ ‘the cats’,

chat sa a ~ chat sa yo ‘that cat’ ~ ‘those cats’). However, she asserts— following Fournier

(1977), Lefebvre and Fournier (1978) and Lefebvre (1982)— that yo is a marker of plurality

only, with definiteness marked on D by a feature [+definite] that has no phonetic content. She

also posits obligatory movement of yo from the head of NumP to the head of the DP. Since

recoverability of null phonetic content (in this case, [+definite]) requires some overt signal to

license it, Ritter takes the movement of yo to D as enough to license recoverability, hence the

occasional analysis of yo as a plural definite determiner7. Moreover, there is an older dialect of

Haitian (such as that described in Sylvain 1936: 55) in which the definite (l)a and the plural yo

can co-occur, as in zé la yo ‘those eggs’; this would be unexpected, Ritter states, if yo marked

definiteness. It also provides additional motivation for two different projections for number and

definiteness.

The postulation of DemP seems to be more novel. Déprez (2007) cites a number of

studies about definite determiners appearing with another determiner, either possessives or

demonstratives. However, none of the studies cited use DemP, as she does; rather they use AgrP

(Giusti 1993; Rottet 1993; Bernstein 1997), NumP (Panagiotidis 2000), or PossP

7 Although Ritter does not discuss it, it is presumably the fact that yo can license a definite interpretation and that it moves to D that blocks it from marking plurality in indefinite DPs.

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(Schloorlemmer 1998)8. The difference between AgrP and DemP is that AgrP can be recursively

embedded within itself, which does not allow us to make a priori predictions about whether

number features or demonstratives are generated earlier in the derivation; Déprez, however,

relies crucially on a hierarchy where NumP is generated before DemP. In any event, despite the

category labels, the studies all demonstrate the importance of intermediate categories between

the head noun and the DP.

The “common base structure” of the FBC according to Déprez (2007: 276) is seen below

in (9).

(9) DP Definite Phrase

(la)9 D′

la DemP Demonstrative Phrase

(sa) Dem′

(sa) NumP Number Phrase

(Pl) Num′Yon

(Pl) NP

Starting from the bottom, the NP is merged first with NumP10, which is where markers of

number (including the singular indefinite article written as yon in the tree) are generated. Next,

DemP is merged (but see fn. 9), headed by the demonstrative written as sa in the tree. Lastly, the

constituent merges with DP (headed by the determiner written as la in the tree), at which point

8 Possessive structures are not discussed in Déprez (2007).9 Items in parentheses are potential specifiers.10 The reader will note that below, Number Phrase occasionally abbreviated as PlP, or Plural Phrase. Déprez (2007) refines the proposal in (9) to account for the fact that some FBCs can have both markers of plurality and number, e.g. Martinican sé twa timoun ‘three children’, where sé marks plurality and twa means ‘three’. PlP is merged above NumP.

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the whole DP constituent is spelled out. Although Déprez does not explain what motivates the

particular order of the entire hierarchy, an intriguing explanation comes from Cinque (2010: 33,

and references therein). In a discussion of the order of adjectives, he notes that direct

modification adjectives— those modifying the referent — are base-generated closer to the head

of the NP than indirect modification adjectives — those modifying the reference. While Cinque

(2010) never extends this principle to the functional heads of the DP, the analysis of adjectives

seems at first glance to apply to these functional heads: markers of plurality quantify members of

a set (the referents), demonstratives and definites point to things in the world and in the discourse

context (the reference). It is outside the scope of this paper to determine whether this prediction

is borne out cross-linguistically, but it is a useful working hypothesis to explain the order of

category generation.

The variable order seen among FBCs is due to different movement patterns of

constituents up the hierarchy, motivated by the following principle: “Specifiers of [FBC]

nominal functional heads must be filled” (Déprez 2007: 265). Déprez cites

grammaticalization11 as the source of this principle: under this view, not only did this process

refine the number category into NumP and PlP, but it also turned interpretable features such as

number into uninterpretable features through semantic bleaching (such as turning the Guianese

3P pronoun yé into a plural marker). Uninterpretable features are probes that seek to be checked,

11 The matter of grammaticalization taking place in the same part of the grammar in all the FBCs can prompt the question of whether such grammaticalization is part of the creolization process, and if so, whether this hypothesis argues for a specific theory of creolization. Déprez (2007: 290) says that she approaches gramamticalization from the perspective of creolization, but does not espouse a particular theory. Her analysis seems to be compatible with a superstratist account or a substratist account, as it does not say what drives the grammaticalization: whether it is reanalysis to match strings with underlying categories from substrate languages or whether it is reanalysis to make sense of a language to which speakers have limited access. Moreover it is not clear whether it supports a theory of monogenesis or polygenesis. The fact that they all grammaticalized the determiner system according to the same principle of filling specifiers of nominal functional heads might argue for monogenesis, since there is nothing that inherently requires such positions to be filled in Minimalism, and it is not clear that this principle is active in substrate languages. However, the different orders and different grammaticalized elements could be used as evidence for polygenesis.

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which motivates movement. There are a number of different ways that such grammaticalization

could have proceeded, and the FBCs demonstrate a number of different outcomes, whose surface

orders are shown in Table 1. Each order involves comp-to-spec movement, spec-to-spec

movement, or some combination of the two. Here we will consider the movement in two FBCs,

Haitian and Guianese. Consider movement in Haitian Creole for the phrase liv sa yo ‘those

books’ (10):

(10) (Déprez 2007: 300)

In accordance with the proposal that specifiers of nominal functional heads must be filled, liv

moves to the Specifier of NumP, and then moves to SpecDemP. Then the whole constituent

generated up to this point moves into the Spec of DP. For the (Old) Guianese phrase sa fam yé

la, Déprez proposes the following (11):

16

(11) (Déprez 2007: 298)

Here, fanm moves to SpecPlP, then the entire constituent sa fanm yé moves to the specifier of

DP, yielding sa fanm yé la12. This account works fairly well for simple NPs, but Déprez

explicitly states that it should account for even complex NPs:

“it is not just the head noun that occurs before the determiner, but rather the noun with some determination markers, all of its possible modifiers, adjective or relative clauses included, and all of its relevant complements. Clearly then, it is the whole nominal constituent, head and dependents included that is displaced, not just the nominal head alone. Final definite determiners, in fact, occur in the absolute final position of the entire noun phrase, a position expected only if a whole nominal projection is moved” (2007: 288).

In Guianese, we find that some complex NPs pose genuine problems for this account,

namely those in (5-8). These data should not, according to this passage, be ungrammatical,

yet most of them are. We consider them in more detail next.

3. Demonstrative blocking in Guianese

3.1. The demonstrative sa

Complex NPs present an apparent puzzle for Déprez’s theory. For the phrase *sa joujou

chen yan ‘that/those toy(s) of the dogs’ we might expect the structure in (12). That is, the DP

12 In Modern Guianese, yé could be shortened to y and la to a to derive the correct surface structure sa fanm yan.

17

chen yan13 is specified by the noun joujou. That constituent then moves to SpecNumP, merges

with the demonstrative sa, and then moves to SpecDP, just as in simple DPs, yielding sa joujou

chen yan.

(12) DP Definite Phrase1

D′

DemP Demonstrative Phrase1

Dem′

sa NumP Number Phrase1

Num′

Num NP

N′ DP

joujou chen yan

DP Definite Phrase2

D′

a DemP Demonstrative Phrase2

Dem′

NumP Number Phrase2

Num′

Num NP

y chen

13 At this point, I postulate that the plural and definite articles are merged with DP2 because if they were merged in DP1, there would be only the merger of a bare noun chen ‘dog’ with joujou ‘toy’ at the first step of the derivation, which would be the same structure as a noun with a nominal modifier, a simple DP seen above in (3a). If that were true, we might expect (3a) to be potentially ambiguous between ‘that cod sandwich’ and ‘that sándwich of the cod’ (in some whimsical context), but instead, we see contrasting grammaticality judgments, where the latter interpretation is ungrammatical. Moreover, the analysis by Lumsden (1989) discussed later in this section provides additional motivation for merging the determiners in DP2.

18

To understand why this is not possible, we can look at the genitive construction in Haitian,

detailed in Lumsden (1989). In Haitian (13), as in Guianese (14), the definite determiner surfaces

at the end of the DP.

(13) a. tablo a ‘the painting’ painting DEF

b. timoun yo ‘the children’ child PL14

(14) a. chwèt a ‘the barn owl’ barn.owl DEF

b. bloblo ya ‘the knifefish’ knifefish PL-DEF

Since DPs can be embedded within larger DPs, logically, we could expect two definite

determiners at the end of a DP that contained an embedded DP. However, in neither Haitian (15)

nor Guianese (16) is such a sequence permitted.

(15) a. *viktim maladi a yo ‘the victims of the disease’ victim disease DEF PL

b. *chen vwazen yo yo ‘the dogs of the neighbors’ dog neighbor PL PL

c. *valiz wonm nan15 an ‘the suitcase of the man’ suitcase man DEF DEF

(16) a. *viktim maladi a ya ‘the victims of the disease’ victim disease DEF PL-DEF

b. *chyen vwazen yan yan ‘the dogs of the neighbors’ dog neighbor PL-DEF PL-DEF

c. *valiz wonm an an ‘the suitcase of the man’ suitcase man DEF DEF

Instead, as Lumsden (1989) points out for Haitian, it is only the most embedded determiner that

surfaces. Peyraud (1983: 234-35) seems to indicate that this is also true for Guianese, though her 14 Recall from section 2 that the definite determiner in plural constructions has no phonetic content, but is licensed by the movement of yo to D.15 The definite determiner in Haitian has a variety of allomorphs depending on the segments and syllable structure of the previous word or syllable; it can vary in nasality and in its onset. In Guianese, it varies only with respect to nasality. The allomorphy has no effect on the interpretation of the phrase.

19

stance is not as strong as Lumsden’s. My fieldwork seems to confirm that Lumsden’s strong

claims about Haitian are also true for Guianese. This is perhaps most easy to see by considering

the scope of the number indicated by the determiner. In Haitian (and Guianese), bare nouns have

a variable interpretation with respect to number, being singular or plural depending on the

context (Déprez 2004: 862). As (17-18) demonstrate, the scope of the determiner in terms of

number does not extend to the interpretation of the head noun, evidence that the determiner

belongs to the embedded NP, rather than the whole DP.

(17) Haitiana. viktim maladi a ‘the victim(s) of the disease’ victim disease DEF b. chen vwazen yo ‘the dog(s) of the neighbors’ dog neighbor PL

c. valiz nonm nan ‘the suitcase(s) of the man’ suitcase man DEF

(18) Guianesea. viktim maladi a ‘the victim(s) of the disease’ victim disease DEF b. chyen vwazen yan ‘the dog(s) of the neighbors’ dog neighbor PL-DEF

c. valiz wonm an ‘the suitcase(s) of the man’ suitcase man DEF

Lumsden (1989) proposes a restriction for Haitian based on Abney’s (1987) analysis of the

Anglo-Saxon genitive, which postulates a null determiner in the D of the matrix DP, which

allows the assignment of genitive case and prevents recursive genitive constructs like

*Godzilla’s Tokyo’s destruction for ‘Godzilla’s destruction of Tokyo’. The embedded DP ends

up in the specifier position, which cannot usually be doubly filled (Chomsky 1986). Lumsden

adopts this proposal for Haitian (which shows the same restriction against a recursive genitive),

yielding the following structure for jwèt timoun yo ‘the children’s toy(s)’ (1989: 79).

20

(19) DP16

D′ DP

NP D D′ | øN′ [genitive] NP D| | yoN N′jwèt |

N timoun

The same facts obtain for Guianese, thus we can adopt the same analysis of the genitive for this

FBC as well. This analysis helps to motivate why the demonstrative of the matrix DP does not

surface. Compare the following sentences.

(20) a. *Nou ka sasé sa joujou timoun yan.17 We’re looking for those toys of the 1P PRES search DEM toy child PL.DEF children.

b. Nou ka sasé joujou sa timoun yan. We’re looking for the toys of those 1P PRES search toy DEM child PL.DEF children.

It is not the fact that the construction is genitive that prevents the demonstrative determiner sa

from surfacing, as evidenced by (19b). Rather, I propose that sa does not surface in DP-initial

position in genitive constructions because it must appear with a definite determiner with scope

over the whole DP (21). Using the architecture in (9), we see that the definite determiner

immediately dominates the demonstrative. We can refine the proposal to say that in Guianese,

the demonstrative sa must be dominated by a non-null definite determiner, schematized in (22).

16 While this structure is probably generalizable to most FBCs, it should be noted that some varieties such as Guadeloupean and Northern Haitian Creole have an overt marker of possession, a (‘of’). This marker is a preposition, thus possessives should be analyzed as NP + PP in those varieties. 17 Some apparent counterexamples, where sa…(y)a flanks complex DPs, have been found in Désiré’s (2011) translation of The Little Prince. It is unclear whether this book is of the Cayenne dialect that is under study, and whether the ability to use sa in complex NPs is a property of other dialects of Guianese or whether this is an idiosyncrasy of the translator’s idiolect. If it is the latter, it is an outlier that doesn’t tell us much about the language of the community. If it is the former, it still poses no problem for our analysis of the Cayenne dialect, as it simply means that there is one less constraint on the determiner in other dialects.

21

(21) a. sa marinad *(ya) ‘these fritters’b. sa larivyè *(a) ‘this river’c. sa sab *(a) ‘that sand’

(22) DP

D′

a DemP

Dem′

sa NumP

Num′

Num NP

y N′ marinad

This restriction also accounts for the ungrammaticality of other complex DPs, such as

those with DPs within prepositional modifiers (5), conjoined DPs (6), and relative clauses that

end in DPs (7b); (7a), with no embedded DP, is therefore well-formed with a final definite

determiner.

(5) (?Sa) lyann anba lafinèt a ka mouri. 18 That vine beneath my window is dying.DEM vine under window PRES die

(6) Mo wè (*sa) pèl ké syo ya. I saw that shovel and bucket.1S see DEM shovel with bucket PL.DEF

(7) a. Sa fanm ki mouri a té kontan so pitit. That woman who died DEM woman REL die DEF ANT like 3S.POSS child loved her child.

b. *Sa fanm ki wè mouché a té kontan so pitit. That woman who saw the man

18 This sentence is likely marginal rather than ungrammatical because the initial vowel of the preposition anba is homophonous with the definite article. A similar sentence with the preposition divan ‘in front of’ is generally rejected. Still, more research needs to be done to confirm this intuition.

22

DEM woman REL see mister DEF ANT like 3S.POSS loved her child.

These forms could not be repaired by the presence of an additional final determiner as in (15),

either. Lumsden (1989: 89) proposes a general processing restriction for language against two

identical functional morphemes appearing one right after the other.

(23) The «Not Again!» Constraint (NAC)The insertion of the functional signal «A» cannot be followed immediately by the

insertion of the functional signal «A».

This cognitive constraint provides additional evidence for why (14-15) are ungrammatical, and

also provides a plausible explanation for why (5-7) cannot be repaired with an additional definite

determiner.

An alternative explanation is that there is some sort of haplology that eliminates the

second determiner. Two facts argue against this fact. The first is that the feature [+definite] does

not always have phonetic content, and when it is licensed by movement19, the consecutive

determiners might not have the same phonetic form but would still be ungrammatical, as shown

above in (15a and 16a). Moreover, in both Haitian and Guianese, the (singular) definite

determiner can appear after an entire clause, where it marks discourse familiarity20 (Lefebvre

1982: 36ff; Peyraud 1983: 190ff) (24, identical in Haitian and Guianese). In the event that the

clause ends at PF with a definite determiner, the phrasal determiner can still follow it (25,

identical in Haitian and Guianese). The definite determiner is always unstressed, and in both

Haitian and Guianese, when the phrasal determiner appears after the DP-final determiner, it

receives even less stress. From both syntactic and morphophonemic perspectives, then,

19 Ritter (1990) proposed that yo’s movement from NumP to DP is what licenses the interpretation of the feature [+definite]. However, Déprez (2007)’s analysis shown in (10) is that the entire constituent dominated by the DP moves to SpecDP. Since movement is what licenses the feature, we can adopt Déprez’s proposal without invalidating Ritter’s key insight.20 An alternative explanation is that the so-called phrasal determiner is not actually a definite determiner, but has a morphomic relationship with the definite determiner.

23

haplology is an unsatisfactory explanation for why two definite determiners cannot appear at the

end of the same complex DP.

(24) a. Jan kouri. ‘John ran.’ John runb. Jan kouri a. ‘John ran (and we know that).’ John run DEF

(25) a. Mari wè tifi a. ‘Mary saw the girl.’ Mary see girl DEFb. Mari wè tifi a a. ‘Mary saw the girl (and we know that)’ Mary see girl DEF DEF

3.2 The demonstrative sé

In addition to the demonstrative sa, there is also a plural demonstrative determiner, sé.

Unlike sa, which has been present from the earliest Guianese texts that are available, sé is a

relatively recent addition to the language, even more recent to the Cayenne dialect. St. Quentin

(1872: 128) is quite explicit: “Il n’y a qu’un adjectif démonstratif en créole : il est indentique au

pronom démonst[r]atif sa, et, comme lui, est très fréquemment lié à l’article.”21 Peyraud (1983:

192) notes that this is a plural demonstrative that might have been borrowed from the Antillean

creoles, and one of my informants systematically rejects any construction with sé as being

“Antillean”, not Guianese. The form sé has as its likely ultimate etymon French ces

‘these/those’. Its distributional properties are also slightly different than those of sa. Speakers

frequently rejected sentences with sa and suggested using sé as a repair instead, e.g. (26).

(26) a. *Sa pitit mèt ya ka kouri bokou. ‘Those kids of the teachers are DEM child master DEF-PL PRES run much running a lot.’

b. OKSé pitit mèt ya ka kouri bokou. ‘The kids of those teachers are DEM child master DEF-PL PRES run much running a lot.’

21 ‘There is but one demonstrative adjective in Creole: it is identical to the demonstrative pronoun sa and, like this pronoun, is quite frequently linked to the definite article.’

24

The constraint on sa is thus apparently a constraint on the morpheme, and not on the position.

However, there is a constraint on sé as well: it cannot function alone as both plural marker and

demonstrative.

(27) a. sé saro *(ya) ‘those otters’b. sé twatwa *(ya) ‘these seed-finches’c. sé parépou *(ya) ‘these peach-palms’

In other words, there is an apparent contradiction: sé does not need to be licensed by a definite

determiner that dominates it, but it cannot appear without the plural definite determiner

somewhere in the DP. This is apparently different from the Antillean FBCs’ plural marker sé,

which according to Déprez (2007: 267-68) and Valdman (1977: 201ff) must appear with the

definite determiner.

(28) a. sé chat *(la) ‘the cats’ PL cat DEF b. sé chat sa-*(la)/ta-*(la) ‘those cats’ PL cat DEM DEF c. sé chat *(la)-a ‘the cats in question’ PL cats DEF- DEF (Valdman 1977: 201)

It bears repeating that in Antillean FBCs, sé is a plural marker, but in the Cayenne dialect of

Guianese, it is a plural demonstrative22. In other words, the function is different in Antillean

FBCs and Guianese. I suggest that the requirement on sé in Guianese to appear with ya is

therefore a semantic requirement rather than a syntactic one. Specifically, sé must appear not

with the definite determiner, but with the plural marker; since the plural marker cannot appear on

its own, only with the definite determiner a, sé appears with ya.

The plural marker is not only important in demonstrative constructions, but in possessive

ones as well. In Guianese, the possessive determiner can appear independently or with the

definite determiner.22 Fauquenoy-St. Jacques (1978) shows that in the western dialect of Guianese, sé has the same function and distribution as in the Antilles.

25

(29) a. so frè ‘his brother’ 3SG.POSS brotherb. so frè a ‘his brother’ 3SG.POSS brother DEFc. so frè ya ‘his brothers’ 3SG.POSS clothespin PL-DEF

In these examples (25a) and (25b) differ principally in the set of possible referents, with (25b)

having to refer to a particular person. For example, a sentence corresponding to Every boy should

love his mother could not be used with a definite article in the final DP of (30).

(30) Chak tiboug dwèt kontan so manman (*an). every boy must love 3SG.POSS mother DEF

Moreover, while (29a) is technically ambiguous for number, my consultants strongly disprefer a

plural interpretation, suggesting (29c) instead. Despite the presence of the definite determiner,

this does not seem to restrict the interpretation of (31) in the same way that the definite article

alone restricts the interpretation of (30).

(31) Chak tiboug dwèt kontan so sò ya. ‘Every boy should love his sisters.’ every boy must love 3SG.POSS sister PL-DEF

In other words, plural interpretations of nouns that have a determiner of any sort (definite,

demonstrative, possessive) require the plural marker y, which must appear with a. The obligatory

co-occurrence of plural and definite determiners is also true of Antillean FBCs, though it is not

clear what the distribution is in complex DPs in Antillean FBCs.

Given the different distributions of and restrictions on the plural markers in Antillean and

Guianese, and given the fact that sé has different semantics in each, it is well worth questioning

the assumption that sé is a borrowing from Antillean creoles. Based strictly on linguistic

evidence,23 it seems more likely that sé actually comes directly from the homophonous French

ces. Ces is both plural and demonstrative in French, matching the semantics of Guianese sé. Also

23 The demographic evidence also favors this interpretation. Cayenne’s is the most heavily Frenchified dialect. Since Cayenne is the administrative center of French Guiana, and since the French government is the largest employer in the department, Metropolitan French people are concentrated there.

26

like Guianese sé, French ces does not need to appear with the definite article— indeed, it MUST

not appear with the definite article— in a DP (32), providing a plausible source for the syntactic

pattern in Guianese that allows sé to appear without being directly licensed by a definite

determiner.

(32) (*le(s)) ces chiens des voisins ‘these dogs of the neighbors’DEF(-PL) DEM-PL dogs of.DEF-PL neighbors

Notice that even though sé is a plural demonstrative semantically —meaning it cannot have a

singular interpretation— it does not bear a number feature syntactically. The number feature can

only be valued by y. The grammaticalization scenario proposed by Déprez (2007) predicts

exactly this kind of fission of feature bundles (from French) into separate functional categories

(in Guianese).

4. Conclusion

By adopting the structures proposed by Déprez (2007) and Lumsden (1989), it is possible

to motivate the restriction on DP-initial demonstratives in complex DPs of Guianese. The

proposal of Déprez, in which movement to fill specifiers in a highly specified architecture

provides the key to accounting for attested and unattested determiner positions, allows us to posit

restrictions based on underlying word order that would not be possible with a base-generation in

situ analysis. Specifically, it allows us to say that in the Cayenne dialect of Guianese, the

demonstrative determiner sa must be dominated by a definite determiner in order to surface;

otherwise it is blocked. Based on this, we demonstrated the difference between the

demonstratives sa and sé, namely that unlike sa, sé does not need to be dominated by a definite

determiner, but for semantic reasons appears with ya at the end of the DP. Given its semantics,

distribution, and co-occurrences, it seems likely that while it is frequently attributed to Antillean

influence— which is probably the right hypothesis for sé in the western dialect (see fn. 22)— sé

27

in Cayenne is actually a borrowing from French. Historical analysis on the emergence of sé in

Guianese and especially in Cayenne has not yet been carried out, but is crucial to confirming this

hypothesis.

Besides a historical analysis, this work opens the door to a number of other future

directions. Within the Cayenne dialect, it would be of interest to study the PossP. In other FBCs

like Martinican and Haitian, it is unclear whether the PossP is filled, since the possessive

constructions consist of a head noun and a personal pronoun identical to personal pronouns

found in other syntactic contexts. In addition, the personal pronoun appears where full NP

possessors would otherwise appear, and thus they could be analyzed either as a determiner or as

a genitive between two NPs (33a-b).

Haitian(33) a. M achte manje pou chen m. ‘I bought food for my dog(s)’

1S buy food for dog 1Sb. M achte manje pou chen vwazen. ‘I bought food for the neighbors’ dog’ 1S buy food for dog 1S neighbor

In Guianese, however, the possessor is DP-initial, and in the case of 3S, is overtly marked for

case, taking the form so (with the default 3S pronoun being li) (29). These two facts indicate that

PossP is relevant to an analysis of even simple DPs, but would be of even greater interest in

complex DPs. In addition, Valdman (1978: 203) indicates that possessive and demonstratives

generally do not co-occur in FBCs, though he mentions an unusual example from the creole of

Dominica where they do indeed co-occur (201). Another possible example comes from the

Guianese play Chassé croisé (Rollus 1998: 14), where one character laments a bad habit of his.

(34) Fo mo chanjé mo sa mové labitid-a. ‘I’ve got to drop that badnecessary 1S change 1S DEM bad habit DEF habit of mine’

This book is probably not in the Cayenne dialect, since it makes extensive use of the T/V

distinction that exists in Guianese but is rarely used in Cayenne; it also occasionally uses the

28

progressive marker naka, an archaic form of the usual morph ka, a form not found in Cayenne.

Nonetheless, an inquiry to see if demonstratives and possessives categories can co-occur in the

Cayenne dialect of Guianese, presumably in this same order, would give a clue as to the relative

placement of PossP in the hierarchy of determiners laid out in Déprez (2007). It could also allow

us to discover whether the possessive determiner can be used in complex DPs, and if so, whether

it can combine with the demonstratives that precede the noun as well.

The current study should also be extended to other dialects of Guianese. As mentioned

above in fn. 17, apparent counterexamples to the requirement that sa be dominated by the

definite determiner do appear in Désiré (2010)’s translation of The Little Prince (35), but it is not

clear whether the translator is from the Cayenne dialect area and whether the fact that it was

edited by a publisher in another Creole-speaking department had any influence on it.

(35) a. sa désen pyébaobab-ya ‘that drawing of baobabs’ DEM drawing baobab PL-DEF (Désiré 2010: 24)

b. sa zafè désen anakonda louvri oubyen anakonda fromen-an. DEM matter drawing anaconda open or anaconda shut DEF

‘that matter of drawing the anaconda open or closed’ (Désiré 2010: 10)

There are also clues from other studies done on different Guianese dialects that the structure of

complex DPs is quite different. For example, work done on Karipuna shows that the definite

determiner a and the plural marker y are absent from the creole altogether and that sa appears on

its own at the beginning of the simple DP (Tobler 1983; Picanço 2003). Without the definite

determiner, there is nothing described in this analysis to restrict the appearance of the

demonstrative at the beginning of the complex DP, but it is important to document whether

speakers can in fact use the demonstrative in that position, or if the pattern from Guianese still

holds true even when the definite determiner is lost.

29

Corne (1971a) also provides a piece of evidence that sa can occur in the Western dialect

at the beginning the complex DPs, but the conditions are unclear. The example has two

demonstratives, one DP-initial and one post-nominal, the latter never occurring in the Cayenne

dialect (36).

(36) sa rou vwati sa la ‘that wheel of that car’DEM wheel car DEM DEF (Corne 1971b: 7)

However, as stated above in section 1, his informant was from the heavily Antilleanized Western

dialect, had parents from the Antilles, grew up in a home where only French was spoken, and

was living in New Caledonia. Whether she is representative of the dialect community is

impossible to tell without more fieldwork in the area. Nevertheless, it is clear that our

understanding of the syntactic and semantic complexity of the DP in Guianese and other FBCs is

just beginning.

30

Appendix 1: Linguistic Map of French Guiana

(Léglise & Migge 2007: III)

31

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