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The Morphosyn tax o f

Spanish- fex i f ied Creoles

Gerardo A. Lorenzmo



LINCOM Studies in

Pidgin & Creole Linguistics

In this series

01 Gerardo A. Lorenzino The Angolar Creole Portuguese

02 Gerardo A. Lorenzino The Morphosyntax of Spanish-lexified Creoles



The Morphosyntax ofSpanish-lexified Creoles

Gerardo A. Lorenzino

2000LINCOM EUROPA



Published by LINCOM EUROPA 2000.

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The Morphosyntax of Spanish-lexified Creoles

Abstract

This study presents a morphosyntactic comparison of the three Spanish-lexified

creóles, namely, Palenquero (Colombia), Papiamentu (Netherlands Antilles) and

Chabacano (Philippines). The three main chapters examine the most salient

morphosyntactic features in the noun phrase, verb phrase and sentence structure of the

three Spanish-lexified creóles. A comparative overview for each morphosyntactic

feature will be presented after their separate analysis in Palenquero, Papiamentu and

Chabacano, respectively.

The assessment of the Spanish-lexified creóles' morphosyntactic similarities and

differences will hopefully further our understanding of the kinds of developmental

processes which led to the formation of the three Spanish-lexified creóles. In this

respect, some features of Palenquero, Papiamentu and Chabacano are difficult to

explain without referring to their African (Palenquero, Papiamentu) and Austronesian

(Chabacano) component, respectively. For example, aside from the shared features

from Spanish, Chabacano can be expected to have distinct features due to its distinct

Austronesian substrates such as Tagalog and Visayan languages. Despite the

essentially descriptive approach followed in this linguistic study, there will be frequent

references to diachronic constraints and data from other creóles (both Atlantiic and

Pacific) in order to suggest some parallelisms between Palenquero and Papiamentu, on

one hand, and Chabacano, on the other.





1

C O N T E N T S

11st of abbre viations 3

I iHt of tables 4

I ist of figures 4

1.0 Introduction 5

'? 0 Sociohistorical background 7

2.1. Palanquero (Colombia) 72.2. Papiamentu (Aruba, Bonaire and Curagao) 9

2.3. Chabacano (Philippines) 11

3 0 Th e noun phra se in the Spa nish-lexified creóles 13

3 1. Noun and adjectives 13

3.1.1. Palenquero 13

3.1.2 . Papiamentu 15

3.1.3. Chabacano 183.1.4. Comparison, nouns and adjectives 18

3.2. Pronouns 22

3.2.1. Palenquero 22

3.2.2. Papiamentu 25

3.2.3. Chabacano 26

3.2.4. Comparison: pronouns 28

33. Determiners 29

3.3.1. Articles 29

3.3.1.1. Palenquero 29

3.3.1.2 . Papiamentu 26

3.3.1.3. Chabacano 27

3.3.2 . Possessives 32

3.3.2.1. Palenquero 32

3.3.2 .2. Papiamentu 35

3.3.2 .3. Chabacano 36

3.3.4. Comparison: determiners 37

4.0 Th e verb phras e in the Spanish-lexified creóles 38



2

4 .1 . Tense, aspect and modality

4 .1 .1 . Palenquero

4.1.2. Papiamentu

4.1.3. Chabacano

4 .1 .4 . Comparison: tense, aspect and modality

4.2. The copula

4.2.1. Palenquero

4.2.2. Papiamentu

4.2.3. Chabacano

4 .2.4 . Comparison: the copula

5.0 The sentence structure in the Spanish-lexified creóles

5.1 . Palenquero

5.2. Papiamentu

5.3. Chabacano

5.4 . Comparison: sentence structure

6.0 Conclusion

Bibliography



3

List of abrreviat ions

AN = Angolar Creole Portuguese

ANT = anterior

CAU = causative

COP = copula

CT = Cotabato Chabacano

CV =Caviteño

f-;R = Ermitaño C hab aca no

EX I = existential

IO C = focusKUT = future

HAB = habitual

MIL = highlighter

IMP= imperfectivo

INT = intensifier

IRR = irrealis

I K = linker

NEG = negationPCS = Philippine Creole Spanish

PFC = perfective

PL = Palenquero

PLU = plural

PP = Papiamentu

PRG = progresive

PT = Portuguese

REP = reportative

SP = Spanish

ST = Santomense

TG = Tagalog

TOP = topic

TR = Ternateño Chabacano

UNM = unmarked

ZM = Zamboangueño Chabacano



4

List of tables

Tab le 1: Pluralizaron sche me in Spanish-lexified creóles . 19

Tab le 2: Pronouns of Palenquero 20

Tab le 3: Pronouns of Papiam entu 22

Tab le 4: Pronominal System of Chab aca no variet ies 23

Ta b le 5: Definite and indefinite articles of Pale nquero. 25

Ta b le 6: Definite and indefinite articles of Papia me ntu. 27

Ta ble 7: Posses sive adjectives and pronouns of Palenquero 28

Tab le 8: Posses sive adjectives and pronouns of Papiame ntu 30

Tab le 9: TMA system of Palenquero 33

Tab le 10: TMA system of Papiame ntu 39

Tab le 11: Tem poral concordance in Papia me ntu subordination 43

Tab le 12: TMA system of Chaba cano 44

Tab le 13: Aspect system of Chaba cano and Tagalog 48

Tab le 14: TMA system of Spanish-lexified creóles 49

L is t o f f igures

Figure 1: Chronology of Chab aca no dialects 10



5

I 0 Introdu ction

This monograph presents a morphosyntactic comparison of the three Spanish-

loxlfled creóles, namely, Palenquero (Colombia), Papiamentu (Netherlands Antilles) and

cha bac ano (Philippines). Earlier studies have compared the verb phrase (Maurer

1W87) and the noun phrase (Lorenzino 1992) of Papiamentu (PP) and Palenquero (PL),

i a&ulting in a better understanding of the linguistic structure a nd featu res of these

(taribbean creóles. O ne outcome of the asses sme nt of their structural similarities an d

differences is its impact on the question of the types of processes which led to the

formation and developm ent of the Spanish-lexified creóles. For exa mp le, substrate

influence has been posited in general creóle studies since certain features are difficult

lo explain without referring to their African (Palen quero, Papiam entu) and Austronesian

(Chabacano) component. It is ev en more difficult to account for their diverging in their

non-European linguistic features, e.g. pluralizaron. The question which then arises is

which African or Austronesian languages (or language families) are responsible for

particular creóle featu res . Thu s distinct morphosyntactic features in the noun and verb

phrse of Palenquero and Papiamentu indicate that the differing influence of Bantu and

Kwa languag es upon the Caribbe an creóles has not bee n uniform. For exam ple,

pluralizaron in Palenquero suggests a strong Bantu component in its early stages of

development, while Papiamentu, on the other hand, has a plural marker more like that

of Kwa languages. Further evidence for differing substrate influences may be found in

PP a and PL á, both tense and aspect markers, whose morphosyntactic and semantic

properties indicate a stronger Bantu influence upon Palenquero (Mau rer 198 7:66 ).

As for Chabacano (Philippine Creole Spanish or PCS), aside from the shared

features from Spanish, Chabacano can be expected to have distinct features due to its

distinct Austronesian substrate, e.g. the Tagalog and Visayan languages as well as



6

Indonesian influence upon Tem ateño . If we ca n assume that Chaba cano underwent

creolization in a way parallel to Palenquero and Papiamentu, certain features in the

Philippine creóle must be seen in the light of Austronesian linguistics. How ever, this

interpretation does not rule out other influences in the Creole's genesis and

development, e.g. that of the superstate, adstrate, language learning and universal

tendencies. Cha baca no has features that ma ke it, in certain respects, more like other

creóles with Austronesian substrates, e.g. the Malayo Portuguese creóle of Malacca

and Indonesta and Tok Pisin, an English-based pidgin of Papua New Guinea. Their

linguistic resemblance to Chabacano may be explained at least partly by the fact that

they all have an Austronesian substrate.

The three main chapters (3-5) examine the most salient morphosyntactic

features in the noun phrase, verb phrase and sentence structure of all three Spanish-

lexified creóles. Eac h creóle featu re will be presen ted in consecutive order, i.e. first

Palenquero, then Papiamentu and finally Chabacano, so that the reader can follow

more easily the similarities and differences amo ng the three creóles. The re will be

ocassionally references to other Iberian-lexified creóles such as the Gulf of Guinea

creóles - especially Santomense - because of their possible historical link with

Palenquero (see below ). In Chapter 2 a sociohistorical introduction sketches the major

events surrounding eac h creóle society. For sources of data I have relied mainly on

four substantial creóle corpora: Friedemann and Patino Rosselli (1983) for Palenquero,

Whinnom (1956) and Forman (1972) for Chabacano, and Maurer (1988) for

Papiamentu.

I would like to thank Armin Schwegler for allowing me to quote from his

forthcoming article on Palenquero together with Kate Green (see Schwegler and Green

fc.) and John Holm for sending me his paper on a comparison of Palenquero,



7

l'nplamentu and Chaba can o (see Holm 200 0) . To my knowledge the following analysis

of the Spanish-lexified Creoles' morphosyntax and Holm's manuscript are the first

comparative overviews of Palenquero, P apiamentu a nd C habacano.

V 0. Sociohistorical Background

;' 1 Palenquero (Colombia)

Palenque de San Basilio is a community of descendants of runaway slaves,

located in the Department of Bolivar in northern Colombia, 40 miles south of Cartagena

<l« Indias, the major seaport enga ged in the Atlantic slave trade b etw een the last part of

Hi» sixteenth century and the eighteenth century (Raw ley 1 98 1 :42 9). Palenq ues or

fortified villages were built by slaves of varied African ethnolinguistic groups and with

various degrees of acculturation to the New World (creóle and bozal). While bozal

nlaves had been in the colonies for only a short period of time, thereby having little or no

contact with the new cultural environment, creóle slaves were born in the New World

nnd had acquired the linguistic and other cultural habits that more closely resembled

those of their owners.

Sa n B asilio, unlike other such communities in the Spanish Ca ribbean region, was

Jible to survive because of its sociopolitical organization, strengthened by its

geographical isolation and the lack of mo dern communications. All these factors

contributed to making Palenquero, a language whose discovery and linguistic

recognition as a creóle as such was recent in comparison with the longer studied and

more well known English and French-lexified creóles ..

Closely linked to the origin of Sa n Basilio is the nam e of Dom ingo B ioho, a real or

legendary figure from Africa who led a slave insurgency in 1602 in the Palenque of La



8

Matuna. The peace treaty signed in 1603 by the Governor of Cartagena, Gerónimo de

Suazo, granted freedom and land to the runaway slaves, after his garrisons had been

defeated by them. Nonethe less, the relationship betwe en the people of Cartag ena a nd

the Palenque was tense during the seventeenth century, despite the royal decree of

1691 ending all rights of slave owners to slaves dwelling in palenques (Friedemann and

Patino Rosselli 1983:38).

In 1713 the Bishop of Cartagena, fray Antonio Maria Casiani, carried in person

the promise from slave owners to end all hostilities on the condition that no more slaves

be given refuge in the Palenque . This historical decision to let Sa n Basilio exist

permitted the survival of the community as such with its general cultural traits relatively

unaffected by the presence of the Spanish in Cartagena.

Early in the Atlantic slave trade, Cartagena became the busiest slave entrepot in

Spanish America. Th e Jesuit Alonso de Sandova l (162 7) wrote a detailed account

which has proved to be a valuable source of information relating to the provenance of

Cartag ena's African slaves, their habits, treatment, etc. According to Sando val, slaves

from the island of Sao Tomé ("criollos de Sao Tomé") spoke broken Portuguese

("lenguaje corrupto y revesado de la Portuguesa") to communicate with slaves of

various African linguistic backgrounds (Sandova l 162 7 [198 7]:1 40 ). After contact with

their Spanish-speaking masters, the slaves migh have begun using a pidginized and

eventually creolized form of Spanish developed through relexification and restructuring,

establishing the linguistic framework from which Palenquero dev eloped. Or, the early

Santomense creóle spoken by some slaves in Cartagena could have served as the

linguistic model from which Palenquero developed.

Th e relative isolation of the Palenque ros en ded in the ea rly twentieth century with

the construction of the Panama Canal and two sugar refineries, in addition to the



9

development of banana plantations in the Magdalena region (Megenney 1986:84).

I hus, many men left the comm unity to search for jobs and cas h which they could spend

m urban centers. Moreov er, the hispanization process has bee n hastened by the

introduction of radio an d television. Th e sociolinguistic consequences hav e been a

induction in the number of active bilinguals in the already small population of

approximately 3,000 inhabitants (Friedemann and Patino Rosselli 1983:185) and

hilingualism among the younger generation: "Hoy son relativamente numerosos los

niños y los jóvenes que ni hablan ni entienden lengua [i.e. Palenquero]." (Schwegler

1996:42).

'.> 2. Papiamentu (Aruba, Bonaire and Curagao)

Papiamentu is an Iberian (Spanish and Portuguese) lexified creóle spoken by

approximately 250,000 people in the Netherlands Antilles' leeward islands of Aruba,

Donaire and Curagao not far from the Venezuelan coast, which together with the Dutch

windward islands of St. Maarten (St. Martin), St. Eustatius and Saba form a self-

governing territory, including some 30000 Papiamentu speakers in the Netherlands

(Kouwenberg and Murray 1994:4).

Aruba, Bonaire and Curagao were shaped by distinct sociobistorical forces

loading to the developm ent of a society quite unlike that of the P alenq ue de S an Basilio.

While the latter community evolved in relative isolation from the Spanish speaking

coastal region of Colombia, Bonaire and Curagao came under Dutch rule in 1634, when

the small contingent of occupying Spaniards and their Arawakan Indian slaves were

forced to leave the islands; Aruba was s eized later, in 168 8. Howe ver, the white Dutch

Hociety did not remain homoge neous long. Seph ardic Jew s, who had fled Portugal and



10

Spain because of the Inquisition, arrived in Curagao with their slaves in 1659 via the

northeastern part of Brazil, a D utch enclave regained by the Portuguese in 165 4. Thus ,

the coexistence of the Dutch with the Brazilian Jews, together with the ever increasing

role of Curasao as an entrepot in the Atlantic slave trade led to the development of a

contact language for communication between the following groups: (1) the Dutch and

the Brazilian Jews, (2) the white slave owners and their African slaves and (3) slaves of

different langua ge backg round. Creolists still dispute whether the Se phardic Jew s who

settled in Curagao spoke Portuguese, Castillian and Judeo-Spanish or -Portuguese,

also called Ladino. Nonetheless, the proximity of these islands to the Spanish mainland

wa s certainly conducive to a flourishing trade . Th e illicit trade in slaves beg an in the

1640 s with Spanish ships stopping in Curagao to pick up the hum an cargoes. Th e

recognition of Dutch independence from Spain in 1648 provided new impetus to the

transshipment of African labor to Spanish America (Rawley 1981:85). Thus, historical

evidence suggests an early Spanish influence on a pidginized form of Portuguese

spoken on the islands between the white Dutch and Portuguese population and their

slaves.

Papiamentu is spoken by almost the entire population of the Dutch Leeward

islands, regardless of class or ethnic group. It is widely employed in the m edia (radio,

television and newspapers); in addition, it has been proposed as the medium of

instruction during the early years of education (Maurer 198 8:4). Thu s, Papiam entu is

most unusual among the Caribbean creóles in that it has a high degree of acceptance.

This sociolinguistic situation seems to stem in part from the fact that Papiamentu

co-exists with Dutch, which is not its lexical source language; therefore, the people of

the Aruba, Bonaire and Curasao do not view Papiamentu as a lower variety of the



11

official language, an attitude which is lacking among speakers of Palenquero and

Chabacano.

Besides the two somew hat different spelling conventions for Pap iame ntu, with

Arubans adopting one form, and Curagoans and Bonaire another, there are some

dialect differences which extend to all language components, including a more

hispanized formal register which contrasts with less hispanized ones spoken informally.

Nonetheless, all three Papiamentu dialects remain mutually intelligible (Andersen 1974,

Wood 197 2, quoted in Kouwenberg and Murray 1994 :5).

v 3 Cha bac ano (Philippines)

Philippine Creole Spanish is known in the Philippines as Chabacano (<Spanish

chab acan o 'cheap') (Corominas 1 987 :188). It wa s once spoken in several regions of

the Philippines, including Cavite (Caviteño CV) and Témate (Temateño TR) on Manila

llay, Davao (Davaueño DV) and Cotabato (Cotabato Chabacano CT) (Lipski 1987:91).

Chabacano has over two hundred thousand speakers in Zamboanga del Sur

(Zamboangueno ZM) living in Zamboanga City and Basilan Island in the southern

Philippines (McFarland 198 3:10 9). The discrepancy between the 1 975 census data and

later reports (Lipski 1987:91) points to a rapid reduction in the number of Chabacano

speakers, to the extent that all Chabacano varieties are considered nearly extinct, with

the exception of Zamboa ngueno. Zambo angueno is Zam boanga's language of

comm erce, culture and politics, and is used in radio and TV broadcasts alternating with

I nglish and Ta galo g. Zam boang ueno enjoys a sociolinguistic status which favors its

nurvival in the region, despite being surrounded by so many languages .



12

Th e origin of Ch aba can o remains uncertain. Th e earliest Chaba can o variant to

arise might have been Ternateño when Spanish settlers from the island of Témate in

the Moluccas Islands moved to the Manila area in 1660 (Whinnom 1956 :7). There they

established a military garrison to prevent the attacks of the Chinese pirate, Koxinga

(ibid.). Terna teño presumably produced two offshoots, Caviteño an d Ermitaño, after

families from Témate resettled in Cavite and Ermita (ibid. :11-12). Finally, Zamboanga

was populated in 1719 by Spanish and Tagalog speakers who moved there from other

regions in the Philippines. It is likely that the Taga log-speak ing troops also spoke

Caviteño or Ermitaño (ibid.:14). Zam boang ueño then spread to Davao , Basilan, Jolo

and Cotaba to during this century (Lipski 1988 :25). Thus a possible chronology and

genetic relationship of all Cha baca no variants is shown in Fig. 1.

Caviteño

(1660)

Davaueño

(1900)

Zamboangueño

Cotabato Chabaci

(late A

Figure 1: chronology of Chaba cano dialects; years represent only a pproximate

settlement dates (adapted from W hinnom (1956 :17)



13

:\ 0. The noun phrase in Spanish-lexified creóles

Although no attempt will be made here to describe all details of the noun phrases

in Palenquero, Papiamentu and Chabacano, the following discussion will focus on the

major NP elements (nouns, adjectives, pronouns and determiners) as well as other

mlovant notions such as gender, number a nd w ord order.

\ 1 Nouns and Adjectives

; H 1. Palenquero

Gender agreement is not overtly marked for nouns and adjectives and need not be

marked for number. Adjectives are derived from the Spanish form for the masculine

mngular. As in Spanis h, adjectives generally follow nouns wh en attributive, exce pt for

those derived from Spa nish adjectives which preced e the n oun, e.g. buen:

( l ) akí sé jablá nu un palabra africanomá nu. (F&P 1983:279)

here H AB speak NE G a word African more NE G

'H ere not an A frican word is spoken.'

(?) / un guen piaso koriyo. (F&P1983:274)

an da good piece meat

'and a good piece of meat.'

Predicative adjectives, likewise, show no inflectional morphology:

(3) / la señora taba preso. (F&P 1983:202)

and the wom an C O P imprisoned

'And the woman was imprisoned.'

I he proclitic plural marker ma when preceding count nouns indicates plurality; before

mass nouns it is emp loyed to convey a collective idea:



14

( 4 ) / á tenéunma ndo baka. (F&P 1983:233)

1s CP L have a PLU two cow

'I have (approximately) two cows.'

(5) / ma bakita tambié, ma ngombesito. (F&P 1983:235)

and PL U little cow also PL U little cattle

'And the little cows also, the little cattle.'

Word derivation in Palenquero is seen in (5) where the Spanish diminutive suffixes -ital-

ito attach to both Spanish (vaca) and African-derived (ngombe) lexicon. Numerals

larger than two make ma redundant, though there are exceptions, e.g. PL ma ndo

mano, S P las dos manos 'the two hands'.

( 6 ) / ' sutoá ten tre mona, tre mona: uno ku tresi año. (F&P 1983:205)

and 1p CP L have three child three child one with thirteen year

'And we have three children, three children: one is thirteen years old.'

How ever, it is not always the case that all nouns are invariable for number. Schwegler

and G reen (fc.) point out that in Palenquero ma anima ri aki and ma animale ri aki both

mean 'the animals from here1; however, one should not assume that animale (<Spanish

animales) represents the more modern Span ish borrowing. Furthermo re, the contrast

between overt vs. non-overt ma is conditioned more by pragmatic factors than just

morphology alone, as shown in the overt use of ma cuadros in (7a) (cuadros is an

organization composed of young Palenqueros of different ages) and the interlocutor's

response with non-overt plural cuadros in (7b ):

(7a) \abla mi kumoera ma kusa ri MA KUAGRO akft

Speak me how C O P PLU thing of PLU cuadro here

'tell me how these things were with the cuadro here (in Palenque)!'

(Schwegler and Green fc.)

http://abla/

http://abla/

http://abla/



15

(/b) KUA GRO r i aora , eso ta desoddeanao

cuadro of now this C O P disorganized

T h e cuadros of now adays , this is disorganized (= today's cuadros are disorganized)

( idem)

: u . 2 . Papiamentu

Papiamentu's noun phrase exhibits some common characteristics with other

Atlantic creóle independ ently of their lexical bas e. As early as 18 69 , Va n N am e

observed that "the art icle, adjective an d noun in P apiam entu a re invariable in respect to

both gender an d number" (18 69 -70 :15 3). Likewise, the third person plural pronoun nan

IN homphonous with the enclit ic plural marker nan, another of many Atlantic creóle

foatures. Pap iamen tu's pronominal system do es not have distinct subject and object

forms.

Noun s an d a djectives a re not inflected for gen der:

(8 ) ChaN ansi no por a saca e idea d i gana e baca gordo

Ch a Nancy NE G ab le AN T get out the idea of obtain the cow big

'Anansi could not get out of his mind the idea of getting the big cow.'

(Maurer 1988:360)

! he words m u h é 'woman' (SP mujet) an d h o m b e r 'man' (SP hombre) are sometimes

Mdded to nouns to indicate natural gender:

(9 ) Parseku Yvette ta potret d isu ruman mu he di funtu

seem s that Yvette C O P portrait of her brother/ sister wo m an de ad

'It seems that Yvette is the portrait of her dead sister.1

(Maurer 1988:368)

Other examples of gender specif ication by a juxtaposed noun are: r u m a n h o m b e r

'brother', r u m a n m u h é 'sister', y u h o m b e r 'son', y u m u h é 'daughter', m u c h a h o m b e r



16

'boy', mucha muhé 'girl' (cf. PP mucha 'child' and SP muchac ho/a), buriku machu 'male

donkey' and buriku muhé 'female donkey' (Munteanu 1996:266).

Like Papiamentu, Santomense, a Portuguese-lexified creóle spoken in Sao Tomé

and Principe (cf. Sandoval's reference to the "criollos de Sao Tomé"), can indicate

natural gender by having ome 'man, male' (PT homem 'man') and mwala 'woman,

female' (Kikongo mwalakaji) following the noun, e.g . bwe ome 'male ox1

(PT 60/'ox') and

bwe mwala 'female ox' (Ivens Ferraz 1979:60).

Papiamentu nouns derived from Spanish words with derivational morphemes

indicating a male-female contrast maintain this distinction, e.g. aktor 'actor' (SP actor)

vs. aktris ' actress' (SP actriz) (Mau rer 198 8:3 6). Adjectives usually are placed after

nouns as in baca gordo in (8) above. However, like SP bonita and buena, a small class

of adjectives can occur be fore nouns without any a pparent modification of meaning :

(10) Pasobrae ta un bunita mucha. (Maurer 1988:370)Because she C O P a beautiful girl

'Because she is a beautiful girl.'

(11) Antonio no tabata presente di a Dios a parti e bon cualidadnan ayi

Antonio NE G CO P present day God CP L distribute the good qualitiesPLU there

•Antonio was not present the day God distributed good qualities.'

(Maurer 1988:380)

Plurality is marked by means of an enclitic homophonous with the third person plural

pronoun nan, plural marking is not redundant:

(12) elamira Marcel ta papia ku tres kabajero. (Maurer 1988:392)

she see Marcel PRG speak with three men

'She saw Marcel speaking with three men.'

The pluralizer -nan is affixed to a noun preced ed by a num eral only when an article or po

pronoun is preposed to the entire noun phras e:



17

(13) e tres dialektonan di e luga. (Maurer 1988:388)

the three dialect-PLU of the region

T h e three dialects of the region.'

(14) el a duna su dos yunan homber tambe tres nomber kada un.

he CP L give his two child PLU man also three nam e each one

'He gave three nam es to each of his three sons.' (Maurer 198 8:38 8)

I he pluralizing fo rce of -nan can be extended to more than one noun. Wh en two

oemantically related nouns are conjoined by the conjunction ku, the plural marker is

affixed to the last of the two nouns but both lie within its semantic range :

(15) e kuchúku forkinan. (Dijkhoff 1983:223)

the knive and fork PLU

The knives and forks.'

Proper nouns can also have nan attached to them; however, two interpretations of the

plural marker are possible in this cas e:

(16) Mañanan, (ibid.)

'all the people called Maria.'

(17) Mañanan, (ibid.)

'Maria and her group of friends/relatives, etc.'

The third person plural nan has no Iberian etymology. Indeed , its syntactic distribution

as both a pronoun and plural marker suggests that nan has an African origin. Like

Papiamentu, many Kwa languages use the third person plural pronoun as a plural

niarker (Holm 1988:193), which suggests there is a likely substrate tie between ST ine

(third person plural pronoun) (Ivens Ferraz 1979 :66) and PP nan.



18

3.1.3. Chabacano

Chabacano's noun phrase exhibits some features which are common to

Palenquero, Papiamen tu and creóles in general. Nouns and adjectives are unm arked

for gender, w ith number indicated either with a free particle (manga) before the nominal

head or Span ish plural inflectionals (see below ). Pronouns derive mostly from S panish

although Zamboangueño has Visayan forms in the plural (Whinnom 1956:88).

Possessive markers precede the noun head and are clearly derived from the lexifier.

Ch aba can o has a system of definite and indefinite articles, as well as deictic forms that

correspond in their morphosyntax and semantics to those in Spa nish. O ne salient

feature of the noun phrase is reduplication. Unlike Atlantic creóles, Chabacano has

reduplication of nouns, adjectives and verbs with semantic changes indicative of

Austronesian influence.

Gram ma tical gender markings are absen t in Chaba cano. Forms which still

possess a gender distinction appear mostly in the masculine. Exs. (18) and ( 20)

indicate biological gender by means of Spanish sufiixes, masculine -o and feminine -a.

Other lexical pairs with gender contrast are: bonito/-a, guapol-a, amigof-a, etc. (Lipski

1987:44):

(18) CV: Pedro, hijo de Ñora Culasa. (Whinnom 1956:50)

Pedro son of Mrs. Culasa

'Pedro (who) is Mrs. Culasa's son'.

(19) ZM : El gente de ciudad (Whinnom 1956:68)

the people of city

The people from the city.'

(20) ER: un muchacha nerviosa. (Whinnom 1956:24)a girl nervous

'a nervous girl.'



19

Although (20) shows noun-adjective agreement for gender, this is not a regular

construction:

(21) CV : este vieja dimasiao religioso. (Whinnom 1956:51 )

this old wo man very religious

Th is very old religious woman.1

( 2 2 ) E R : e / playa iluminao. (ibid.:27)

the beach illuminated

'the illuminated beach.'

Plural markers of nouns and adjectives are the result of Spanish and Tagalog influence.

Spanish plural -s is widespread in all Ch aba can o variants. However, plurality is not

nlways overtly ma rked. Thus in (23) S P -s is expected since a numeral precedes the

noun.

(23) ZM : cada rama tiene siete plores. (Whinnom 1956:70)

each branch have seven flower-PLU

'there are seve n flowers in each branch.'

(24) ER : Pelisa no ya podé reprimí el lágrimas, (ibid. :26)

Felisa NEG CP L able repress the tear-PLU

'Felisa could not repress her tears.'

The irregularity in plural marking is apparent when comparing (25) and (26):

(25) ZM : siete palo0 tiene el monte. (Whinnom 1956:70)

seven tree has the mountain

T h e mountain has seven trees.'

(26) ZM : nacieron tres maravillas. (ibid.:71)

born three wonders

'three won ders we re born.'



20

The pluralizer maga, manga or mana (T G mga, ibid.) precedes the noun. Possessives,

articles and deictics may com e before the plural marker. Cha bacano manga can

accom pany nouns in both the singular and, redundantly, in the plural. Thus in (27 ) ojos

is likely to be perceived as the basic form due to being used more frequently than the

singular ojo; cf. Haitian CF zié 'eye' from the French plural /esyei/x(Holm p.c).

(27) ER: el manga ojos de ele. (Whinnom 1956:24)

the PLU eyes of her

'the eyes of her.'

(28) CV: bueno pa este manga puelco. (¡bid.:69)

better for this PL U pig

'these pigs are better off.'

Reduplication of adjectives and nouns conveys the idea of plurality and intensification.

Adjectival reduplication employs the Tagalog linkers -nglna before the next adjective.

Com pare the Tagalog sentence in (29) with Chabacan o in (30):

(29) TG: Sino ang matabang-m ataba? (Schachter and Otanes 1972:231)

who TO P fat LK fat

'who's the very fat one?'

(30) ER: Pelisaya reza ele puelteng-puelte con Dios. (Whinnom 1956:25)

Felisa CP L pray him strong-LK-strong to God

'Felisa prayed intensely to Go d.'

There is some variation in reduplication mechanisms, as exemplified by (31) and (32):

(31) CV: y cucí vos buenol-bueno, ha?(Whinnom 1956:50)

and cook 2s well well INT

'and you cook very well, don't you?'

(32) CV: Pedro bu enung-bueno cucí comida. (ibid.:50)

Pedro well LK well cook food

'Pedro cooks very well.'



21

Intensification via TG na is seen in (33). Here the whole phrase is a Tagaiog

construction:

(33) CV: Ram6n, tamadna tamad (ibid.:52)

Ramón lazy LK lazy

'Ramón who is very lazy.'

Zamboangueño does not have the linkers -ng/na to mark intensification, using rather the

Visayan intensrfier gayot suffixed to an adjective, e.g. grande gayot 'very large' (Lipski

1988:32). Nominal reduplication usually carries an indefinite plural meaning, as in CH

cosa-cosa* stuff' (Whinnom 1956:26).

The adverb in Chabacano has the same form as the adjective. Thus in (30) puelte

is used instead of the adverb. Spanish transfer is apparent in cases like (34) where the

adverbial suffix -mente appears:

(34) ER: el playa, i luminao, ta espera con ele, humildemente (Whinnom 1956:27)

the beach illuminated PRG wait to her humbly

The illuminated beach was waiting for her.'

3 1 4. Comparison: Nouns and adjectives

Pluralizaron offers an interesting contrast of the three creóles:

PL ma

free morpheme

pronominal

not a pronoun

PP -nan

bound morpheme

postnominal

same form as 3p

CH manga

free morpheme

prenominal

not a pronoun

Table 1: Pluralizaron scheme in Spanish-lexified creóles



22

Palenquero ma is of Bantu origin (Granda 1978:465) and PP -nan of Kwa origin

syntactically (Mau rer 19 87 :62 ); however, C H manga is clearly an Austronesian

loanword, from TG mga (Whinnom 19 56 :81 ). Different substrates led to differing

African and Austronesian pluralizaron strategies. Note, however, that similar

typological conditionings might have also been at work in producing the pluralizaron

processes in Palenquero and Chabac ano.

Different types of reduplicative processes in nouns and adjectives, which convey

a variety of notions such as continuity, habituality, random ness, etc ., are found in many

creóles, both Iberian (Afro- and Indo-) Portuguese Creoles and non-Iberian, e.g. Sranan

(Adamson and Smith 1995); reduplication is not, though, a universal creóle feature.

Reduplication in Chabacano, unlike that in Palenquero and Papiamentu, is very

pervasive and it is used to expres s plurality, e.g. ZM kyen-kyen 'who all' and cosa cosa

'what all' (Forman 1972:109); cf. AN foga-foga and fo-foga, both 'asthma' (AN fógó

'respiration' <PT fólego 'respiration', Maurer 1995:153), 'Malayo-Portuguese kryes-kryes

'children' (< PT changa 'child') and Malay sayur-sayur 'vegetables' (Ivens Ferraz

19 87 :35 2). In addition, Cha baca no has different types of reduplication to express

iteration, intensification, etc., all indicative of pervasive substrate influence upon the

creóle as such mechanism is quite productive in Austronesian langua ges. Palenquero

and Papiamentu use reduplication only rarely, and have less productive rules than in

Chabacano, which uses the linkers -nglna in Caviteño and Ermitaño (see 5.2.).

3.2. Pronouns

3.2.1. Palenquero

Unlike Spanish, personal pronouns are obligatory in order to compensate for the

absenc e of verbal morphology indicating person. Furthermo re, Palenquero contrasts



23

subject and object forms only in the first person singular and, third person singular, in

addition to having a set of bound and free morphemes in the singular. Gender is

invariably unm arked.

The pronominal paradigm is as follows:

Person

1

2

3

Function

Subject

Object

Subject

Object

Subject

Object

Singular Free

yo

mi

bo

uté - te

bo, uté

ele 'he, she, it'

(ma) hende

'one'

uno 'one'

ele

Singular

bound

y 0 ~ i - ~ y -

b o ~ o ~

uté - te

-0

-e

-lo, o

Plural

suto ~ uto

(ma) hende

suto

(ma) hende

utere ~ utée

enú (archaic)

utere

enú (archaic)

ané, ele

ané, lo

fable 2 : Pronouns of Palenquero (Schwegler and Green fc.)

In (35) below the subject-object distinction in the first person singular is observed:



24

(35) / to mundo á taba pregunta mí si k' é lo ke i á yebaba

and all world A NT PR G ask me if what CO P what I AN T carry

'And everybody was asking me w hat I was carrying.' (F&P 1983 :261)

Unlike Spanish, the object pronoun follows the verb; indirect objects are placed before

the direct object:

(36) pero berano tan egchá mí elo a pelé. (F&P 1983:232)

but summ er FU T throw me them to lose

'But summ er is going to scorch th e m .'

The third person plural pronoun ele is contracted to e/or é:

(37) Nina ta besando é. (F&P 1983:259)

Nina PRG kissing her

'Nina is kissing her.'

Similarly bo is frequently shortened to ó in rapid speec h:

(38) bo sabe onde ó tan metékun e. (F&P 1983:271)

you know wh ere you FU T put with he

'You know where you will go in with him.'

Pronominal forms have African, Portuguese and Spanish etymologies. The pronouns

ané 'they' and enu 'you (pi)' are unlikely to be derived from either Spanish or

Portuguese. Santomense has the equivalent pronominal form ine 'they'. This is

particularly relevant in view of the putative connection between slaves who spoke

"lengua de Sao Tomé" and the ascendants of the current Palenqueros.

Schwegler (1999) shows that Kikongo is likely to have contributed with almost

half of Palenquero pronouns; morever, reduplicated prononminals which function as

highlighters, e.g. yoj ta a/a'I (who am) here', might have been modelled on the basis of

an African substrate.



25

3 2.2. Papiamentu

Personal pronouns show no case marking, that is, they are identical in subject

ond object function, and show no gender distinction in the third person singular and

plural:

Person

1

2

3

Singular

mi, am i

abo, bo

e, el, ele

Plural

nos, anos

boso, bosonan, aboso

nan, anan

rabie 3: Pronouns of Papiamentu (adapted from Munteanu 1996:295ff.)

Thus:

(39) el a tende un kehamentu den un buracu. (Maurer 1988:352)

he CP Lh ear a moan in a hole

'He heard a moan coming from a hole.'

The word order in Papiamentu requires that the indirect object precede the direct object:

(40) Ma mi t in ku pidi Shon Arei un fabor sí.

But I have that ask Mr. King a favor indeed

'But I have to ask Mr. King a favor.'

(cf. SP pedir un favor al rey as well as pedir al rey un favor' ask a favor of the king' vs.

•«sk the king a favor').

I he order of constituents remains unchanged in cases of pronominalized verbs, e.g.

manda-mi e (lit 'send me it'). For a few Dutch-derived verb-particle associations (bel-op



26

'call up') we find the object of the verb separating such combinations, e.g. lo mi bel bo

op 'I will call you on the phone' (Kowenberg and Murray 1994:35).

3.2.3. Chabacano

The personal pronouns of Chabacano show more variation in the plural series.

Table 4 summ arizes the pronominal system of Caviteño, Ermitaño and Zamboangueño.

Pronoun

1s

2s

3s

1p

2p

3p

ER

yo

tú

ele

nisós

ustedes

lIÓS

CV

yo

vos

ele

nisós

vusós

ilós

ZM

yo

tú, vos

ele

kitá (inclusive)

kamí (exclusive)

kamó

silá

Table 4: Pronominal System of Chabacano varieties: ER, CV and ZM (Whinnom

1956:87)

Unlike Caviteño and Ermitaño, Zamboangueño has non-Spanish pronominal

forms. The Visayan system is extended to the inclusive-exclusive dual of the first person

plural, e.g. ZM kitá ' we two' (incl.) and kami' we two' (excl.). There is no gender

distinction in the third person singular e/e, a distinction which is not made in Tagalog



27

either, e.g. siya. 'he, she', niya 'him, her', kaniya 'his, hers' (Schachter and Otanes

1972:89):

(41) ER: Dónde tú de anda, Pelisa ? ya gritar con ele su tata. (Whinnom 1956:25)

where you F U T g o Felisa C PL as k to her her father

'Where are you going, Felisa?', the father asked her.'

Disambiguation of ele in (41) is obtained b y referential Pelisa in the interrogative.

Chabacano pronouns do not have distinct case forms to distinguish object and

subject pronouns. This represents a reduction in Chabacano's pronominal system with

respect to that of Spa nish. In Cha baca no both direct and indirect object are exp ressed

by the prepositional phrase [con + pers. pron]. Thus Chab acano con replaces SP

l>ersonal a as in Juan revisó el proyecto 'Juan checked the proyect', but Juan revisó al

paciente 'Juan checked the patient'. Som etimes the meaning of CH con resembles its

Spanish etymon, i.e. 'with', as illustrated by the second con in (41) :

(42) CV: Su nana ta-si ingrandicí con ele con todo el manga gente.

his mother HA B praise to him with every the PL U people

'His mother praises him in front of everybody.' (Whinnom 19 56 :50 )

CH cormigo is the variant form for expressing the non-subject of the first person sg.:

(43) ER: Jablá tú conmigo todo el veldade. (Whinnom 1956:26)

tell 2s me all the truth

'Tell me all the truth.'

/omboangueño, however, recurs to Philippine forms to deal with indirect objects in the

plural, namely, kanaton 'to us (incl.)', kanamon 'to us (excl.)' and kanila 'to them'

(horman 1972:107):

(44) ZM : Diosya salva y ya escoje kanaton. (Goodman n.d.:17).

God CP L save and CP L choose us

'God saved and chose us.'



28

(45) ZM : Después ay buta kanila na fuego del infierno, (ibid. :30)

then F U Tc as t them into fire of hell

'Then (God) will cast them into Hell's fire.'

3.2.4 . Com parison: Pronouns

Most pronominal forms are derived from Iberian (Spanish or Portuguese) etyma.

The exceptions are PL enú, PP ané and nan, and Z M plural forms. Thus all

non-Iberian pronouns belong to the plural series and are derived from the African or

Austronesian substrate. Visaya n influence on Zam boan guen o pronominal system

extends to the dual forms, e.g kitá 'we two' (incl.) and kami 'we two' (excl.).

Interestingly, Tok Pisin, an English-lexified creóle spoken in Papua New Guinea, makes

a distinction between inclusive and exclusive first personal dual pronouns, e.g. yumi'

wetwo' (incl.) and mitopela 'we two' (excl.) (Holm 1988 :53 3). Tok Pisin has

Austronesian features partly shared with Zamboangueno (see below) which are absent

in the Caribbe an creóles. Like Papiam entu, but unlike Palenquero, Cha bac ano h as a

single set of pronouns for expressing both subject and object. Nev ertheless,

Chabacano has the object-marker con, e.g. con ele '[to] him'. Though con is clearly a

Spanish or Portuguese-derived form (cf. SP con 'with', PT com idem), its function in

Cha baca no is different. Further evidence for the structural resem blance b etwee n

Chabacano and Malayo Portuguese is provided by the latter's object marker ku, which

functions as in Chabacano, e.g. kum yo ' to me' (Holm 19 88:29 5). The oblique

constructions in Zamboangueno are expressed by means of the Philippine forms

kanatonlkanamon 'to/for us' (incl./excl.).



29

3 3. Determiners

3.3.1. Articles

3.3.1.1. Palenquero

The definite and indefinite a rticles have the following distribution:

Number

singular

plural

Definite

0 ~ é

ma

Indefinite

un

unma

Table 5: Definite and indefinite articles of Palenquero.

In the view of Schwegler and Green (fc.) Palenquero's bare noun, e.g. kasa 'house', can

have any of the following interpretations: definite, indefinite, singular and plura l. As they

point out: " the Palenquero system takes as point of departure the "unmarked (zero)

form" (i.e., the bare nominal form without the determiner) — a form that is entirely

neutral in terms of (a) number and (b) definiteness (readers will recall that in the

traditional view, bare neutral forms are said to be "singular + definite" so that kasa =

THEhouse')."

While Friedemann and Patino Rosselli (1983:142) correctly point out that ma

functions as a plural definite article, Bickerton and Escalante (1970:259) overlooked its

existence when they observed that "there is no plural morpheme; plurality is indicated

only by numerical determiners, or, in their absence, context". The marker ma may

follow the Spanish indefinite article un in order to add a non-definite meaning to the

head noun:



30

(46) entonse suto á kojé un ma konejo. (F&P 1983:209)

then 1p CP L catch som e rabbit

Then we seized some rabbits.'

The plural marker ma can take part of a deictic construction wh en it combines with one

of the Spanish-derived demonstratives. For exam ple, the demonstrative es e precedes

ma wh en it functions as a determiner (47 ); it follows ma as pronoun (48 ):

(47) / kómobo te ablá ese ma palabra. (F&P 1983:195)

and how 2s PR G speak that PLU word

'And how do you speak those words.'

(48) asina kumo ma ese, lo ke mini akf ola mem o. (F&P 1983:223)

so like those they that come here now right

'Like them , those who cam e here right now.'

The plural marker ma is of Bantu origin (Granda 19 78 :46 5). But unlike the prefix

ma- employed in many Bantu languages to pluralize class VI inanimate objects, PL ma

is a free m orpheme which can co-occur with other elements of the noun phrase. Th e

Palenquero pluralizer is unusual when compared to that of other Atlantic creóles, in

which the third person plural pronoun often functions as a pluralizing morpheme, a

morphosyntactic property probably due to the substrate influence of Kwa languages

(Holm 1 98 8:1 93 ). For exam ple, in Santo me nse plural number is indicated by placing

the third person plural pronoun ine or 'ne before the noun, e.g. ine mwala (literally 'they

wom an') 'the wom en' (Ivens Ferraz 19 79:6 1). Th e retention of ma may be partly

attributed to the SP adverb más which could have reinforced the original plural marker

once its final -s was weakened and deleted by a phonological rule common to many

Atlantic creóles and regional varieties of Spanish (Megenney 1986:191).



31

3.3.1.2. Papiamentu

Like nouns and adjectives, articles are invariable as far as the gender is concerned:

(4/-) deflnlteness

+

-

singular

e

un

plural

e

0 ~ algun

Table 6: Definite and indefinite articles of Papiamentu.

Examples: Q hómber 'the man', e muhé 'the woman', e hómbeman 'the men', e

muhénan 'the women', un hómber 'a man1, un muhé "a woman'

Indefinite plurality may be indicated w ith the determiner algun (< SP alguno 'some'), e.g.

algun buki 'some books' (Munteanu 1996:282) or with simply the bare noun, e.g. mi ta

skirbi carta riba papel 'I write letters on paper' (Goilo 1972:15).

3 3.1.3. Chabacano

The definite article el is the same in all Chabacano variants. The Spanish

contraction del (<cfe + el) f 'of/from him' is also present in Chabacano. The absence of

grammatical gender can be seen in olas (49) being anteceded by el and not la , cf. SP

de las olas, ibid.; Zamboangueño has del, de, dr.

(49) ER: espumas del olas. (Whinnom 1956:25)

surf of waves

'spray of wav es '



3 2

C H di is primarily used with possessive markers, whereas de and del are in free

variation:

(50) ZM : ay obedece gayot ustedes todo di mió manga mandam ento.

FUT obey INT you-PLUall o f m yP LU commandment

'You will obey all my commandments.' (Goodman n.d.:50)

(51) ZM : el glorioso esperanza del resurrección (ibid. :52)

the glorious hope of resurrection

'the glorious hope of resurrection.'

C H con for SP a led to Chab aca no not having the Spa nish goal construction al (<a + el),

'to/for him') (cf. 56, 57).

3.3.2. Possessives

3.3.2.1. Palenquero

Unlike Spanish, Palenquero possessive adjectives are in postnominal position.

This salient m orphosyntactic fea ture in Palenquero a nd s ome other Atlantic creóles also

contrasts with Spanish in that possessive adjectives are grammatically unmarked with

respect to gender and number:



33

Singular

Subject

pronun

/o

DO

JtÓ

3le

Possessive

adjective

mi

s i

uté

ele

Possessive

pronoun

ri mi

r ibo

ri uté

riele

riuno

Plural

Subject

pronoun

suto

hende1

utere

ane

enú (R)

Possessive

adjective

suto

hende (R)

utere

ane

enú (R)

Possessive

pronoun

ri suto

hende

ri utere

ri ane

ri enú (R)

1used with ma, i.e. ma hende: R=rare

Table 7: Possessive adjectives and pronouns of Palenquero (Schwegler and Green fc.)

(52) ma chino loke tabibí Katagena asé jablá lengua ané. (F&P1983:278)

PLU Chinese that PRG live Cartagena HAB speak language their

The Chinese who live in Cartagena speak their own language.'

The word order in this possessive construction resembles that of both Bantu and some

Kwa languages in which the possessive adjective comes after the noun, e.g. Kikongo

(Bantu) mbele ané literally 'knife my', i.e. 'my knife', and Beni (Kwa) ekita mwen literally

'dog my' i.e. 'my dog' (Ivens Ferraz 1979:81). In addition, the parallel between the

object pronouns and the possessive adjectives in Palenquero and Satomense has

prompted some creolists to see a genetic relationship between those two creóles.

However, this is also the case in a number of other Atlantic creóles, e.g. Jamaican

Creole English and Lesser Antillean Creole French (Holm 1988:201). Compare the



34

equivalent possessive and object pronoun forms in the two Iberian-lexified creóles from

opposite sides of the Atlantic:

Palenquero.

(53) ma ¡ende tan paga mí. (F&P 1983:197)

PLU people FU T hit me

'People will hit me .'

(54) mujé mí sí á nasé á Katajena. (ibid.:205)

wom an me yes CP L born there Cartagena'My wife was born there in Cartagena'.

Santomense:

(55) e be mu. (Ivens Ferraz 1979:62)

he see me

'He sees me.'

(56) lumo mu. (idem)

brother me

'my brother.'

That identity is not absolute since in Palenquero the second person singular pronoun bo

is not a possessive adjective; si serves this function. It is not yet clear w hat the origin of

si is; Granda (1978:438) notes its similarity to the Annobonese object pronoun achí

(Barrena 1957:37), even though PL si is a possessive adjective. Moreover, the change

/ch/ > /s/ does not seem plausible considering its absence elsewhere in Palenquero.

Schwegler (1999:220) posits for PL mi 'my' a dual origin, SP mi 'my' and Kikongo

postnominal áami '1s possessive pronoun'; the s am e author suggests for PL bo and ele

an Afro-Portuguese rather than a Spanish etymology.

In Palenquero a construction of the form [r i + possessive adjective] replaces

Spanish posse ssive pronouns (mío, tuyo, etc.):



35

(57) mo na ri suto. (F&P 1983:149)

child of we

'our child.'

Compare this to the Santomense use of di before pronouns:

(58) ST mina konde di iumo d-e. (Ivens Ferraz 1978:69)

girl hide from brother of-her

'The girl hides from her brother.'

Possessive relationships can also be expressed by means of the preposition ri which is

In free variation with its allomorphs di and 0 (noun juxtaposition):

(59) / mina ni una kama 0 pekao nu. (F&P 1983:208)

1s see even a scale fish NEG

'I did not even see a fish scale.'

3 3.2.2. Papiamentu

Possessive adjectives have the same form as the personal pronouns with the

exception of the third person singular:

person

1

2

3

singular

mi

bo

su

plural

nos

boso i

nan

fable 8: Possessive adjectives of Papiamentu.

When used attributively the possessive adjective precedes the noun:



36

(60) E mestera paga pa piká di su wela. (Maurer 1988:376)

He must AN T pay for sin of his grandmother

'He had to pay for his grandmother's sin'.

Possessive pronouns are formed with di plus a personal pronoun: [di+e] becomes dje

(Maurer 1988:39):

(61) Dolly ja mino pora bisa mas ku bo Xa di mi (Maurer 1988:372)

Dolly already I NEG can ANT say more that you CO P of 1s.

'Dolly, I could not say that you w ere mine.'

(62) E mam a haña duele di dje. (ibid.:352)

the mother C PL take compassion of he

'The mother had compass ion for him.'

Like Spanish and Portuguese, Papiamentu has the possessive adjective preceding the

noun. This feature in Papiamentu contrasts with Palenquero and Santomense, in which

the possessive adjective follows the noun, reflecting perhaps substrate influence

(Bantu, Kwa languages). However, in both Papiamentu and Santomense possessive

pronouns are combined with the preposition di plus a personal pronoun, as in (58) and

(62 ) above. Another salient featu re in both creóles is the morphological reduction in

the pronominal and possessive adjective systems, leading to near identity between

personal pronouns and possessive adjectives (cf. S P yo T, me 'me' and mi 'my').

3.3.2.3. Chabacano

Personal pronouns also function as possessive adjectives and they are always

preposed to the noun. In addition, the possessive is formed by the phrase [d i + SP

object/possessive pronoun] (Lipski 1988:33), e.g. di mil mío 'mine', di tú/tuyo 'yours1,



37

etc. Possession in Zam boang ueno is further am plified in the plural series by the phrase

[di + Visayan pronouns], e.g. diamon 'our (excl.)', diaton 'our (incl.)', diiño 'your (pi)' and

diila 'their' (Forman 1972:107).

(63) ZM : Jesucristo ya muri na lugar diaton. (Goodman n.d.:1)

Jesuschrist C P L die in place our

'Christ died for us.'

(64) ZM : Dios ay considera todo ese acerca diila. (ibid. :9)

God FU T judge all that about them'God will judge all that (i.e. their se cr et s). '

In (65) below the possessive pronoun is used as a possessive adjective. Spanish

possessives mi, tu, su, etc., are more frequently found in Caviteño and Ermitaño;

decreolization in Zamboangueno may have to do with the increasing frequency of the

short Span ish forms (Lipski 198 8:33 )

( 6 5 ) Z M : y ele ay queda bajo el di mío protección. (Goodman n.d.:10)

and he FUT rema in under the mine protection

'and he will remain under my protection.'

3 3.2.4. Comp arison: Possessives

Possessive constructions in the Spanish-lexified creóles have modifiers that are

proposed (C H , PP) and postposed (PL). Palenquero resembles Kwa languages like

Yoruba, Ibo and Bini, and Bantu languages like Duala (Boretzky 19 83 :92 ). The syntax

of Chabacano and Papiamentu possessive adjectives shows a closer affinity to the

lexifier. How ever, Zam boang ueno ha s plural possessives taken from Visayan, e.g.

diamon 'we two (exc l.)' (Forman 19 72 :10 7). He re, there is a striking formal similarity to

Spanish possessive pronouns, e.g. de nosotros 'ours'. Th e Caribbe an creóles have



38

possessive constructions with de but, unlike Cha baca no, they indicate only Spanish

influence.

4.0. The verb phrase in the Spanish-lexified creóles

4.1 . Tense, aspect and modality system

The verb phrase in the Spanish-lexified creóles has the prototypical creóle

structure in which a bare verb can be preceded by different particles or markers

commonly called in the literature tense-mo od-aspect (TM A) markers. Broadly speaking,

these TMA preverbal markers situate the event, process or state described by the verb

relative to som e temporal dimension (tense: past, present, future). Regarding the

manner in which a particular event, process or state develops, the aspectual meanings

of those TMA markers may help provide the proper context, e.g. whether the event is

com pleted or not. Finally, the volitional and epistemic characteristics of a speake r's

attitude towards an event will be expressed through an individual or particular

combination of mood markers.

4.1 .1 . Palenquero

Table 9 summarizes the distribution of the preverbal markers in Palenquero

according to tense, aspect and modality, and whether they indicate tense [+/- anterior

(ANT)], aspect [unmarked (UNM), progressive (PRG), habitual (HAB), completive

(CPL )] an d m odality [irrealis (IR R)] :



39

ANT

+

-

UNM

0

PRG

taba-V

ta-V

HAB

á seba-V

ásé-V

CPL

á V b a

á-V

IRR

tamba-V

tan-V

Table 9: TMA system of Palenquero.

PL ta/taba are progressive aspect markers for actions or states occuring during or

before the time in focus in the discourse, respectively. As with the other TMA markers

except -ba, ta/taba precede the unm odified verb stem which is usually derived from the

Spanish infinitive w ith the final-r deleted.

(66) kuand'í taba bendéá Tubbako. (F&P 1983:198)

when 1s PRG sell in Turbaco

'when he was se lling in Turbaco.'

(67) /' ta pensé í bae otra be. (F&P 1983:212)

1s PRG think 1s go again

'I am thinking in going again.'

There is a variant progressive construction with ta + \f-ndo, i.e. the Spanish gerundive

suffix attached to the verb stem. PL ta in (68), due to the accompanying gerund, is

probably the homonymous copula ta , corresponding to SP estar + gerund, e.g. está

estudiando, '(he/she) is studying'. Morphological and distributional similarities indicate

that PL ta might have originated from the progressive Spanish construction.

(68) pogke sutota necesitando ele. (F&P95:215)

because 1p PRG need them

'because we are needing them.'

http://f-ndo/

http://f-ndo/

http://f-ndo/



40

The actual realization of the habitual marker is controversial since both ase

(Bickerton 1970:258, Lewis 1970:116, Megenney 1985:179, Schwegler 1992:224), á sé

(Friedemann and Patino Rosselli 1983:116, Maurer 1987:45) and the less frequent one

sabe (Schweg ler and Gre en fc.) have been proposed. Supporters of the

one-morpheme habitual marker derive it from Spanish third person singular hacer 'do,

make' via final-r deletion, i.e. hace. Though the diachronic analysis seems plausible,

Friedemann and Patino Rosselli's evidence for á sé and á seba is more convincing (see

also Maurer 1987:45) because the morpheme á can combine with modal verbs (see

below); PL sé is probably the gramm aticalized form of the S panish verb soler, 'be in the

habit of (F& P1 98 3:1 18 ). This precede s the infinitive, e.g. SP Juan solía cantar{Juan

used to laugh1. Although the phonological evolution of soler to sé is not clear, the

seman tic match b etwe en the two forms is plausibly appa rent.

The habitual markers can combine with ase, 'make' as in (69 ). Unlike the verb

ase 'do', the forms Fridemenan n and Patino Rosselli suggested receive stress, e.g. asé:

(69) lo ke í seba asé rresutaba nu. (F&P1983:207)

w h a t l s H A B d o result N EG

'what I used to do had no result.'

(70) sutoásé bae pa Tubbako. (ibid. :203)

1p HA Bg o to Turbaco

'we often go to Turbaco.'

Furthermore, his analysis is supported by disjunction cases . In (71 ) the complementizer

ke is inserted between á and sé with no apparent effect on its habitual meaning.

Further evidence comes from the position of -ba after the main verb. The marker á may



41

be deleted in subordinate clauses (cf. 69, 72), where lo ke signals subordination (see

5.1.)

(71) kómoé k' el a ke sé yamá? (F&P 1983:197)

how CO P that he ANT that HA Bc all

'what is his nam e?'

(72) depué lo ke jende sé miniba. (ibid.:204)

after that people HAB come AN T

'after the used to com e.'

The semantics of á shows a greater functionality. Not only does it indicate the

completive aspect but it may also combine with other preverbal markers and modal

verbs, thus expanding the verb ph rase.

(73) entonse tigre á nda kuenta ke konejo taba robando (F&P 1983:225)

then tiger C PL realize that rabbit PR G stealing

'then the tiger realized that the rabbit was stealing.'

PL postverbal -ba from the Spanish imperfect ending -ba is affixed to the verb stem in

(74) below. Palenquero can attach -ba to any verbs, while in Spanish only verbs of the

first conjugation can take this imperfect ending, e.g. SP amar 'to love', amabafl , he,

she, you (formal) loved' vs. second conjugation tener'Xo have', tenia ' I, he, she loved'.

(74) entonse tigre á teneba de to :á teneba yuka. (F&P 1983:225)

then tiger CP L have AN T of all CP L have yuca

'then the tiger had everything: it had yuca.'

In (75), note that while the imperfect form of SP vivir' to live' is vivía 'used to live',

Palenquero can use -ba as a postverbal marker:



42

(75) es' é unmujé lokesé bibiba por aya. (F&P 1983:198)

that CO P a wom an who HAB live AN T around there

'that~s the w om an w ho w as living around there.'

PL á is deleted in certain environments, e.g. it was shown above (69) that this

aspect marker is not overt inside a relative clause. Moreover, this deletion of á may

occur in adverbial clauses and negation. Bickerton (1970 :25 8) noted the absence of á

in negative sentence s. Later, Friedem ann and Patino Rosselli (19 83 :12 1) found

additional evidence for that sam e phenom enon under other syntactic constraints. Note

in (76) the obligatory use of the preverbal m arker á in an independent c lause. Negation

here embedded within an adverbial clause may trigger deletion of the completive

marker.

(76) kuando é nu0 sé teneba plata nu, í á sé dejáloba fiao. (F&P 1983:199)

when sh eN EG HAB have money NEG 1 s HAB leave-it credit

'Whe n she had no m oney, I sold on credit.'

Friedemann and Patino Rosselli (1983:122) noted some exceptions to the syntactic

constraints on á deletion. Note the overtly marked á in both (77) an d (7 8) despite their

occurrence in an embedded clause and a negative sentence, respectively.

(77) ese jue lo ke suto á seba asé aki. (F&P 1983:204)that CO P what 1p HAB do here

'that was w hat we used to do here.'

(78) kuando muchac ha á kojé katta nu. (ibid. .226)

whe n girl CP L take letter NE G

'when the girl didn't take th e letter.'

Aside from its function as a completive marker, á can combine in the (-ANT) with the

stative verbs ta 'be', and pesé 'seem', as well as with the modal verbs sé 'used to', tené



43

'have to', polé 'able to' and kelé 'want'. Th is featu re of á rules out the opposition

between (+ AN T) and (-AN T) for this small verbal class. Thus P alenquero avoidance of

ta ta, i.e. [Tense-Aspect + COP], could be a reason for having á com bined with stative

verbs in the present tens e.

(79) así é ke í á kelé pate mí ya. (F&P 1983:197)

so C O P that 1s CP L want part my right now

'so I want my part right now.'

(80) ma mujé i Palenge á ta poko tropiao ai ese Tubbaki. (ibid. :204)

PLU wom an of Palenque CPL CO P little spoiled there that Turbaco

'the w om en of P alenq ue a re a little spoiled in Turbaco.'

(81) / polé kaggá nu, beddá, komae? (idem)

1s can load N EG right mom

'I am not able to take a load, right?'

PL polé is a modal v erb that requires an infinitival complement, e.g . kaggá (cf. SP poder

cargar, ibid.). The negator nu triggers á deletion in the present. Thus the exceptional

use of á with stative verbs in the (-ANT) is also subject to the same deletion rule

observed previously for the completive marker. Th e origin of á offers some interesting

(though still unresolved) diachronic points in Palenquero. Both su pe rsta te (Lew is

1970:114, Friedemann and Patino Rosselli 1983:127) and substrate conditionings

(Maurer 1987:55, Megenney 1985:174) have been invoked in this matter. None of the

substrate or su pe rst ate explanations by itself can account completely for the

occurrence and non-occurrence of á. Furtherm ore, the previous bipartite analysis of á

as being a completive non-past marker with stative verbs (kelé) and a completive past

with non-stative verbs has been questioned by Schweg ler and Gr ee n (fc.) Future

research on Palenquero will surely throw light upon this question.



44

Finally, Palenquero's TMA system has a future marker ta n with two important

features: (1) it refers to future actions or events ; (2) it combines with -ba to form irrealis.

(82) /' tan sabe si mona mí tan etudiáayá o no. (F&P 1983:209)

I FU T know if son my FU T study there or NE G

'I will know whether or not my son is studying there.'

An alternative future periphrastic construction w ith bae 'go' + INF can replace tan + INF

(cf. 83 ). While Spanish employs the former more frequently usually linked to the

conditional si 'if (e.g. si llueve voy a ir al circo, 'If it rains I'll go to the circus'),

Palenquero does not always make that distinction. Nevertheless, (83 ) is an exception

resembling Spanish in this periphrastic type of futurity:

(83) /' sabe siané ba rreklamá mí lo nu. (F&P 1983:221)

1s know if they go claim me he NE G

'I don't know if they a re going to claim it to m e.'

PL tamba has, in addition, the status of a verb meaning 'to go'.

(84) Kallo Solano antonse tamba pone mi preso. (ibid.:264)

Carlos Solano then IRR go put me jailed

'Carlos Solano was then going to put me in jail.'

Bickerton and Escalante (1970:258) derive tan from tando 'to go', a Palenquero word

that resembles the Spanish gerund. Schwegler (1992 ) postulates the IRR aké with its

variant forms ke and k. The principal functions of aké are: (1) future, (2) conditionals

and, (3) contrary-to-fact. There seem s to be som e overlapping use of aké an d tan: the

former appears with prospectives such as kuando 'when' and kumo id. In (85 ) the two

distinct features of ke are shown. Only the first one has an irrealis function:



45

(85) kuando í ke mini otra be, ané me kre lo k' í ta able. (F&P 1983:223)

when 1s IRR come again 3p me believe what I PR G say

'When I come back they will believe me what I am telling you.'

In (86) a nd (8 7) the two other possible uses of ke are illustrated:

(86) si bo nu aké-ba pone tutuma asina nu — derecho —, aké-ba bota.

if 2s NE G IRR IM P put calabash this wa y NE G straight IRR IMP spill

'if you did not position the c alabash this w ay — straight, that is — it would spill

over'. (Schwegler 1992 :233)

(87) Patino á ké taba ak\, ele á poleba enseña mí aggún kusa. (F&P 1983:181)

Patino IRR C O P here he CP L can-AN T teach me few thing

'If Patino were here, he would teach me a few things.'

Schwegler (¡bid.) suggests SP or PT ha que 'has to, must' > PL aké. Th e plausibility of

semantic change from obligation to futurity finds support in diachronic evolution

observed in other languages, e.g. Latin cantare habeo 'I have to sing' > SP cantaré 'I

will sing1.

4.1.2. Papiamentu

The verb phrase of Papiamentu has the following preverbal markers: fa, tabata, a

and lo . The re is disagreem ent regarding its analysis in Papiam entu. Bickerton (19 75 ,

1981) has depicted a "classical" creóle TMA system with three preverbal morphemes

with the functions of tense (+ /AN T), aspect (+/-PR G ) and modality (+/-IRR ). But

Papiamentu is different from the other Atlantic creóles because it seems to lack the

anterior marker, recurring instead to mark a (+/-past) distinction. He rein, the past



46

preverbal marking will be assumed just for descriptive purposes. The theoretical issues

related to the TMA system go beyond the scope of this paper.

ANT

+

-

UNM

0

PRG

tabata-V

ta-V

HAB

tabata-V

ta-V

CPL

a-V

a-V (kaba)

IRR

lo S a-V

loS-V

Table 10: TMA system of Papiamentu (S = subject).

PP ta when preceding a verb can refer to either PRG or HAB.

(88) Eynan e ta sinta turóla. (Maurer 1988:352)

there he HAB sit all day

'He sits there all day.'

(89) Makakuta ribapaluta kome kenepa. (ibid. :364)

monkey COP up tree PRG eat guinep

'The monkey is in the top of the tree eating guineps.'

Most verbs are obligatorily preceded by ta . However, stative verbs can be classified

into two small groups: (1) unmarked verbs and , (2) verbs which take both 0 and fa

(Anderson 1990:14). The 0-type verbs are por 'be able to', falta 'lack', ke 'want', konosé

'know'; verbs taking both 0 and ta are debe 'owe', depende 'depend', gusta 'like'

(Maurer 1988:36).

(90) Pero mi no por ¡anda. (Maurer 1988:364)

but 1s NEG can swim

'but I can't swim.'



47

Since stative verbs are already durative (cf. Bickerton's durative or nonpunctual

marker), they need not be marked for PRG or HAB.

PP tabata is used to anchor the habitual or progressive to a (-ANT) tense

reference. How ever, unlike ta, tabata can combine with all verbs except tin 'have1, for

which the special form tabatin exists (Maurer 198 7:37 ). A synchronic analysis of tabata

as semantically interpreted as [taba + ta ] is incorrect, though it may be diachronicaliy

sound (ibid.). Mo re basilectal varieties allow for tabata tin, forms considered to be

substandard (Anderson 1990:10).

(91) Mi tabata ke siga. (Anderson 1990:14)

1s AN T want cigar

'I wanted a cigar.'

(92) E dia ei Doily tabatin seis anja. (Maurer 1988:372)

the day there Dolly AN T had six year

That day Dolly was six years old.'

The completive m arker for (+AN T) is a. This morphem e m ay be disjunctively combined

with adverbial kaba 'already* (cf. SP acabar 'to finish'). A few verbs can only be

preceded by tabata in the (+ANT), e.g. ta 'be', tin 'have', por 'can', sa 'know', mester

'have to' and yamá 'be called' (Anderson 1990 :14). Unm arked tin in (93) indicates that

its tense reference m ust be (-A NT). Thus it co-occurs with the event in the m ain clause.

(93) m'a tende na Marchena tin un problema (Michel p.c.)

Is C P L h e a r in Marchena have a problem

'I heard there was a problem in Marchena.'

Along with a one finds in Papiamentu the disjunctive marker a...kabá:



48

(94) un or a bati kaba. (Maurer 1988:392)

one hour CPL strike already

'the hour already struck.'

The preverbal marker a may derive from the SP perfect construction haber + past

participle. Since Dutch has also a similar construction employing hebben; it is possible

that the latter has b een crucial in the overall behavior of a (M aurer 19 87 :39 ).

The irrealis marker lo has a unique feature among creóles in its presubject

position. The syntactic placement of lo is not affected by negation; lo is out of the

negation scope (cf. all the other preverbal markers).

(95) Nanzi, nunka lo mi no mira bo. (Maurer 1988:362)

Nanzi ever FU T 1s N EG look you

'Nanzi, I won't ever see you again.'

Papiamentu admits the sequence io a, i.e. [FUT + CPL], to convey the irrealis meaning.

This combination appea rs w ithin certain subordinate clause s (e.g. pa-typ e or purposive)

and with modal verbs (e.g. por); however, here the modified verb remains unmarked

(Maurer 19 88 :34 1). While in (96) a is in the predicate, lo occupies an external position:

(96) Si Freddy tabata poko bij de hand lo el a buska u n huuroto nos kas.

if Freddy C O P bit practical IRR he AN T look for a carriage us home

'If Freddy w ere a bit more practical, he w ould look for a ca rriage to take us home .'

(Maurer 1988:394)

The unmarked verb in (97) expresses a prospective meaning.



49

(97) Mi casa, pa nos 0 biba bon... (Maurer 1988:356)

my husband in order to we live well

'My husband, in order that we live well...'

(98) asina Xa ku mi 0 por menshona muchu mas tantu kos. (Michel p.c.)

so C O P that 1s can mention many more so many thing

'So it is that I could mention so many things.'

PP lo is likely to derive from PT logo, 'later' (ibid.:34 8). Portugue se uses the synthetic

future escreverei 'I will write' in formal registers, especially written ones, opting instead

for the adverbial construction: vou logo 'I am going later'. Th e use of logo as a future

marker is widespread among Asian creóles, though it ihas not been attested in

Portuguese-lexified creóles spoken in W est Africa. For som e scholars, this has been

interpreted as a hindrance to the monogenetic theory, at least in its strong version,

which makes all European-lexified creóles offshoots of an Afro-Portuguese proto-pidgin

(cf. Ivens Ferraz 1987, Maurer 1987).

The habitual preverbal marker sa can function independently as a verb meaning

'to know', thus resembling fa, but its use is not obligatory and has a marginal status

(Anderson 1990:14).

(99) tursa landa bon. (Michel p.c.)

all know swim well

'everyone know how to swim well.'

(100) E no ta hende ku sa keda bashi. (Anderson 1990:14)

he NE G CO P person who HAB remain empty

'He is not a person who is accustomed to going home em pty- hande d.'



50

PP sa is probably derived from PT or SP saber 'know how to', which in some American

Spanish varieties has taken on the additional sense of 'be used to', e.g. ella sabe llegar

temprano 'she is used to come early'.

In embedded clauses Papiamentu uses all TMA markers in temporal concordance

with the verb in the main clause (Maurer 1987:38). Thus:

Main clause

a V

a V

a V

Subordinate clause

ta V

a/tabata V

loV

Concordance

simultaneous

anterior

posterior

Table 11 : Temporal concordance in Papiamentu subordination.

(101) Já e homber a haña idea cu e' no ta sinti bon. (Maurer 1988:358)

already the man CPL find idea that he NEG T-A feel well

The man akready accepted the idea that he didn't feel well.'

(102) Un día el a laga duna conosimento cu e lo dunaes persona cu...

one day he CPL let give information that he IRR give the person who

'One day he let it be known that he would give the person who...' (Maurer

1988:360)

Note in (103) the possible highlighter function of the second copula. The simultaneous

domain permits both ta and tabata in the subordinate clause, without any apparent

semantic distinction (Maurer 1987:38).



51

(103) e tabata kurioso pa sa ta ken a bini paboska su mesm orto.

he CO P curious to know C O P who A NT come to look for his own death

'He was curious to know who had come looking for his own death.' (Maurer

1988:362)

PP ta has a higher frequency which could be explained by the following: (1) it is more

expressive (ibid.); (2) it is required with a small class of verbs which, otherwise, would

be interpreted as completive (Anderson 1990:20ff.)

The three modal verbs that occur most often in Papiamentu are por 'can, may',

mester' must', and ke 'want' (Green 19 88 :45 3). In addition, they may also function as

independent verbs:

(104) Nan mester di hende. (Maurer 1988:384)

3p need of people

They need the people's help.'

(105) ta ki bo ke pa nan hasi? (Anderson 1990:28)

FO C what 2s want for them do

'What do you w ant them to do?'

More frequently, ke and por appear in constructions such as ke a and por a, conveying

volition an d possibility, respectively. Insofar as they express an irrealis situation, they

are semantically equa l to the syntagm [loporaV] (Maurer 1988:287):

( 1 0 6 ) / sialgunbez e por a hayé den cualquier cuestión. (ibid.:380)

and if any time he can AN T find in any situation

'and if he could ever find himself in an unexpected situation.'

(107) lo e no pora baña notisia si no a bini korant (ibid. :287)

IRR he NE G can AN T find news if N EG AN T come newspaper

'He could not have received the news if the new spaper had not com e.'



52

4.1.3. Chabacano

Table 12 shows the distribution of the TMA markers in Chabacano varieties.

ANT

+

-

UNM

0

PRG

ta-V (ya)

ta-V

HAB

ta-V

ta-V

CPL

a1, ya-V (ya)

a1, ya-V

IRR

ay2, de-V

ay2, de-V

Table 12: TMA system of Chabacano; 1TR, 2ZM.

Chabacano TMA markers generally precede the verb, though sometimes ya is

placed in a postverbal position, possibly to emphasize the tense (see below). The verb

stem consists of the Spanish infinitive minus final -r, e.g. ZM esturbá, SP disturbar

•disturb'.

The unmarked verb is used with habitual processes in the (ANT); it is commonly

linked to the narrative or discourse:

(108) ZM: bueno, ay subí kita pero, 0 abla el tortuga yo no puedo subí.

well FUT climb we (incl.) but say the turtle I s N E G c a n climb

"Well, let's climb it", (the monkey said). "But", the turtle said, "I can't climb it."(Forman 1972:30)

lllocutionary acts such as orders, requests and questions normally require an unmarked

verb:

(109) CV: 0 llivá vos este manga cangrejo y 0 cucí vos bueno-bueno, ha?take 2s thisP LU crab and coo k2s very well INT

'Take these crabs and cook them very well.1 (Whinnom 1956:50)



53

The same form ta is used for both +anterior an d -anterior. Th e time in focus in the

discourse provides the context for disambiguation. In a few case s ya occupies a

postverbal position. In (110 ) the main clause leaves no doubt as to the tense rendering

of ta :

(110) ER: ta morí el talde... cuando ya retirá Felisa na su casa. (ibid.:27)

PR G die the afternoon when C P L go back Felisa to her hom e

T h e afternoon w as coming to an end when Felisa went hom e.'

It is not clear whether postverbal ya is a fully grammaticalized aspect marker or simply

has an adverbial force, similar to SP ya, e.g. ya fuimos 'we already went'. W hen

combined with other preverbal markers, postverbal ya accentuates the completive

aspect and furnishes additional aspectual contrast in complex sentences:

(111) ER: ele ta pensá agora que ele ta sobra ya na este mundo.

she PR G think now that she PR G excee d already in this world

'She w as thinking she had no place in this world.' (Whinnom 1956 :27)

(112) CV : ya rispundf Pedro , y y a ritirá ya ele. (ibid.:50)

CP L answer Pedro and CP L leave already he

'Pedro answ ered and left right away.'

Com pare ( 111 ) an d (11 2) with the adverbial distribution of ya in (113) :

( 1 1 3 ) Z M : / byenpriyoya yo ta sentí. (Forman 1972:34)

and very cold already 1s PR G feel

'I am already feeling cold.'

Zam boangueno seem s to make greater use of constructions with postverbal ya, as evidenced in



54

the corpus collected by Forman (197 2:19 -71 ). This permits Zambo angueño to have an

expanded verb phrase capable of discriminating more precisely tense and aspect.

Chabacano ta can accompany the infinitive as shown in (11 3). Zam boang ueño

extends the [ta + INF] syntagm to the gerunds. Thus SP oyó al hambre gritar (gritando)'

'he/she heard the man shout(ing)', in Zamboangueño is ya uyi sila un hente ta grita

idem (Forman 197 2:62). Chaba cano ta could have derived from Spanish and

Portuguese [está + (a) + GERUND], a progressive construction in the lexifiers (Lipski

19 88 :30 ). The particle ya is derived from the Spanish word for 'already' or perhaps PT

já , as in SP el tren ya llegó 'the train has arrived' or PT o combólo já chegou id. (Ivens

Ferraz 198 7:35 1). Both morphemes ta and ya are present in various Atlantic and Asian

creóles, e.g. Malaysian Papia Kristang, Santomense, Papiamentu and Palenquero.

Th e two future markers in Chabacano are ay and de (di). Zamboangueño is the

only variety to have ay These particles can stand alone or combine with ya, acquiring

thus a n irrealis sense :

(114) CV: derecho-derecho di intra vusos. (Whinnom 1996:51)

very straight FU T enter 2p

'You will come in quite straight.'

(115) ZM: Pero, aura ay habla tamen yo con ustedes jendeh lang el diaton maka risas.but now FU T say also 1s to 2p people jost the dialect CA U laughs

'But now I'll tell you that not only our dialect is amusing.' (Forma n 19 72:54 )

(In 115, lang and maka are Tagalog particles)



55

Note in (116) below the irrealis conveyed by ER de.ya. Here, ya expresses a sense of

urgency in carrying out the action. Th e speaker does not say simply, de saliyo..., which

it's a kind of non-obligatory intention:

(116) ER: De salí ya yo con ustedes. (Whinnom 1956:25)

FU T leave already 1s to 2p

'I should leave you soon.1

The markers di and ay may derive from the Spanish periphrastic future [ha/he de + INF]

(Lipski 1 988:29).

Tagalog, like other Austronesian languages, has a verbal system characterized

by inflections for aspect rather than tense. Thus Tag alog verbs are inflected according

to the perfective, imperfective and contemplated aspect (Schachter and Otanes

I97 2:6 6ff. ). Since aspect is not associated with tense, the same Tag alog verb could

report a non-past and past progressive:

(117) TG: Nagluluto ng pagkain ang nanay

IMP-cook TO P food FO C mother

'Mother is cooking some food (now).'

(118) TG: Naglulotong pagkain ang nanay (noong dumating ako)

IMP-cook T O P food FO C mother when arrive I'Mother was cooking food (when I arrived).'

The tripartite aspect system of Chabacan o resembles that of Tagalog . The possible

associations between Chabacano and Tagalog can be depicted as follows:



56

Chabacano

Completive

Progressive

Irrealis

Tagalog

Perfective

Imperfective

Contemplated

Table 13: Aspect system of Chabacano and Tagalog

The correspondence of the verb phrase of Tagalog and Chabacano does not cover all

features. Tagalog has a recent perfective aspect for describing events recently

completed which does not correlate with any Chabacano aspect. Furthermore, the

Spanish-derived phrase [caba de V] has become in Chabacano a resultative marker, a

function distinct to the Spanish periphrastic use for describing recent past (Boretzky

1983:242).

Two-member serial verbs are common in Chabacano, though constructions with

four and five verbs have been attested (Forman 1972:204). There is a special class of

preverbs that exhibit morphosyntactic features like those of Austronesian languages.

These verbs are pwede 'can', ase 'do', deha 'let', lyiba 'carry' and manda 'send' (ibid.)

All these preverbs act like Tagalog affixes providing a specific semantic import to

the serial construction. Thus TG maka- and TG ma- express ability and/or involuntary

action, e.g. makaawt 'be able to sing' < umawit 'sing' and, magemit 'be able to use' <

gamitin 'use' (Schachter 1987:953). The CH preverb pwede renders to the serial verb

the idea of ability or accidental action (Forman 1972:208). While (119) expresses the

ability (or inability) of the speaker to carry out a specific action, in (120) one finds the

use of pwede conveys the idea of accident. Spanish poder in certain specific contexts

may denote chance, as in 'pude haberme matado 'I could have been killed'.



57

(119) ER: yo no ta podé reza. (Whinnom 1956:26)

1s NE G -A N T able pray

'I can't p ra y.'

(120) ZM : ya pwedeyo pisa el rabo del gato. (Forman 1972:209)

C P L a b l e t o l s step the ta il of the cat

'I stepped on the cat's tail.'

Another subclass of preverbs are used in serial constructions that convey a cause or

permission (Form an 19 72 :20 9, Riego de Dios 1979:2 84ff.). This subclass contains the

following verbs: ase, dale, deha, lyiba and manda.

(121) CV: cuando ele ta dale cumi. (Whinnom 1956:51)

w he n s h e - A N T C A U fe ed

'when she feeds them.'

4.1.4. Comparison: Ten se, aspect and modality

Table 14 summarizes the tense-aspect-mood system of the three creóles under

study.



58

ANT

CH

+

-

PL

+

-

PP

+

-

UNM

0

0

0

PRG

ta-V (ya)

ta-V

taba-V

ta-V

tabata-V

ta-V

HAB

ta-V

ta-V

á seba-V

ásé-V

tabata-V

ta-V

CPL

a1, ya-V (ya)

a1, ya-V

á-Vba

á-V

a-V

a-V (kaba)

IRR

ay2, di-V

ay2, di-V

tamba-V

tan-V

lo S a-V

loS-V

Table 14: TMA system of Spanish-lexified creó les; (TR , 2ZM, S = subject).

The verb phrase of the Spanish-lexified creóles highlights the structural difference

between the creóles and their lexifier language. The combination of free preverbal

morphemes to express tense, aspect and modality is a typical feature of the creóle VP

(Bickerton 1981:58ff.) However, aside from that basic affinity observed in Table 14,

there are clear divergencies in all creóles. A counting of TMA markers yields the

following data: CH a, fa, ya, ay (4); PL ta, -ba t á, sé, tan (5); PP ta, tabata, a, lo (4).

Chabacano's markers describe the PRG, CPL and IRR (both future and m odality). Note

that Chabacano generally lacks the distinction between +anterior and - anterior. The

completive marker ya is sometimes postposed to the verb in order to shift the time of

reference farther into the past. On the other hand, Palenquero and Papiamentu indicate

+anterior and -anterior with different morphemes. The fact that Chabacano seems to

lack this tense d istinction could be understood in terms of the substrate influence.



59

One consequence of this tripartite system is that Chabacano lacks a special

morpheme for the habitual, recurring optionally to fa. It resemb les Papiam entu, though

the latter has the non -grammaticalized sa to mark habitual (Maurer 198 7:61).

Spanish influence cannot be ruled out in Chabac ano. Th e postposition of ya

seem s to be an adverbial use of the particle. It is not clear even from the extensive

corpus studied here that verbally postposed ya has become grammaticalized.

However, the ever-increasing influence of English and Visayan languages (Lipski 1987)

will probably end up accentuating the current differences between Palenquero and

Papiamentu, on one han d, and Chabacano on the other.

Verb reduplication is a derivational process extended to all verbs in Chabacano

(Forman 19 72 :12 1). Reduplication as a mean s of conveying various meanings

(intensification and moderation) is also found in Tagalog (Schachter and Otanes

197 2:336 ff.). Furthermore, imperfective and contemplated markings involve a

reduplicating prefix, e.g. magwalis 'sweep' vs. magwawaiis 'sweeps/is sweeping/was

sweeping' (Schachter 1987:994-5). Though Spanish intensifies meaning via set phrases

like llora que llora 'he cries and cries without stop', Chabacano has very few examples

of this type . Sub strate influence in the case of reduplication is more difficult to ascertain

since it is widely recurrent among pidgins and creóles with different substrates and

superstrates. He nce , one finds Austronesian languages having an effect upon other

creóles, e.g. Tok Pisin reduplicates a verb to indicate durative action or, it has derived

verbs that increase the expressive power, e.g. smokim 'to smoke (coconuts)1

vs.

smoksmokim 'to smoke thoroughly' (Mühlhausler 198 6:21 8).

In Papiamentu reduplication applies on both grammatical and lexical categories

though it is mo re productive in the former. Gram matical reduplication has an

intensifying and distributive function, e.g. zeta 'oil', zeta-zeta 'very oily' and grupo



60

'group', grupo-grupo 'in groups'. Lexica lized reduplication leads to a semantic

specialization of the original lexeme, e.g. kuchú 'knife', kuchú kuchú 'sharply opposed

to one another's opinion' (Kouwenberg and Murray 1994:21).

4.2. The Copula

4.2.1. Palenquero

Palenquero ta (S P estai) functions as a locative copula in the present (fa) and

past tense (ta-ba), the latter having the past imperfect -ha. Besides ta , these authors

list other Palenquero copulas whose meaning they explain as follows: (1) é: present

tense (SP es, PT és, é), (2 ) era: past tense, (3) fue, hue: present or past (SP fu e 'was')

and (4) senda: present or past (<sentar 'to sit'?). Thou gh they all can función as

equative copulas, only fue and senda can combine with -ba, i.e. fue-bá and send-bá,

e.g. ese é (fue, senda) un ombe riko 'this is a rich ma n'. In addition, they can combine

with some of the preverbal TMA markers with the exception of FUT tan, i.e. a-fa, ta-ba,

asé ta ; a-sendá, asé senda, sendá-ba, but / tan senda (Schwegler and Green fe ).

Though they behave very much like the Spanish copulas denoting the permanent

and non-permanent predicates usually assigned to SP ser and SP estar, respectively,

this is not always the case, e.g. ele é akí 'he is here' (rare) vs. ele ta akí (common)

(ibid.). Th e copula is nearly always overt. As mentioned above, é and jue are used in

the present and present or past, respectively (123); the affixation of -ba to PL jue is

seen here in (124) while the equative-like use of senda is shown in (125a ) and (1 25b ):

(122) ¡é má bruto ke ané\ (F&P 1983:278)

CO P more coarse than them

'she is coarser than them!'



61

(123) kumojue nombre ele? (ibid. :269)

what CO P name his

'what (is/was) his name?'

(124a) ané jueba lo ke á sabeba ndrumí ioyo. (¡bid. :131)

3p CO P who HA BA NT sleep stream

'they were the ones w ho used to sleep by the stream.'

(125a)ag i /é sí borrachera mí tan senda ngande. (ibid. :226)

today yes drunkenness 1s FUT C O P big

'today indeed I'll get really drunk.'

(125b) ese sendá-ba un ombe riko (Schwegler and Gree n fc.)

this C O P a man rich

'This was a rich man.'

PL é and PL fue function as discourse particles which serve to highlight certain

parts of the utterance.

(126) ¿aonde jue suto tan ndrumí?

where H IL1 p FUT sleep

'where will w e sleep?' (F&P 1983 :170, quoted in Schwegler and G reen fc.)

Finally, Palenquero's passive construction is rendered via the active one;

Spanish-like passive is not found in this creóle (Lewis 1970:153 and F&P 1983:132,

quoted in Schwegler and G reen fc.)



62

4.2.2. Papiamentu

The copula ta is obligatory with non-verbal predicates and it cannot combine with

CPL a, the latter being replaced by taba. A restricted number of verbs have some

copula-like features, e.g. bira 'become', keda 'remain', para 'stay', mustra 'seem', and

parse idem. Unlike ta they may combine with all the TM A m arkers. In any other

respect, they share all other features of ta , i.e. they precede adverbial and adjectival

predicates, past participles, etc. (Maurer 198 8:138 ff.).

(127) fei chikitu direktnan a bira grandi. (Michel p.c.)

then little one direct they C PL becom e grown up

T he n the kids grew up.1

Copula ta is a highlighter particle in predicate clefting. Ma urer (1 98 8:14 1) notes the

impossibility of the preverbal marker ta , and not the copula, being the highlighter since

the latter may precede some modal auxiliaries, e.g. por and sa, in predicate clefting

(see 5.2.).

(128) Ta sa bo'n sa ta ken. (Maurer 1988:141)

HIL 2s NEG know CO P who

'You really not know who it is.'

Papiame ntu's passive construction is unusual among creóles. Thre e auxiliary verbs are

used to form the passive: wordu 'become' (<Dutch worden), ser 'to be', and keda

'remain'. These are verbs that function as passive auxiliaries, are subject to every

verbal modification and always precede a p ast participle (Ma urer 19 88 :32 9).

(129) Maske papiamentu no ta ser duna na skolnan. (Maurer 1988:330)

however Papiamentu NE G CO P be give in school-PLU

'However, Papiame ntu is not offered in schools.'



63

The agent of a passive construction is normally introduced by pa. (in Curagoan PP) or

dord/(Aruban and Bonaire PP) (Kouwenberg and Murray 1994:37).

(130) ikual lo wordu anima pa Doble R. (idem.)

which FU T becom e host by Doble R

'...which will be hosted by Doble R.'

4.2.3. Chabacano

Th e copula is omitted in all Ch abac ano varieties. No verb form derived from S P

ser 'to be', is found in Chabac ano, unlike PL é^ is '. Whinnom (1 956 :94) noted the

absence of an overt copula and related it to the frequent use of absolute sentences.

Juxtaposition indicates an underlying copula. How ever, the theoretica l status of the

copula needs to be further explored since the acceptance of a deletion hypothesis will

have repercussions upon the nature of the predicate (i.e. whether it is verbal or

adjectival) (G reen 19 88 :45 5). Th e absolute construction is present in the following two

examples:

(131) CV: Salvaje puelco éste. (Whinnom 1956:52 )

wild hog this

Th is hog is wild.'

(132) ZM : pobre el diamon kasa. (Forman 1972:25)

poor the our house

'Our house is poor.'

Absolute constructions may be understood in the light of Spanish . For em phasis,

Spanish moves adjectival predicates to sentence-initial position, e.g. nuestra casa es

pobre 'our house is poor', becom es after fronting pobre es nuestra casa 'poor is our



64

house'. Zero copula is comm on in many Austronesian languages, as in Tagalog . Thus

the abse nce of a copula in a Ta galog absolute construction is observed below:

(133) TG : Hinog ang mga mangga. (Schachter 1987:942)

ripe TO P PLU mango

T h e mangoes are ripe.'

Chabacano has two lexical forms to express existentiality: hay 'there is/are' and

tiene ibid. The two words have Spanish etyma: hay < haber and the 3s of tener 'to

have'. Semantic narrowing has reduced the original distinction to a single meaning.

Chabacano expresses possession with tené. Chabacano nuay is the negative form of

existential hay (cf. SP no hay 'there is/are not'). In addition, it nega tes existential

predicates with verbs like taki, talyi and talyá. All the latter verbs, except tiene, are

locational verbs formed out of [ta + deictics aki 'here', alyf 'there' and alyá 'there (far)']

(Forman 1972:161).

(134) CV: nuay más laman el manga cangrejo. (Whinnom 1956:51)

EXI more meat (TG ) the PLU crab

Th er e isn't any more m eat in the crabs.'

(135) ER: Tallí todo el casancapan tirao. (ibid. :27)

EX I all the kasankapan (TG) thrownThe housedold things are thrown all over the place.'

Chabacano has no passive construction except the impersonal construction

equivalent to 'they', e.g. un kláse de peskáw ta lyamá silá palít 'a kind of fish (which)

they call "palit" (Whinnom 195 6:219 , quoted in Holm 2 000 :12) .



65

4.2.4. Comparison: Th e Copula

The copula is obligatory for Palenquero and Papiamentu; Chabacano omits it,

preferring juxtaposition instead. Austronesian languages lack a copula; Spanish, on the

other hand, requires either ser or esfar'to be', unless emphasis is intended, e.g. \linda,

la mañanal, literally 'beautiful, the morning'. Both Taga log and S panish have absolute

constructions with word order inversion. Thu s, Chabaca no dep arts from SV O word

order more than the Caribbean creóles. W hen the Chabacano pronominal (and more

rarely nom inal) subject is in postverbal position, the TMA markers preced e it. PP lo also

precedes the subject but, unlike C haba cano , that is the required position.

The use of the same lexical item to express existentials and possession is a

feature gene ralized across creóle gramm ars (Bickerton 19 81 :51 ). Th e Spanish-lexified

creóles are not exceptions to that universal: CH tené, PL tené, and PP tin 'there is/are,

to have'. Malay oPortugue se uses the Portugese verb tern 'to have' as a copula,

adopting thus the functions of Portuguese ser and esfar 'to be', e.g. Sri Lanka Creole

Portuguese Alis no tina muytu bunitu 'Alice was not very pretty* (Ivens Ferraz

1987:353). Chabacano tené has only a possessive meaning and rarely occurs alone.

Th e lack of copula is not encountered amo ng M alayoPortuguese c reóles (ibid.). An

interesting morphosyntactic feature in Chabacano is the use of nuay to negate locative

verbs, e.g. tela (see 5.3 .). Here there is a resemblance with Tagalog which has wala in

clause-initial position to negate existential and possessive clauses: walang babay doon

'there isn't a house here' (Schachter 1987:946).

http://linda/

http://linda/

http://linda/



66

5.0. Sentence-level structure in the Spanish-lexified creóles

5.1. Palenquero

Declarative sentences follow an SV O pattern. Simplification of the verbal

inflection requires sen tence s to have an overt subject. In this respect, Palenquero

diverges from Spa nish, a pro-drop language . Subject-verb inversion, obligatory in

Spanish interrogatives, doe s not occur in P alenquero:

(136a) ké bo tre mí? (F&P 1983:197)

S V

what you bring me

'what do you bring me?'

(136b) SP : ¿qué m e traes (tú)?

ibid.

Negation is effected through a negator particle nu placed in sentence-final

position. A second negation follows a dijunctive pattern with a secondary nu in

preverbal position (cf. 76 ). More recently, Schwegler ( 1 99 1 ) shows that there are three

negative patterns in Palenquero: (1) preverbal, (2) double and (3) postverbal. Both

pragmatic and structural factors see m to condition negation in Palenquero (Schw egler

and Gree n fc.)

Palenquero resembles Santomense ( na...fa) and Angolar ( na...wa), which also

have a double disjunctive nega tive, a syntactic construction also found in Caribbean

Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese:

(137) ST: a na p e ku'me fa . (Ivens Ferraz 1 979:11 )

U NM N EG put food NEG

'No salt w as put in the food.'



67

(138) AN: e na ka me ombowa [Lorenzino 1998:160]3s not HA B eat goat not

'He doesn't eat goat'

Relative clauses in Palenquero have some features distinct from those in Spanish, e.g.

the complementizers lo ke, ke and / (F&P 1983:175 ). Palenquero lo ke occupies a

sentential position that is not like that of Spanish (139 ). Th e construction could have

originated from the absolute Spanish sentence followed by the change el que > lo ke,

e.g. SP el poquito de ma íz, el (lo) que yo te nía 'the little corn I had.'

(139) chito ma í lo k' í teneba . (F&P 1983:233)

little corn that 1s have ANT

'the little corn I had'

The greater markedness of PL lo ke is more apparent when it combines with deictics:

(140) ese lo ke t' ai ta mini lo memo. (F&P 1983:224)

that who CO P there ANT come the same

Th at on e who is there came anyway.'

Th e particle / is also used to introduce relative clauses. It is not certain how this feature

of Palenquero evolved. Friedemann and Patino Rosselli (1983 :177 ) note its phonetic

similarity to the reduced preposition / < SP de 'of (see 141); however, they discount any

grammatical connection between / and de. Alternatively, PL / could be an African

caique, reanalyzing the particle /a s derived from S P conjunction y' an d' (ibid.).

(141) aqua í sutosé bebéé aqua I loyo. (F&P 1983:214)

water that 1 p HAB drink COP water of stream

T h e water we drink is from the stream.1



68

5.2. Papiamentu

Sentential negation in Papiamentu has only forward scope, i.e. the negation

particle no is positioned be twee n subject ard predicate:

(142) pasó mi ke ke polis yu'i Korsou no ta kumini Korsou.

because 1s believe that police Curagao NEG HAB suit Curasao

'Because I believe Curasao's police does not suit Curasao.' (Michel p.c.)

Only lo precedes the negative particle (cf. 10 7). Word order in Papiamentu is

predominantly SV O , except with verbs like bini an d yega 'arrive' (Maurer 1988:43):

V S

(143) A yega Korsou unbarkuyen di turista merikanu. (Maurer 1988:44)

CPL arrive Curag ao a ship filled of tourist Am erican

'A ship filled with American tourists arrived in Curag ao.'

Likewise, interrogative sentences have SVO word order, as in Palenquero:

S V

(144) M ata unda mi casa pora hañae placa aki? (Maurer 1988:356)

but FO C where my hustand can ANT find the money here

'But, wh ere could my husband find money?'

The subordinating conjunction ku is introduced to form complex sentences, e.g. nominal

and adjectival clauses (ibid. :158ff).

(145) min' ke bisaku ta yuda kriminalidat. (Michel p.c.)

1s-NEG want say that HAB help crime

'I don't want to say that (police) help crime.'

As a nominalizer, ku can introduce object clauses:



69

(146) M' a tendeku kasi sigure ta barka otro manjan. (Maurer 1988:366)

1s CP L hear that almost sure he PR G embark after tomorrow

'I heard that it w as almost certain he w as embarking the d ay after tomorrow.1

There are cases when ku may be deleted as when it is followed by an object clause

(¡bid.:161ff.):

(147) M'a bisabo 0 mi so'n ta keda kas awe. (Maurer 1988:161)

1s CP L tell-you 1s alone-NE G AN T stay home today

'I told you that I didn't stay home alone today.'

The subordinating conjunction pa may be deleted with certain verbs, e.g. ke, and it is

generally controlled by volitional verbs, e.g. desea 'wish'. On the contrary, ku follows

perceptional verbs, e.g. fencfe(cf.146):

(148) Pero pronto el a disidí riba su meskuenta pa no baiskol.

but right aw ay he CP L decide of his own account for NE G go school

'So he decided right aw ay on his own account not to go to school.'

(Maurer 503:179)

5.3. Chabacano

The SVO pattern characteristic of many Atlantic creóles is not so strict in

Ch aba cano . So m e subject-verb inversion is possible, in particular with pronominal

subjects (G ree n 19 88 :45 6). This word-order inversion extends to most subjects, except

proper nouns. In sentence (149) below the subject NP el cura is placed after the

prepositional phrase, resulting in a n on-Spanish VO S order. Taga log has a tendency to

have predicates in initial position. Phrases or words precede arquments, e.g. T G

naglato ng pagkain ang ¡ola 'cooked some food grandmother', i.e. 'grandmother cooked

some food' (Schachter and Otanes 1972:61).



70

V O S

(149) ER: Ya consola con ele el cura. (Whinnom 1956:26)CP L com fort to her the priest

The priest comforted her.'

The proper noun phrase in (150) blocks any word order change.

S V O

(150) ER: Pelisa ya contempla con ele. (Whinnom 1956:27)

Felisa CP L gaze to him

'Felisa gazed at him.'

Word order in interrogatives remain S V O , as in donde uste/tu ta queda?

(formal/informal) 'Where do you live? (Camins 1999:19).

Sentential negation in Chabacano is achieved by means of the particle no.

Declarative sentences have no before the verb phrase. Zamb oangue ño has, in

addition, the Tagalog and Hiligaynan (another Austronesian substrate) negator hendeq

(Lipski 1988:31) and nuay ( < S P no hay 'there is/are not1), the latter used to negate

locational, existential and past verbal predicates (Holm 200 0:1 1). In Tag alog hende can

operate in either the predicate or the topic (Schachter and O tanes 197 2:517 ). Th e

distribution of the negator in Zamboangueño is more restricted, usually to clause-initial

position. Moreover, it nega tes verb stems less frequently than CH no. Favored

environments for hendeq are immediately preceding pronominal subjects, preverbal

markers and enclitics (e.g. TG pa 'yet, still').

(151) ZM: si hendeq kita puede sake blbo. (Forman 1972:36)

if NE G we two (incl.) can get alive

'if we can't get you alive.'



71

(152) ZM : el muher hendeqpa daw ta pensá kasá. (idem.)

the wom an NE G yet RE P PR G think married

T h e wom an said she was not thinking of getting m arried yet.'

(In 152 dawis a reportative particle.)

Contrast (151 ) and (152 ) with the Tagalog negative sentence given below:

(153) TG:.Hindi pa dumarating ang bus. (Schachter and Otanes 1972 :518)

NEG yet PFC-come TO P busThe bus hasn't come yet'

Zamboangueño is the only Chabacano variety to have borrowed from Austronesian

substrate languages the word hindi along with its morphosyntactic features.

Clause-marker deletion is sometimes accompanied by word-order inversion in the main

clause:

(154) ZM : pensá ba el muher, 0 man-am igo lang silá. (Forman 1972:35)

think AN T the wom an PR F friend just they.

T h e wom an thought that they could just be friendly to ea ch other.'

Clause-marker deletion is found with the verbs kyere desir 'mean', eksklamá 'exclaim',

pregunta 'ask', kontestá 'answer' and sintf 'sense' (ibid.:202). Clau se markers com e

from both the superstrate and substrate. Spanish-derived m arkers are C V qui, ER que,

Z M ke, kel, all me aning 'that'. The y all be hav e like SP que, except that they may

introduce an explicative cause, approximately translated as 'becaus e'. Th e proper

interpretation of the clause marker is contextualiy determined.

( 1 5 5 ) Z M : sigi ya ¡angle ta pensá ke pensákon ese muher, kel

keep AN T just he PR G think and think with that w oman because

byen. bonita gayot

very nice indeed



72

Papiam entu and Chaba can o both exhibit a negation pattern which resem bles Spanish

more. Zam boan gueñ o, however, has borrowed from Tag alog and Hiligaynon the

negator hendeq. This negator has a more restricted use than no. Clause and phrase

markers in Palenquero and Papiamen tu are derived from Spanish. How ever, they do

not alway s follow the syntax of the lexifier. Likewise, most Ch abac ano complem entizers

are Spanish, while the remaining are Austronesian. Som etimes a marker takes a new

function, e.g. CH ke l 'because', PL lo ke 'that ' and PP ku, object marker.

Clause-marker deletion is permitted with certain verbs, e.g. verbs of volition and

perception. In som e instances, the creóles hav e adopted a relative construction that

diverges from that of Spanish and/or their substrates. This is the ca se with TG kaya, a

subordinating marker that introduces a resultative clause. Ch aba cano ka y functions in

exactly the opposite wa y, by having a n explicative clause.

6 . 0 C o n c l u s i o n

This comparative study of the Spanish-lexified creóles has pointed out a number

of structural differences among them and the possible historical constraints upon them,

especially from Spa nish, Portuguese and substrates. Though it is apparen t the active

role Span ish (an d possibly Portuguese) had during creolization, it is also crucial to

understand the role Austronesian languages (Tagalog, Visayan, Cebuano, etc.) on

Chabacano and African languages (Bantu, Kwa) on Palenquero and Papiamentu, as

sources of some of their morphosyntactic features . This was a seconda ry goal of this

monograph.

Further evidence for this differential substrate influence can be seen by

comparing Chabacano with other Austronesian-influenced creóles such as



73

Malayo -Portuguese and Tok Pisin. Certain features shared by all three point to

Austronesian influence, since the lexifier is different in each cas e (Spanish , Portuguese,

and English), respectively. Sociolinguistic considerations, wh ich fall outside the scope

of this study, are of course crucial in the creolization of the three Spanish-lexified

creóles. First, the permanent contact of Cha baca no spea kers with the aboriginal

languages of the Philippines has been of paramount importance in shaping the

language's developmen t. Secondly, Palanque ros' relative isolation from mainstream

Spanish-speaking society until the twentieth century has helped the creóle community

to delay the c hange s that modernization a nd closer contact with urban settings are likely

to impinge on their way of life. Third, considering the higher status Papiam entu enjoys

in the Nethelands Antilles one can safely predict a stable and promising future for the

creóle.

The conclusions reached in this paper are based on the noun phrase, verb

phrase and a token of sentence-level features in the Spanish-lexified creóles. Further

compa rative research in these and other linguistic a reas which we re only cursorily d ealt

with in this study (e.g. complex sentences) will improve the descriptive adequacy and

the theoretical formulation of the Spanish creó le data . Lastly, it is hope d that this study

will attract more research on the history of the Spanish-lexified creóles.



74

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