Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

1 results

  • 16 - Decreolization: A Special Case of Language Change?

  • from Part III - The Development of Syntax
  • Edited by Dany Adone, Universität zu Köln, Astrid Gabel, Universität zu Köln
  • Book:
    The Evolution, Acquisition and Development of Syntax
    Published online:
    19 February 2025
    Print publication:
    06 February 2025, pp 299-316

  • Summary

    Mayeux’s chapter offers a new perspective on the notion of decreolisation which is also a possible path in the life cycle of a Creole language. Creoles in contact with their lexifiers are famously supposed to undergo decreolisation, a process Bickerton termed a “special case” (1980: 113) of contact-induced change. The proposition that Creoles undergo a “special” process of language change has been roundly critiqued by several scholars, not least because decreolisation has seldom been strictly defined or tested with diachronic data. Bickerton, however, sought a rigorous definition for what he critiqued as a “tinkertoy concept” (1980: 111), arguably providing the only specific model of the structural mechanisms supposedly underlying that process. This chapter takes earnestly his suggestion that linguists should strictly define and test the diachronic mechanisms shaping decreolisation. In so doing, this chapter presents evidence against his Creole-specific approach to language change which treats decreolisation as a “special case”.