Contact Linguistics. Chap

Aspectual Categories

Perfective unmarked unmarked unmarked

Prog./Impfv. a/de a (d)e
Perfect don don VP final kaba
This is not meant to imply that the TMA systems of Atlantic EC’s are identical in all respects. There are significant differences, especially in some areas of aspectual marking, as well as in modality and auxiliary combinations (See Winford 1993, 2001).
French-lexicon creoles have a similar set of preverbal markers, including a Past derived from eté ‘been’ or etait ‘was’ and a Future derived from va(s), present singular forms of aller ‘to go’. There are some differences in the Progressive marker, which in some cases is ap, derived from apres (e.g. Haitian Creole) and in the eastern Caribbean ka, a form of uncertain etymology. Some French creoles also have a quasi-perfect marker derived from finir ‘finish.’ The following examples from Haitian (Spears 1990:121) illustrate. I have amended Spears’ labels for the categories somewhat.

(7) Mwen te pale avè l.

1sg PAST talk with 3sg
“I talked with him.”

(8) L (a)va vin dokté

3sg. FUT become doctor
“S/he’ll become a doctor.”

(9) M ap pale ak Mari

1sg PROG talk with Marie
“I’m talking to Marie.”

(10) Nou fin(i) sakle (Degraff to appear: 41)

we finish weed
“We’ve finished weeding”

Spanish and Portuguese lexicon creoles also display certain parallels in TMA marking with their English and French counterparts, However, the organization of these systems is far from identical across these creoles.

Still, the striking similarities led earlier scholars such as Thompson (1961), Taylor (1963, 1971) and others to propose that a certain inventory as well as a fixed (T – M – A) ordering of preverbal markers were definitive of creoles. For such scholars, this was evidence that all creoles were in fact descended from a common ancestor, perhaps a Portuguese pidgin. This “monogenetic” theory of creole origins found little support in either the sociohistorical or linguistic evidence from studies of various creoles (See Arends et al 1995:87-88 for an overview.)
Bickerton (1981, 1984) used the similarities in creole TMA and other areas of grammar as evidence to support his “Language Bioprogram Hypothesis” (LBH). This explained many aspects of creole grammar as due to the creativity of young children who resorted to the bioprogram (a genetically determined set of principles for the organization of language) when acquiring a deficient pidgin as their first language. However, evidence from recent studies shows that there is in fact a great deal of diversity among creole TMA systems (Singler 1990b), and indeed other areas of the grammar, despite a certain degree of similarity.