Serial organization of speech sounds in Creole languages

Universals in creole languages are commonly thought to reveal the basic linguistic processes involved in the formation of languages. However, while syntactic and morphological trends in these languages have been considered in great detail, phonological organization in creoles has largely been overlooked. This dissertation was concerned with phonological universals in creoles, specifically the serial organization of speech sounds during the formation of these languages. The traditional approach to phonology is a generative view, in which an innate Universal Grammar (UG) is postulated to exist in the human mind (Chomsky, 1966). Generativists invoke a phonological component of UG as an explanation for the existence of phonological universals. An alternative to a UG phonology can be found in approaches that emphasize the formative role of cognitive, perceptual, and motor constraints on the organization of speech. One such approach, the Frame/content theory of the evolution of speech production (MacNeilage, 1998), may be relevant to the sound patterns in creole languages. This theory addresses what might be humans’ most basic preferences for patterns in the serial organization of speech sounds. According to the theory, the two stages of speech development--the earlier Frame stage and later Frame/content stage--characterize speech development in phylogeny and in ontogeny. While Frame stage patterns are heavily influenced by natural speech production propensities, Frame/content stage patterns are claimed to be culturally transmitted. In my investigation of mean frequencies of serial organization patterns in nine creole lexicons, I found that the creoles studied overall exhibited similar Frame/content theory patterns (MacNeilage, 1998) to the modern-day standard dialects of superstrates studied, suggesting that the patterns were primarily copied from the superstrates. Unique contributions of creolization included 1) less variation in patterns of serial organization overall and 2) significantly higher levels of intersyllabic consonant place of articulation reduplication (called C1C2 co-occurrences). Further analyses are needed to confirm the preliminary finding that higher C1C2 co-occurrences in creoles are due to the high levels of these co-occurrences in novel coinage in the creoles. The significance of these findings with respect to the Frame/content theory is discussed.Psycholog