Project 13

Multifunctionality in Haitian Creole: New insights from a Construction Grammar perspective

This project is to analyse the concept of multifunctionality in Haitian Creole (HC) from a new perspective which is Construction Grammar (CxG). According to previous research, one of the typological characteristics of creole languages, particularly Haitian creole, is the multifunctionality of the linguistic elements (Lefebvre / Lorange 2015: 359). That is to say, a linguistic unit has the capacity to fit into more than one linguistic class or category (Véronique 2020:197-198). With this CxG perspective, it is indeed possible to examine the accuracy of this statement. To accomplish this task, this study will be based on certain HC constructions such as Pou (a syntactic morpheme) and some elements of the verbal category (manje).

Some questions need to be raised about the first observations on the multifunctionality of HC, which consider these multifunctional linguistic elements as homonyms, for example: manje/malad or pronouns (mwen, li etc). Indeed, Valdman’s reference dictionary (2007) lists different numbered meanings for each of the multifunctional linguistics elements mentioned above and assigns them to parts of speech such as verbs, nouns, adjectives, and prepositions. However, this analysis of multifunctional elements may alter an adequate description of Haitian Creole grammar and seems to be an artefact of pre-established European grammatical traditions, which are not necessarily appropriate for describing languages with other typological features (Broschart 1997: 124).

It would therefore seem appropriate to develop a model for word classes in Haitian Creole along the lines of Croft’s (2001) Radical Construction Grammar, in which, categories of word classes are defined on the basis of their occurrence in construction slots characterised by semantic roles and are considered to be construction-specific and thus language-specific (Croft 2001: 106; 2016: 383). Word classes can then be considered as generalisations about usage experiences (Vartiainen 2021:231). To this end, the families of constructions in which a selection of linguistic elements of Haitian Creole may or may not appear will be identified, systematised, and analysed.

This project is done by Anne Sherley Legouté and is supervised by Prof. Dr. Silke Jansen and Dr. Peter Uhrig.