What Can the Relabeling-based Theory of Creole Genesis and Development Explain?

Résumé 0

Drawing on some forty years of research, this paper discusses the wide range of facts that the relabeling-based theory of creole genesis and development can explain. It is argued that the nature of this cognitive process, the way it operates, and the way it interacts with other processes in the further development of a creole (e.g. grammaticalization, leveling, diffusion across the lexicon) explain the features that any theory of creole genesis should be able to account for. It even accounts in a principled way for data that, at first glance, may appear as exceptions to the theory. Two variables are shown to play a role in defining the final output predicted by this theory: the amount of exposure to the superstrate language when the creole is formed, and whether speakers of a developed creole still have access to the source languages. It is further shown that the relabelingbased theory of creole genesis and development predicts in a principled way the sources of the typological features of creoles in specific areas of the grammar.