Jamaican Creole: The Emergence and Transformation of Early Syntactic Systems

This research will explore the early acquisition of syntactic properties in Jamaican Creole and their subsequent transformation into stable grammars. There is a significant gap in linguistic research investigating the acquisition of Creole Languages. With the exception of Adone’s (1994) work on the Acquisition of Mauritian Creole, the acquisition of Creole Languages has not been extensively investigated. The present research seeks to fill this void by establishing a corpus of natural production of Jamaican Creole children, between the ages of 18 – 40 months, which will be extensively analyzed for syntactic emergence and developments. This age range is not arbitrary as it corresponds to the period in which syntax emerges in most children, and where target-inconsistent forms and structures have been documented in other languages (Guasti, 2004; Radford, 1990; Rizzi & Friedemann ,2000).

Six children, from households where basilectal Jamaican Creole is the predominant language, was recorded over an 18 month period. 60 minutes recordings were conducted every 10 -15 days, and the data transcribed in accordance with the guidelines of the CHILDES Database. This corpus is subjected to detailed analysis aimed at describing both target-consistent and target-inconsistent productions, in particular root infinitives, null subjects and the elision of functional material. Additionally attention will be paid, in the early stages of production, to the emergence of word order patterns, aspectual and modal markers, serial verb constructions, etc. The empirical findings will provide evidence of early syntactic development and contributes to the on-going debate on early parameter settings.

This study proves to be significant as it will be the first longitudinal exploration of the acquisition of a Creole Language. In addition it will have a long-lasting contribution to the Linguistic community as it will provide an accessible corpus of natural production of Jamaican Creole early syntactic systems.