The Acquisition of Creole Languages
How Children Surpass their Input

The first study into how children acquire Creoles as their first language in the absence of a conventional language model.

Dany Adone (Author)

9781107499850, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 12 February 2015

244 pages, 28 b/w illus. 21 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.3 cm, 0.33 kg

'Considering the crucial role attributed to children in many models of creole genesis, the acquisition of creoles has not been a topic of extensive research. Dany Adone is one of the few to have taken up this challenge … With its application of rigorous experimental methods, this study is a major contribution to the ontogenetic study of 'classical' creoles. It is rich in data which are made to speak profound theoretical issues. Methodologically, it offers an exemplary model for future studies in the acquisition of contact languages.' Stephen Matthews, Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages  

How do children acquire a Creole as their first language? This relatively underexplored question is the starting point for this first book of its kind; it also asks how first language acquisition of a Creole differs from that of a non-Creole language. Dany Adone reveals that in the absence of a conventional language model, Creole children acquire language and go beyond the input they receive. This study discusses the role of input, a hotly debated issue in the field of first language acquisition, and provides support for the nativist approach in the debate between nativism and input-based models. The Acquisition of Creole Languages will be essential reading for those in the fields of First Language Acquisition and Creole Studies. Adone takes an interdisciplinary approach, and uses insights from the acquisition of language in the visual modality, making this of great interest to those in the field of Sign Linguistics.

1. Creole languages
2. Issues in first language acquisition
3. Complex Creole syntax
4. Child Creole data
5. Pronouns and reflexives
6. Double-object constructions
7. Passive constructions
8. Serial verb constructions
9. Acquisition without a conventional language model
Appendix A. Experimental materials on pronouns and reflexives
Appendix B. Experimental materials on double-object constructions
Appendix C. Experimental materials on passive constructions
Appendix D. Experimental materials on serial verb constructions.

Subject Areas: Grammar, syntax & morphology [CFK], Language acquisition [CFDC], Psycholinguistics [CFD]