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of comparison. The same is true for the Magoua /pas/ of (17a). In Yoruba, Gbe
and other relevant African languages, analogues of "surpass" introduce the first
term of comparison in a manner identical to analogues of "more" and do not require
the second term:
[...] which makes the two constructions, [the Creole
comparatives] and [the African comparative], fundamentally dissimilar.
us have a look again at Wittmann's African examples:
ó tóbi jù (mí lo)(Yoruba)
"he (is) big PASS [= MORE] (me GO [= THAN])"
"He is bigger (than me)."
àfì lè suè wú (dàdì)(Gbe)
"mouse is small PASS [= MORE] (cat)"
"The mouse is smaller (than the cat)."
from a couple of French creoles:
1996:281).
Dominican: /u gwâ pase mwê/ 'You are bigger than I' (Taylor 1951:58).
St. Lucian: /brik mwê lu pase mòtje/ 'Bricks are less heavy than mortar' (Carrington
1984:62).
tràvày pàs mouén", which is not included in his corpus, a French origin of the FC
comparative would be at least as plausible as the African one. However, analogous
examples abound in creoles of other lexical affiliations:
Jamaican: /olu bin it pas in padi/ 'Olu ate more than his friend' (Denis 1998:14).
Sranan: /anansi koni pasa tigri/ 'Anansi is more cunning than Tiger' (Sebba
1997:197).
Saramaccan: /a bigi pasa di mii/ 'He is bigger than the child' (Byrne 1987:225).
not seen ?"a mon pti frér i tràvày pàs mouén" in any dialect of French, but I have
also never come across *"My little brother works pass me" in any English dialect.
What the French creoles and the English creoles just cited do share, however, is an
African substrate, which therefore is a more plausible origin of the feature.
dissimilarity IN SYNTAX between the Haitian example of (17b) and the African examples
of (18) when the biclausal "X predicate PASS Y" is replaced by a one term comparative
of the type "X predicate PASS". Since the the Haitian example of (17b) seems to have
been "DELIBERATELY" chopped away in an attempt to "QUOTE ... COMPLETELY OUT OF
CONTEXT", let me restore my "CITATION" to what is was meant to originally mean:
MORE <plus> to introduce the first term and a marker derived from French for PASS
<passé> to introduce the second term as can be seen from (17b) when the second
term has been elided:
Jan pi ro (pase Mari)(Haitian Creole)
"John (is) MORE tall (PASS [= THAN] Mary)"
(17)bb *Jan pase ro
of comparison. The same is true for the Magoua /pas/ of (17a). In Yoruba, Gbe
and other relevant African languages, analogues of "surpass" introduce the first
the second term:
ó tóbi jù (mí lo)(Yoruba)
"he (is) big PASS [= MORE] (me GO [= THAN])"
"He is bigger (than me)."
àfì lè suè wú (dàdì)(Gbe)
"mouse is small PASS [= MORE] (cat)"
"The mouse is smaller (than the cat)."
X predicate PASS
varieties of creole French:
*Jan ro pase "John is taller"(Haitian)
(33)b*Rejina dous pase "Régina is sweeter"(Guadeloupean)
(33)c*ou gwan pase "you are bigger" (Dominican)
(33)d*brik mwê lu pase "bricks are less heavy" (Saintlucian)
PASS
functions as a comparative QUANTIFIER introducing the first term of comparison in the
relevant African languages, as a correlating COMPLEMENTIZER introducing the second
term of comparison in creole French. That Parkvall knows the difference between
quantifiers and complementizers is obvious from pp. 63-66 comparing the
complementizers of the English creoles to their putative sources in the languages of
Africa. The fact that /pase/ is not a quantifier in creole French can also be
substantiated by having the relevant quantifiers p(l)i/mwen "MORE/LESS" alternate in
the relevant syntactic position:
li pi/mwen vanse (pase *(mwen))(Haitian)
"he is MORE/LESS advanced/progressive (THAN *(me))"
(34)bbrik pi/mwen lou (pase *(mòtye))(Saintlucian)
"bricks are MORE/LESS heavy (THAN *(mortar))"
constitutes what he calls the "modifying marker of comparision", the subordinate
clause in parentheses introduced by the complementizer /pase/ constitutes his
"standard of comparison". The standard of comparison is OPTIONAL IN ALL NATURAL
LANGUAGES if no introducing complementizer occurs. In other words, complementizers
such as English <than>, Standard French <que> or creole French /pase/ cannot occur
without an appropriate complementation.
following comparative construction type available to all natural languages (with some
relevant word order variations):
(35)b QUANTIFIER-PREDICATE (COMPLEMENTIZER-*(STANDARD))
(35)c (*(STANDARD)-COMPLEMENTIZER) QUANTIFIER-PREDICATE
(35)d (*(STANDARD)-COMPLEMENTIZER) PREDICATE-QUANTIFIER
the subordinate standard is introduced most often by a "zero-form" complementizer
["zero-forms" for underlying complementizers is something Parkvall is specifically
aware of pp. 63-66]. The fact that the African quantifier PASS is "fundamentally
dissimilar" from the creole French complementizer PASS can be substantiated by the
fact the African PASS can occur without the complementing standard of comparison:
ó tóbi jùlo(Yoruba)
"he (is) big PASS
"He is bigger"
àfì lè suè wú(Gbe)
"mouse is small PASS"
"The mouse is smaller"
totally strange because besides the complementizer /pàs k/ I already documented,
there is also a /pasé/ : /pas/ which occurs in Magoua as a comparative quantifier in
exactly the same syntactic position than in the relevant African languages:
i-midi pase
noon PASS "it's past noon"
(37)abi-pas midi
PASS noon "it's past noon"
(37)baJan i-si pyé pase
John six foot PASS "he is more than six feet tall"
(37)bbJan i-pas si pyé
John PASS six foot "he is more than six feet tall"
(37)cas-pen la i-pez si liv pasé
bread DET weigh six pounds PASS "the bread weighs more than six pounds"
(37)cbs-pen la i-pez i-pas si liv
bread DET PASS weigh six pounds "the bread weighs more than six pounds"
documented in Glossaire (1930:499-500) besides being in common use to this day in
most basilectal varieties of Québec French. Though this quantifier doesn't accept
complementation, it is difficult to comprehend why African learners of French with
Parkvall's putative substrates in mind did let go by such an obvious opportunity to
conflate coinciding substrate and superstrate structures unless the target language
they learned was no longer open to any pidginizing influences on their part. This is
the more so surprising since most of the relevant varieties of creole French support
movement and syncopation of quantifiers such as plis "more", mwens "less", twop "too
much" to pli, mwen, tro in the same syntactic positions:
... i enme jwe {plis, mwens, trop}(Dominican)
... he like play {MORE, LESS, TOO-MUCH}
(38)a... i {pli, mwen, tro} enme jwe
... he {MORE, LESS, TOO-MUCH} like play
may alternate with /anba/ "under".
mwen (pli) piti anba-i(Dominican)
I (MORE) small UNDER him "I'm smaller than him"
mo (pi) piti anba li(Karipuna Creole)
I (MORE) small UNDER him "I'm smaller than him"
languages including Karipuna introduce the comparative standard with adpositions
equivalent to alternating "beyond"/"under".
has a clearly African origin camparative quantifier PASS supporting non-obligatory
comparative object complementation.
Magoua such as in:
j-à-pong là-hàch j-à-kup là-branch
AGRS-AGRO-take CLASS-ax AGRS-AGRO-cut CLASS-branch
"I cut the branch with the ax."
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