Hechos Relevantes (continuación)

This chapter addresses irregularities and distinctive features that occur in the data and investigates whether these can be related to linguistic or socio-demographic variables. In Chapter 7.4.1, I begin by investigating the distribution of wh-pronouns relating to grammatical functions and humanity of the referent as these are the distinctive features identified by Neumann (1985) and Klingler (2003a). Further, the current data is tested against Rottet’s (2006) hypothesis concerning the grammatical function of a final element ki. The findings are related to LC’s level of vitality. The chapter also considers the distribution of intermediate ki in long-distance questions. Chapter 7.4.2 investigates the effects socio-demographic variables as well as speaker idiosyncrasies have on the choice of wh-pronoun, the acceptability of marginal structures such as wh-scope-marking and wh-in- situ constructions, sensitivity to island effects, rates of preposition pied-piping, and the appearance of clauses containing an intermediate ki.

The form and distribution of wh-pronouns and the status of ki

One main issue that arises in the discussion above when considering wh-questions in LC is the form and distribution of interrogative pronouns, as the pronominal system is not fully described and the distribution appears to be linked to grammatical factors such as syntactic functions according to Rottet (2006). Another related notion is the identity of ki within interrogative expressions.

Concerning the form and distribution of interrogative pronouns in LC, 379 questions from the present corpus as well as 57 from the LCDC are analyzed. The present corpus consists of 18 MTATs each of which contains 28 sentences for translation, 35 manipulations of such translations and 12 distractors. To determine the use of interrogative pronouns, all manipulated translations are excluded since a native speaker did not directly produce these. On the other hand, distractors are included when they happened to contain a wh- pronoun. Wh-adverbs, such as komen (‘how’) or kofe (‘why’) were excluded as well, as they never contain final ki, leaving only interrogative pronouns in a subject or object function. Because of the multiple and long-distance questions in the corpus, several sentences include two wh-pronouns which is why the number of tokens is higher than the total number of questions considered here. A total of 433 wh-pronouns from 379 questions out of the corpus of this study is considered and complimented by the 57 questions from the LCDC. From the LCDC data, only sentences that contain a wh-pronoun were selected and wh- adverbs were excluded as well.

This comparison yields the following set of wh-pronouns, Ki, ki-k, ki-ki, ki-ke, ki-se, ki- se-ki, ki-sa, ki-s, kwa, kwa-se, kwa-ki, sa, sa-k, sa-ki, ke, ke-se, kimoun, ki-moun-ki. In addition, the following occur but are likely not be subject/object wh-pronouns despite their use in the associated position, li, se, kekun, kofa.

Recall the form and distribution of wh-pronouns in LC as previously documented. The relevant table is repeated here as Table 7-4 to be compared with the data from the present study summarized in Table 7-5. Clearly, the range of interrogative subject and object pronouns used by LC speakers is wider than previously documented. At the same time, a number of items listed in the literature do not occur in the present corpus. These are bold printed in Table 7-4. The bold items in Table 7-5 indicate an item that appears in a previously undocumented function and items in bold italics are previously undocumented in LC in any syntactic function.

Table 7-4 Interrogative PRNs in LC

TLC (Neumann 1985) MLC (Klingler 2003a)

Subject Object Subject Object

[+human] sa-ki, ki-ki, ki-se-sa-ki, ki-se-ki ki, ki-se, ki-se-sa, ki-ki/ke, sa, sa-ki/ke ki-moun, sa-ki, ki (rare) ki-moun [-human] sa-ki, ki-ki, ki-se-sa-ki, ki-se-ki sa ki, ki-se, ki-se-sa sa-ki, ki, lekèl, nekel ki (rare), sa, lekèl, nekel

Table 7-5 Interrogative Pronouns in the study’s corpus

MTAT Corpus LCDC

Subject Object Subject Object

[+human] Ki, Ki-k/ki/ke, Ki-sa-k, Ki-se, Ki-se-ki, Ki-moun-ki, Kwa, Kwa-ki, Sa, Sa-k/ki, Se-ki Ki, Sa, Ki-se, Ki-k/ki, Ki-s/sa, Kwa, Kwa-se, Kwa-ki, Sa-ki, Ke, Ke-se, Ki-moun, Ki-mo(u)n-ki, Ke-mo(u)n Ki, Ki-k, Sa-k ________ [-human] ________ Ki, Sa, Ke-se, Ki-se, Kwa, Kwa-se, Sa-k/ki Ki, Kwa, Sa Ki, Sa, Sa-ki Kèskè

The more complex forms ki-se-sa and ki-se-sa-ki that appear in Neumann (1985) are not attested in the present corpus. Neither are the forms lekèl and nekel from Klingler (2003a). One reason could be that these forms have fallen out of use and are consequently being lost in the process of language shift taking place in Louisiana. Another cause could be that the study design and data collection left gaps in the data for example with regard to one particular functional or demographic category, so that some forms just were not recorded despite continued use in the community. For the two forms attest in Klingler (2003a) but not the present corpus, this is a likely explanation, as the MLC regional variety which he documents is underrepresented in the present data. The first reason, on the other hand, appears to be the most plausible explanation for the absence of ki-se-sa and ki-se-sa-ki. These pronouns literally incorporate a rather complex meaning (who/what-is-it-who/what) resembling the semantic structure of a cleft construction but not making use of the syntactic construction itself. But, considering their interchangeable use with other pronominal forms, these items do not seem to transport a semantic distinction such as focusing. Neumann

(1985, 334) translates her example simply as Qui appelle? (=Who called?) rather than as a sentences along the lines of Who was it that called?.

(198) Ki-se-sa-k’ape pele? (Neumann 1985, 334) Who ASP call

Who called?

The hyphenated spelling also indicates that she considers these items lexicalized. Under this assumption, using the longer forms of the interrogative pronouns offers no communicative benefits in terms of a semantic distinction over the use of synonymous shorter forms. This makes them typical candidates for the reduction process endangered languages tend to undergo. Naturally, these forms may still occur despite their absence from the present corpus. A targeted study would be needed to be fully certain they are no longer used. Nevertheless, the present corpus contains a solid set of subject and object interrogative pronouns with 180 tokens in the subject and 253 in the object category. Among the objects, 181 have [+human] referents and 72 referents are non-human. The corpus contains a gap in the field of [-human] subjects as these simply were not present in the example sentences used in the MTAT. This is due to the focus on syntactic structure rather than lexical form in the design of the MTAT. Since the 180 [+human] wh-pronouns in subject function do not contain a single one of these forms and their use was never restricted to the [-human] subject category, it seems safe to assume that the results would have been similar had such sentences been included.

A closer look at forms that are present in the current corpus rather than those that are absent reveals the introduction of new material and new functions as well as clear differences in frequency. The most striking change occurs in regard to ki as a wh-pronoun. Contrary to Klingler’s observation that ki rarely appears by itself without additional material, ki is the most frequent wh-expression in the data collected for this study. It occurs as a single free morpheme 20743 _{times. Contrary to Neumann’s observation that ki only}

occurs in object function, 86 of these are used as a wh-subject and 121 are wh-objects. All subjects and 101 of the wh-objects have [+human] referents. This distribution still indicates an overall preference for the use of ki in object functions although one must consider effects of the study design. The corpus contains more objects than subjects and several questions include a subject and an object wh-pronoun. In those, the subject expression usually is fronted and the object expression remains in situ. It may be that, rather than a preference for expressing objects through ki, this distribution indicates a preference to express

subjects or simply fronted wh-pronouns through more complex forms. In the LCDC ki appears 18 times, eight of which are subjects and ten are objects.

Note that ki is not the most frequent wh-pronoun in the LCDC sample, although it is the second most frequent one following sa. Sa occurs 30 times, which amounts to more than 50% of the wh-pronouns in the LCDC. All but four of those appearances are in object functions as in (199) and all have non-human referents. By comparison, sa is rare in the MTAT data where it is the third most frequent item with 33 occurrences. A strong similarity to the LCDC data is observable in the functional distribution, as sa is mainly used in object functions (30 occurrences), especially for [-human] referents (24 occurrences).

(199) Sa t ole? (LCDCMY, Mayeux 2018) What 2SG want

What do you want?

In general, the LCDC data contains fewer types and tokens of wh-pronouns. A lower token frequency is to be expected, as this corpus contains spontaneous and often narrative data, which naturally contains few questions. With 21 speakers whose utterances are included, the potential for a similar amount of type-variation as found with the MTAT corpus is principally given but not borne out. Hypothetically, interviewees chose the most common expressions for the given purposes in the LCDC’s natural conversation setting. In the MTAT, wh-expressions were required quite often, which may have prompted a higher level of diversity especially when more than one expression was required in the same sentence creating the need to differentiate between them. Note that the use of ki across grammatical functions and [+/-human] referents is nevertheless confirmed in the LCDC data as is the use of sa-ki for [-human] objects and the occurrence of kwa though not the related forms.

The second most frequent item in the MTAT corpus is ki-se, with a total of 73 occurrences. 45 of these are objects, most of which have [+human] referents (39 items) and 28 are subjects, showing a similar distribution to ki above. As mentioned, sa is in the third position concerning frequency. This is notable because sa appears only in Neumann (1985) where it is restricted to [-human] objects. While this still is the prevalent use of sa in the MTAT corpus, it is also attested in subject function in three instances and at least three times with a [+human] referent in object function. Sentence initial sa additionally occurs in clauses with another wh-expression in a lower position like (200). While these could be interpreted as being co-referential, which would make them instances of sa having a human referent, they are instead analyzed as wh-scope-marking clauses below.

(200) Sa John kra ki Mary MET? (HB) WH John believe who Mary meet Who does John believe Mary met?

The distribution of sa shows that the original use in [-human] object functions has been slightly extended to [+human] and subject contexts in a few instances. While it is still mainly used in its original function, it is crucially no longer unacceptable in other contexts. On a larger scale, ki is used in subject function as well and predominantly but not exclusively appears with [+human] referents. This development, too, is not unusual for an endangered language as speakers become insecure about grammatical restrictions and begin to diffuse and overgeneralize patterns. A pattern that seems to be preferred by many LC speakers when it comes to wh-pronouns is the choice of a monosyllabic form, with the exception of ki-se described above. This is attested in the frequency with which ki and sa appear in their base form and constitutes a lexical and possibly grammatical simplification process. The less frequent wh-expressions range from 18 occurrences for sa-ki to just one for example for ke and ke-se respectively. This is not to say that the distribution of the less frequent items is cannot be grammatically conditioned. Ki-se-ki for example only occurs in a subject function and ki-s/sa just as objects as do ke and ke-se.

The latter forms are not attested as wh-pronouns in earlier work. The complementizer ke appears in the C-head position of embedded clauses though. Either a homophonous wh-pronoun developed for some reason, the item is being borrowed from LRF or the occurrence of ke and ke-se is a result of linguistic insecurity. Due to the phonological similarity between ki and ke, and the fact that ki can be used as a wh-pronoun, a relative pronoun and a complementizer some speakers may be unsure of the distinction and begin to use the two items interchangeably. This development is further facilitated by the fact that ki and ke are both already attested in Neumann (1985) as the final element in a wh-pronoun. Que is attested as an interrogative pronoun in older forms of French and rarely appears in modern SF. Consequently, it could also be a form that is transferred from LRF which tends to use older words. The fact that ke and ke-se occur very rarely in the data with one instance of each item, which are importantly not produced by the same speaker, indicates that this is a mostly idiosyncratic phenomenon at the moment. But, if LC continues on its current trajectory, I hypothesize that a repetition of this study at a later date might produce a higher frequency of ke and ke-se (also potentially ke-sa and ke-ki) due to either continued contact to LRF or persistent free variation due to a breakdown of the linguistic system. Alternatively, these forms may vanish completely if endangerment results in a reduced pronominal system which relies solely on sa and ki for example. Note that the form

While this constitutes phonological variation at this point, it can be argued to reflect a related process.

One type of item that newly appears in the present corpus is kwa with the associated forms kwa-ki and kwa-se. As mentioned above kwa is generally perceived to be an LRF lexical item and it does not appear in earlier documentation of LC. On this basis, it is all the more noticeable that kwa occurs in the MTAT as well as the LCDC corpus. Most likely, this is a contact induced borrowing that does not express any content or concept previously unavailable in LC. As such this represents an instance of the introduction of new material (Campbell and Muntzel 1989), the use of which falls into the category of extensive non- meaningful variation attested for endangered languages by Rottet (2001, 44). In the simple form kwa it is preferred to express objects especially of the [-human] variety but one subject and two [+human] objects also occur. With the addition of ki the use is restricted to [+human] referents, namely five subjects and three objects, while the form kwa se only appears with [-human] referents. This seems to indicate that the addition of se and ki respectively are responsible for the functional distribution rather than the core item itself and raises the question whether these additions are part of the lexical item or function as independent markers.

Kwa-se occurs in the present corpus in the context of (201). These occurred as translations of the English sentence “What do you think John hopes that Mary will tell him?”. Clearly, this meaning is not fully captured by the LC translations containing kwa se. The reappearance of se in the embedded clause seems to suggest a conditional construction along the lines of example (54) in Chapter 4 above, repeated here as (202).

(201) Kwa se m ape swate Mary se di mon? (JN, CC) WH (COND) 1SG PROG hope Mary IRR/COND say 1SG

What I am hoping (that) Mary would tell me?

(202) Si mo se konnen, mo se mannde la [sic.] plen […] If 1SG COND know, 1SGCOND ask 3SG? a lot

If I had known, I would have asked her lots of things […] (Klingler 2003a, 329)

Since (201) hardly constitutes a typical conditional clause, the alternative analysis is to consider the first appearance of se a part of the interrogative expression kwa-se which is formed parallel to ki-se. The second se in the embedded clause would best be analyzed as an irrealis marker then and bear no direct relation to the matrix appearance. Considering the other wh-expressions in the present data, nothing points to a free marker se although it may well have started out as a focus marker for example.

Table 7-6 shows the distribution of wh-pronouns in the MATA corpus. Se occurs word-finally 78 times in the MTAT in the expressions ki-se (73 x), kwa-se (4 x) and ke-se (1 x). These appear as subjects (28 x) and objects (50 x) and 67 of these have [+human] referents which equals 86%. This last pattern is unexpected from the distribution of kwa-se that seems to be limited to [-human] referents. It follows from the data that no clear prediction about the syntactic function or the [+/-human] value can be made from the presence of -se. Consequently, se is no free marker of either objecthood or non-human referents at present and hence regarded as part of the wh-expression. This is not to say that it did not begin as a grammatical marker of some kind which has lexicalized.

Table 7-6 Frequency of wh-pronouns in the MTAT corpus

Object Subject Total Wh-Pronoun -human +human O total +human

Ki 20 101 121 86 207 Ki-se 6 39 45 28 73 Sa 24 6 30 3 33 Ki-moun 12 12 6 18 Sa-ki 1 3 4 14 18 Ki-se-ki 11 11 Ki-ki 1 1 9 10 Kwa 7 2 9 1 10 Ki-k 1 1 7 8 Kwa-ki 3 3 5 8 Sa 4 4 3 7 Ke-mon 5 5 5 Ki-moun-ki 1 1 3 4 Kwa-se 4 4 4 Se 3 3 3 Ki-s 2 2 2 Ki-sa 2 2 2 Ke 1 1 1 Ke-se 1 1 1 Kekun 1 1 1 Ki-ke 2 2 Ki-sa-k 1 1 Kofa 1 1 1 Li 1 1 1 Sa-va-kwa 1 1 1 Se-ki 1 1 Total 72 181 253 180 433

The status of ki in the final position of the wh-pronoun is the more interesting case considering Rottet’s (2006) analysis of ki in LC as a marker of focus and subjecthood and the general discussion around interrogative/focus markers in Creole languages. Ki occurs as the final element of a wh-expression such as ki-ki, ki-se-ki, se-ki, ki-moun-ki or kwa ki in 69 tokens in the MTAT corpus. This number includes clipped forms such as ki-sa-k, although these may strictly also allude to a final -ke form, but excludes the 207 occurrences of ki by itself. As the corpus contains 180 wh-subjects only 55 of which contain a final element ki, this is clearly not obligatory as a marker on wh-subjects in general. Neither is its use restricted to subject constituents as ki appears as the final element on 14 wh-object- pronouns. Of these nine have [+human] and five have [-human] referents. The LCDC contains ki-final forms as well, although infrequently with a total of four tokens. Sa-ki occurs three times, two of which are shortened to sa-k and there is one instance of ki-k. Three of these refer to [+human] subjects but the last one is in object function with a [-human] referent.

Table 7-7 Distribution of ki as the final element in wh-pronouns