Arabic Linguistics

of tone to distinguish morphosyntactic distinctions [emphasis added]‖. He
concludes that in creole languages ―tones tend to be phonological ones [emphasis
added]‖ (McWhorter 2000: 90). As he more recently puts it ―a creole, having
existed for five hundred years max, has yet to amass much 'crud'‖ (McWhorter
2003: 206). Consequently, ―[c]reoles [have] little or no tone distinguishing words
or expressing grammar [emphasis added]‖ (McWhorter 2003: 206).
Let me examine the validity of the above claims in light of data from JA
and N. Consider first JA, a pidgin developed by speakers of tonal languages 9 ,
which thus satisfies McWhorter‘s criterion. Vincent (1986: 74) writes that ―there
are clear tonal contrasts‖. Tone encodes, among others, the distinction between
transitive verbs, verbal nouns and passive constructions 10 , as shown in (53), (54)
and (55) respectively:
(53) Úo kúruju. (Miller 2002: 32)
H L L
he farm
‗He farms.‘
(54) Kurúju dé sókol ta náse jídu ta nína. (Miller 2002: 32)
L H L
farming DET work GEN ancestor GEN we
‗Farming is the work of our ancestor.‘
(55) Maal de kurujú. (Miller 2002: 32)
L L H
place DET farm
‗This place has been farmed.‘
Next, consider N, a creole descended from a pidgin and which is young,
since it must have emerged certainly after 1854 if not after 1888 (Miller 2002: 26,
Wellens 2003: 24-34). Therefore, N also meets the requirement formulated by
McWhorter.
In N too as far as tones are concerned ―the grammatical distinction is
uncontroversial‖, according to Prokosch (1986: 64). One morphosyntactic
distinction encoded by tone is that between singular and plural in ―nouns ending
in -a, which do not take a plural suffix‖ (Pasch and Thelwall 1987: 106–107).
Consider the following examples:
(56) ğúa (Prokosch 1986: 640
HL
‗house‘
33