Haitian Creole - Structure, Variation, Status, Origin - Albert Valdman
Basic Sentence Structure
Haitian Creole - Structure, Variation, Status, Origin - Albert Valdman
Albert Valdman [+]
Indiana University
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Albert Valdman is director of the Creole Institute at Indiana University and is a leading international specialist in French-based creoles. He is the author of one of the major works in the field, Le Créole: Structure, statut et origine (1978) and basic reference works for Louisiana Creole and Haitian Creole, in particular, the Haitian Creole-English Bilingual Dictionary (2007).
Description
Chapter 7 opens with one of the central features of the language, the fact that many words serve multiple grammatical categories (multifunctionality). It then presents the structure of simple sentences: sentences formed with introducers, copula-type sentences, sentences with predicates containing transitive and intransitive verbs, and those with double objects. A section is devoted to middle verbs, which enter into constructions equivalent to French and English passive sentences. The final section deals with a notable structural feature of HC: the sentence-final emphatic markers wi and non.