Haitian Creole - Structure, Variation, Status, Origin - Albert Valdman
The Verbal System
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 8 begins with a discussion of the semantic information—tense, aspect, mood— carried by verbs. It continues with a presentation of the structural features that carry this information: verb markers and auxiliaries (verbs that, unlike verb markers, have more lexical than grammatical meaning and are related to autonomous verbs). Special consideration is given to the form pou that functions as a preposition, a verbal marker, and nominal and verbal complementizer. The final section presents serial verbs, a grammatical feature that is a salient feature of the HC verb system.