If I could turn my tongue like that: the Creole language of Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana

1029 Pages·12.713 MB·English

by  Thomas A. Klingler.

If I Could Turn My Tongue Like
That
Thomas Klingler
Begin Content
IF I COULD TURN MY TONGUE Like That
Thomas A. Klingler
IF I COULD TURN MY TONGUE
Like That
THE CREOLE LANGUAGE OF
POINTE COUPEE PARISH, LOUISIANA
Copyright © 2003 by Thomas A. Klingler
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
First printing
12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 5 4 3 2 1
Designer: Amanda McDonald Scallan
Typeface: Minion
Typesetter: Coghill Composition Co., Inc.
Printer and Binder: Thomson-Shore, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Klingler, Thomas A.
If I could turn my tongue like that: the Creole Language of Pointe
Coupee Parish, Louisiana /
Thomas A. Klingler.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8071-2779-5 (cloth: alk. paper)
1. Creole dialects, French—Louisiana—Pointe Coupee Parish. 2.
Louisiana—History—To
1803. I. Title.
PM7854.L6 K57 2003
447′.9763454—dc21 2002040631
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and
durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book
Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.
This book was published with the assistance of a grant from the
Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, the state affiliate of the
National Endowment for the Humanities.
To my parents,Charles and Susie Klingler
Contents
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations and Symbols
Maps
Introduction
PART I Sociohistorical Background
Chapter 1 • Colonial Louisiana
1.1 Exploration and Early Settlement of Louisiana
1.2 Slaves
1.3 Economic Activity and Social Relations
1.4 Population Growth in the Spanish Period
1.4.1 Europeans
1.4.2 Re-Africanization Under Spanish Rule
1.4.3 Geographic Distribution of the Slave Population
Chapter 2 • The Development of Louisiana Creole
2.1 Evidence from Early Texts
2.2 The Creolization Process
2.3 The Question of African Influence on Louisiana Creole
2.4 The Question of Multiple Geneses of Louisiana Creole
Chapter 3 • Pointe Coupee Parish
3.1 The Setting
3.2 Exploration and Early Settlement
3.3 Development of a Plantation Economy and Growth of the Slave
Population
3.4 Americanization
3.5 Creole Among Whites
3.6 The Dominance of English in the Post-War Period
3.6.1 The Mechanization of Agriculture
3.6.2 Education
3.7 Louisiana Creole in a Broader Francophone Context
3.8 Creole and English in Pointe Coupee
3.9 The Effects of Language Loss
PART II Grammatical Description
Chapter 4 • Preliminaries
4.1 Methodology
4.2 Speakers Consulted for the Study
4.3 English Words
4.4 The Phonological System of Louisiana Creole and the Notation
of Creole Sounds
4.4.1 Consonants
4.4.2 Semiconsonants
4.4.3 Vowels
4.5 The Division of Lexical Units
4.6 Editing of Transcribed Speech
4.7 Descriptive Framework
Chapter 5 • The Noun Phrase
5.1 Nouns
5.1.1 Nouns with an Agglutinated Element
5.1.1.1 Group 1: l-, n-,z-
5.1.1.2 Group 2: la-, le-
5.1.1.3 Group 3: di-, du- and de-, dez-
5.1.2 Unagglutinated Nouns
5.1.3 A Cross-Creole Comparison of Agglutination
5.1.4 Gender
5.1.5 Number
5.2 Determiners
5.2.1 Indefinite Determiners
5.2.2 Definite Determiners
5.2.2.1 Functions of the Determiners
5.2.2.1.1 The Marking of Specificity
5.2.2.1.2 Deictic Properties of the Definite Determiners
5.2.2.2 A Cross-Creole Comparison of Definite/Deictic Determiners
5.2.3 Demonstrative Determiners
5.2.3.1 A Cross-Creole Comparison of Demonstrative Determiners
5.2.4 Possessive Determiners
5.2.4.1 A Cross-Creole Comparison of Possessive Determiners
5.2.5 Quantifying Determiners
5.2.6 Cardinal Numbers
5.3 Adjectives
5.3.1 Prenominal Adjectives
5.3.1.1 Descriptive Adjectives
5.3.1.2 Indefinite Adjectives
5.3.1.3 Ordinal Numbers
5.3.2 Postnominal Adjectives
5.4 Pronouns
5.4.1 Personal Pronouns
5.4.1.1 A Cross-Creole Comparison of Personal Pronouns/ 212
5.4.2 Possessive Pronouns
5.4.2.1 A Cross-Creole Comparison of Possessive Pronouns
5.4.3 Demonstrative Pronouns
5.4.4 Indefinite Pronouns
5.4.5 Relative Pronouns
5.4.5.1 Relative Clauses with Explicit Antecedents
5.4.5.2 Relative Clauses with No Explicit Antecedent
5.4.5.3 Relativized Prepositional Objects
5.4.5.4 Relativization of Nouns of Place
5.4.5.5 Relativization of Nouns of Time
5.4.5.6 Genitive Relative Clauses
Chapter 6 • The Verb Phrase
6.1. Verb Morphology
6.1.1 Diachronic and Regional Comparisons
6.1.2 Verbs in Pointe Coupee
6.1.2.1 The Distribution of Long and Short Forms in Pointe Coupee
6.1.2.2 Verb Forms
6.1.2.2.1 Verbs with Multiple Forms
6.1.2.2.2 Verbs with a Single Form
6.1.3. A Cross-Creole Comparison of Long and Short Verb Forms
6.2 Preverbal Markers of Tense, Mood, and Aspect
6.2.1 A Note Concerning Grammatical Tense
6.2.2 Marked and Unmarked Verbs
6.2.3 The Anterior Marker te
6.2.4 The Progressive Markers e and ape, ap
6.2.5 The Future Markers a and sa
6.2.6 The Conditional Marker se
6.2.7 The Marker bin
6.2.8 A Cross-Creole Comparison of Preverbal Markers
6.3 Auxiliary Verbs
6.4 Causative Constructions
6.5 The Copula
6.5.1 Zero-Copula Structures
6.5.2 Se
6.5.2.1 Se as Copula
6.5.2.2 Presentative se
6.5.3 The Copula ye
6.5.4 The Copula èt, ete
6.5.5 Other Copulative Verbs
6.5.6 A Cross-Creole Comparison of the Copula
6.6 Reflexive Verbs
6.6.1. A Cross-Creole Comparison of Reflexive Verbs
6.7 Impersonal Expressions
6.7.1 Existential Expressions
6.7.2 Other Impersonal Expressions
6.8 Verbs in Serial-like Constructions
6.9 The Imperative
6.10 The Passive
6.11 Comparison
6.11.1 Expression of Inequality
6.11.2 Equality
6.12 Negation
6.13 Interrogative Structures
6.13.1 Yes-or-No Questions
6.13.2 Partial Questions
6.13.2.1 Interrogative Pronouns
6.13.2.2 The Interrogative Adjective ki ‘what, which’
6.13.2.3 Interrogative Words as Objects of Prepositions
6.13.2.4 Interrogative Adverbs
6.14 Adverbs
6.14.1 Adverbs of Time
6.14.2 Adverbs of Place
6.14.3 Adverbs of Manner
6.14.4 Adverbs of Degree, Quantity
6.14.5 Interrogative Adverbs
6.14.6 Negative Adverbs
6.14.7 Other Adverbs
6.15 Prepositions
6.15.1 Circumstantial Complements Not Introduced by a Preposition
6.15.2 The Preposition d, dè
6.15.3 Prepositions of Time