The Syntax of Cape Verdean Creole: The Sotavento Varieties (review)

Written to promote a better understanding of Cape Verdean Creole (CVC), this study combines work from the author’s dissertation (Harvard, 1997) with an analysis of more recent data collected in the Cape Verde Islands. In it Baptista, a speaker of this creole, uses the framework of generative grammar, primarily the minimalist program, to analyze Barlavento and Sotavento varieties of CVC. The latter include four basilects, among which is the language of the Rabeladu (‘rebels’), a largely monolingual group relatively inaccessible to outsiders. The book includes eight chapters and a CD.

Ch. 1 (1–11) serves as an introduction. Here B shares details concerning her fieldwork procedure and database construction. This includes an account of topics covered in interviews and a summary of the personal data she collected from CVC-speaking collaborators.

Ch. 2 (13–21) highlights sociohistorical factors important in understanding the genesis of CVC. B gives attention to CVC’s development prior to Portugal’s political decline at the end of the sixteenth century, arguing that speakers shaped it via L1 and L2 acquisition. She points out that traders exported many slaves from Cape Verde to the Americas and discusses specific groups that acted as key intermediaries in the transfer of their language to Guinea-Bissau.

Ch. 3 (23–74) covers three main topics: the full noun phrase, the pronominal system, and adjectival predicates. In discussing the determiner system, B shows that indefinite determiners can precede nonreferential NPs. Her data also inspire a fascinating discussion of pluralization strategies. Finally, B demonstrates that principled licensing conditions determine suffixation on nominal stems.

Ch. 4 (75–138) examines two main topics: the CVC verb phrase and lexical categories. This dual approach helps account for the multiple functions of T(ense)M(ood)A(spect) markers. A particularly thought-provoking assertion made here concerns the existence of two interpretations of ta in CVC, one as infinitival marker and the other as a marker of aspect/mood.

Basic syntactic patterns of this SVO language are reviewed in Ch. 5 (139–57). Topics covered include object constructions, secondary predicates, subject-verb inversion, topicalization, and questions. This discussion serves as a basis for B’s offering of a set of CVC functional categories in Ch. 6 (159–67). Templates of TMA patterns are presented, and additionally, B posits that CVC has a split IP and a biclausal structure.

Chs. 7 and 8 each strike an impressive and illuminating balance between empirical data and syntactic theory. Ch. 7 (169–211) examines verbal syntax, probing theories of V-raising, especially the link between verbal morphology and movement. B invokes a learnability perspective to suggest that CVC verbs move even though the language is characterized by the absence of elaborate verbal morphology and subject-verb agreement.

The final chapter (213–67) has three main parts. It begins with a description of the distribution of clitics and nonclitics. Next, B argues for the division of CVC pronominals into three classes: strong forms, weak forms, and clitics; she also reviews four categories of CVC clitics. Finally, showing that subject clitics are syntactic clitics, B concludes that CVC is a radical pro-drop language. Well-written and insightful, this book achieves its goals and emerges as an excellent model for work to be done on other creole languages.