Subjunctive complements in the English-lexifier creoles of Africa and the Americas

Abstract

The stratal-areal contact model (Yakpo 2017b; 2020d; Yakpo & Smith 2020) suggests that contact with African adstrates has reinforced and expanded “African” areal features in the Afro-Caribbean English- lexifier Creoles (AECs) of Africa. On the other hand, the absence of contact with African adstrates has led to a weakening of African areal features in the American AECs while contact with European superstrates (English, Dutch and Spanish) has led to the expansion of “European” areal features in the AECs spoken in the Americas. I explore formal and functional aspects of the subjunctive mood in the AECs through the lens of areal typology. In the AECs, subjunctive mood is instantiated in a modal complementizer that is a reflex of the English causative verb make as well as the TAM marking properties of the subjunctive complement clause. Subjunctive mood appears in insubordinate directive main clauses, the subordinate clauses of deontic modality inducing main verbs, as well as purpose and result clauses. The distribution of subjunctive in a dozen AECs across the Atlantic Basin confirms the stratal-areal hypothesis. It offers fascinating insights into the general mechanisms of genealogical differentiation and areal convergence in multilingual linguistic ecologies. The formal and functional properties of subjunctive mood in the AECs also invite discussing the vexed question of the evolution of morphological complexity in (contact) languages and underlines the importance of engaging with creoles in a nuanced and cautious way, taking into account the vastly differing social ecologies and typological constellations they evolve in.