Levisen, Carsten & Bøegh, Kristoffer Friis (2017). Cognitive creolistics and semantic primes: A phylogenetic network analysis. In Peter Bakker, Finn Borchsenius, Carsten Levisen & Eeva Sippola (Eds.), Creole studies – Phylogenetic approaches (pp. 293-313). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/z.211.13lev. PDF (open access)
This study presents a semantically driven lexical comparison of 20 creole languages and five European lexifier languages. Breaking new ground into understanding creole semantics, it uses insights from both cognitive semantics (in particular, the Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach) and phylogenetic approaches to linguistics comparisons. The authors provide an extensive study of label-meaning correlations as a way to explore the relationship between word labels and word meanings across creoles and lexifiers. They conclude that creoles are not simply “versions” of their lexifier languages, and that it is misleading to say that creoles are “based” on European languages in their basic lexical-semantic configuration. At the same time, they find that creoles do relate more closely to their historical lexifiers than to other creoles, and that the lexical-semantic perspective adds a new dimension to the typology of creoles, nuancing the picture provided by grammar-based comparisons.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
