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benjamins.com>Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 15:1 (2000) � John Benjamins Publishing Company ARTICLES Thomas A. Klingler (1) Louisiana creole: The multiple-geneses hypothesis reconsidered Jeffrey P. Williams (37) YImas-Alamblak Tanim Tok: An indigenous trade pidgin of New Guinea Donald Winford (63) Irrealis in Sranan: Mood and modality in a radical creole COLUMN Claire Lefebvre (127) What do creole studies have to offer to mainstream linguistics? OBITUARY Philip Baker (155) Chris Corne 1942--1999 SHORT NOTE Armin Schwegler (159) On the (sensational) survival of Kikongo in 20th-century Cuba Peter Snow (165) The case for diglossia on the Panamanian island of Bastimentos Emmanuel Nikiema (171) Lexical and epenthetic initial vowels in Haitian Creole Marilyn P. Mason (179) Automated Creole orthography conversion Eduardo Faingold (185) Developmental theory through the looking glass: A reply to John Lipski BOOK REVIEWS Mikael Parkvall (189) Review of Language contact in the Arctic. Northern pidgins and contact languages, ed. by Ernst H�kon Jahr and Ingvild Broch Albert Valdman (199) Review of Haitian-English dictionary, by Bryant C. Freeman and Jowel Laguerre John S. Lumsden (205) Review of A learner's dictionary of Haitian Creole, by Albert Valdman in collaboration with Charles Pooser and Rozevel Jean-Baptiste Carla Luijks (207) Review of Die Creol Taal: 250 years of Negerhollands texts, by Cefas van Rossem and Hein van der Voort Frederic G. Cassidy (212) Review of Dictionary of Caribbean English usage, by Richard Allsopp Charles Boberg (216) Review of Language variety in the South revisited, ed. by Cynthia Bernstein, Thomas Nunnally, and Robin Sabino Bernard Comrie (221) Review of Creolization and language change, ed. by Dany Adone and Ingo Plag Alain Kihm (225) Review of Mat�riaux pour l'�tude des classes grammaticales dans les langues cr�oles, ed. by Daniel V�ronique REVIEW ARTICLE Silvia Kouwenberg (229) Review of The art of remembering: The Lumbal� of Palenque and the genesis of Palenquero, a review of "Chi ma ^nkongo": Lengua y rito ancestrales en El Palenque de San Basilio, by Armin Schwegler LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (239) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ABSTRACTS: Thomas A. Klingler Louisiana creole: The multiple-geneses hypothesis reconsidered Two explanations have been proposed in recent years to account for regional variation in Louisiana Creole. One holds that the language had a single origin along the Mississippi River in the 18th century, after which it spread to other regions where, depending on the sociolinguistic circumstances, it diverged to varying degrees from its original form. According to an alternative hypothesis proposed by Speedy (1994, 1995), there were two origins for Louisiana Creole, the first in the Mississippi Valley and the second in the region of Bayou Teche, to the west of the Atchafalaya Basin. The Creole of Bayou Teche was, according to Speedy, crucially influenced in the course of its development by input from Haitian Creole. Based on an examination of the linguistic and demographic evidence, some of which has only recently come to light, I conclude that the scenario of a single genesis, followed by spread and divergence, is the more plausible one. I further show that features that could possibly be traced to direct influence from Haitian Creole are more numerous in the Mississippi region than in the Teche region, making it unlikely that Haitian Creole played an important role in creole development along Bayou Teche. In concluding, I sketch out an account of the origin of Louisiana Creole that seeks to reconcile the notion of a single genesis with the likelihood that highly variable contact varieties of French were being spoken throughout the settled parts of Louisiana from the earliest years of colonization. Jeffrey P. Williams YImas-Alamblak Tanim Tok: An indigenous trade pidgin of New Guinea The Yimas-Alamblak trade pidgin, known as Tanim Tok in the Sepik River region variety of Tok Pisin, once functioned to accomplish regular exchange between the adult male members of the paympan clan of Yimas and their patrilineally-inherited Alamblak trading partners in the Sepik River region of insular New Guinea. The trade language is a pidginized form of the Papuan language Yimas, having significant input from the closely related Karawari language as well as exhibiting influence from Alamblak and other Papuan languages of the area. The language is now moribund and the data presented here is the only systematic linguistic documentation that will likely ever appear on this pidgin. Knowledge about language contact in this region of the world will enhance theories concerning the social and cultural factors which direct and motivate linguistic pidginization. Donald Winford Irrealis in Sranan: Mood and modality in a radical creole Since Bickerton's (1974, 1981) arguments in favor of a prototypical creole TMA system, it has become almost the norm among most creolists to refer to the category which expresses futurity in Caribbean English Creole and other creoles as "irrealis." This label is clearly inappropriate, since it suggests that the meaning of futurity is subsumed along with other semantic notions under a unitary category of irrealis mood. According to Bickerton (1975, p. 42) irrealis mood refers to "unreal time" --- that is, futures and conditionals, "subjunctives," and so on. With few exceptions, creolists have tended to accept Bickerton's claim that these are manifestations of the same category. The fact is that all creoles distinguish future tense categories from others which express different types of irrealis meaning associated with mood and modality. The present paper employs frameworks from Bybee, Perkins, and Pagliuca (1994), Palmer (1986), and others to present an informal, pre-theoretical account of the semantics of modality in Sranan. I describe the modal categories of Sranan, and the way various auxiliaries are used to convey both deontic and epistemic meanings. I also discuss the way modal meanings are conveyed in conditionals and other subordinate clauses, particularly those traditionally associated with subjunctive mood. The analysis offered here provides a basis for comparison with other creoles, to determine the degree of similarity and difference among their systems of modality. John Benjamins Publishing Co. Offices: Philadelphia Amsterdam: Websites: http://www.benjamins.com http://www.benjamins.nl E-mail: serviceMail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue