Guyanais vs. Gardiol: Broken transmission vs. grammatical continuity

Abstract

Inherent to the debate on creole genesis is the question of grammatical continuity between creoles and their lexifier languages. This issue, in turn, relates to the disputed claim that creoles descend from pidgins: proponents of that claim postulate a negligible degree of grammatical transmission from the lexifier into the creole and no genetic relatedness between them; opponents claim the reverse. To shed light on the issue, this article compares two contact varieties (Guyanais, a French-lexified creole, and Gardiol, a diaspora variety of Occitan) to their respective lexifiers. The comparison shows that although Guyanais and Gardiol can both be called contact varieties, the latter has clearly inherited the grammar of its lexifier, whereas the former gives the appearance of a break in transmission, as predicted by the pidgin-creole cycle theory.