Indo-Aryan Influence in Mauritian Creole

Syea, A. 2025. Indo-Aryan Influence in Mauritian Creole. in: Alleesaib, M. and Lefort, J. (ed.) New perspectives on Mauritian Creole and Reunion Creole: standardization, grammar and language use Amsterdam John Benjamins Publishing Company. pp. 135-183

Chapter titleIndo-Aryan Influence in Mauritian Creole
AuthorsSyea, A.
EditorsAlleesaib, M. and Lefort, J.
Abstract

This paper looks at possible Indo-Aryan influence on the grammar of Mauritian Creole. Although several Indo-Aryan languages have been in close contact with Mauritian Creole for almost two hundred years, they appear to have had only minimal impact on its syntax. So far, the NP so NP genitives (Corne 1986) and the semantics of certain prepositions (Kriegel et al. 2008) have been identified as having been influenced by the Indo-Aryan languages. This paper revisits the NP so NP genitives and looks at three other aspects of Mauritian Creole syntax, viz., null subjects of finite
transitive clauses, subject-less finite clauses with topic object, and the obligatory presence of a second subject pronoun in serial verb constructions and argues that these may have been modelled on, or reinforced by, parallel
structures in Indo-Aryan languages. This paper then contributes to our understanding of the development of Mauritian Creole syntax as well as supports the thesis that in language contact situations syntax is also susceptible to external influence although not to the same extent as
phonology and morphology (Thomason and Kaufman 1988; Heine and Kuteva 2005).

KeywordsIndo-Aryan influence
NP so NP genitives
null impersonal subjects
topic sentences
serial verbs
Book titleNew perspectives on Mauritian Creole and Reunion Creole: standardization, grammar and language use
Page range135-183
Year2025
PublisherJohn Benjamins Publishing Company
Place of publicationAmsterdam
SeriesCreole Language Library
ISBN9789027219190
9789027246196
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1075/coll.61.05sye
File

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