Books by Diana M Guillemin
Within the framework of Chomsky's Minimalism and Formal Semantics, this work documents the develo... more Within the framework of Chomsky's Minimalism and Formal Semantics, this work documents the development of the Mauritian Creole (MC) determiner system from the mid th century to the present. Guillemin proposes that the loss of the French quantificational determiners, which agglutinated to nouns, resulted in the occurrence of bare nouns in argument positions. is triggered a shi in noun denotation, from predicative in French to argumental in MC, and accounts for the very different determiner systems of the creole and its lexifier. MC nouns are lexically stored as Kind denoting terms, that share some of the distributional properties of English bare plurals. New MC determiners are analyzed as 'type shi ing operators' that shi Kinds into predicates, and serve to establish the referential properties of noun phrases. e analysis provides evidence for the universality of semantic features like Definiteness and Specificity, and the mapping of their form and function.
Papers by Diana M Guillemin
Multifunctional 'la' in Mauritian Creole, 2014
This paper proposes that the Specificity marker la and the clausal determiner la have parallel f... more This paper proposes that the Specificity marker la and the clausal determiner la have parallel forms and functions within the Mauritian Creole (MC) noun phrase (DP) and clause (CP) respectively. Within the DP, la serves to mark anaphoric definiteness and has scope over the Definiteness Phrase (DefP). Within the CP, la functions as a sentential adverb which scopes over the Tense Phrase (TP) and serves to indicate the certainty, or imminent occurrence of an event.
To the best of my knowledge, la has never been analyzed as a clausal operator in MC, although clausal determiners have been identified in Haitian Creole (HC) by Lefebvre (1992, 1998) and Lefebvre & Ritter (1993) who point to substrate influence, and Larson (2003) who provides a quantificational analysis of the clause final particle an in HC, which I adopt for my analysis of MC clause final la.
The aim of my inquiry is also to determine if the left periphery is more developed/active in languages with phonologically null operators. For example, the specificity marker la in MC has been identified as a morphosyntactic requirement to license the null definite article in certain syntactic environments (Guillemin 2011, 2014). The need for a sentential adverb, functioning as a clausal operator may similarly be attributed to the lack of a copula bearing finite Tense features.
Se li sa! 'That's it!' Is Mauritian Creole a Topic prominent language? Paper presented at the Formal Approaches to Creole Studies 4 (FACS-4) - Paris November 6-7 2014, 2014
This paper presents data from Mauritian Creole (MC) to argue that the creole is a Topic prominent... more This paper presents data from Mauritian Creole (MC) to argue that the creole is a Topic prominent (Tp) language, unlike its lexifier, French, which is a Subject prominent (Sp) language. The loss of quantificational operators in the process of creolization triggered this typological shift. Characteristics of Tp languages which are found in MC include 'subjectless' sentences, lack of expletives and limited use of passives. The paper comprises an analysis of three pronouns, 'li', 'se' and 'sa' which serve to license Topic-Comment constructions.
This paper was presented at the Formal Approaches to Creole Studies 4 (FACS-4) - Paris November 6-7 2014
Sage Open 3/4: 1–14 DOI: 10.1177/2158244013507270 , Oct 11, 2013
While advantages of literacy in the home language have been widely documented, the Australian edu... more While advantages of literacy in the home language have been widely documented, the Australian education system has not been proactive in providing institutional support for its development. This paper investigates the impact of (il)literacy in the home language on the academic, affective, and social development of bilingual/multilingual children and proposes principles that home-language-literacy programs should meet to be effective. It discusses programs that, although designed to develop literacy or second-language proficiency mainly in classroom contexts, could be easily adapted to address the needs of the linguistically and culturally diverse Australian context. We argue that the cost of not investing in successful home-language-literacy programs will be higher in the long run than their implementation costs and recommend that Australia should consider supporting grassroots home-language-literacy programs in a push to improve overall literacy outcomes for Australian home-language speakers.
Mauritian Creole (MC), a French-lexifier creole which has been underrepresented in many studies o... more Mauritian Creole (MC), a French-lexifier creole which has been underrepresented in many studies of Creole morphosyntactic typology. , most of which have previously been assembled as being diagnostic of a language's creole status, are presented here with examples from contemporary MC. MC sentences from sets of comparative creolistic sentences in Hancock (1975Hancock ( , 1987 are presented in Appendix A. The material demonstrates abundantly that MC exhibits the vast majority of features which have been deemed typical of creole languages over the past four decades.
International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, May 28, 2015
International Journal of Multilingualism, Volume 12, Issue 2, 162-177, Feb 17, 2015
Australia is a country of high linguistic diversity, with more than 300 languages spoken. Today, ... more Australia is a country of high linguistic diversity, with more than 300 languages spoken. Today, 19% of the population aged over 5 years speak a language other than English at home. Against this background, we examine government policies and prominent initiatives developed at national level in the past 30 years to address the challenge of offering ‘Literacy for all’, in particular focusing on minority language speaking children. Across the examined policies and initiatives, a distinct negative correlation can be observed: the more multilingual Australia has become, the more assimilationist the policies, and the more monolingual the orientation of the society that governments have sought to establish through policy. We argue that to enhance literacy outcomes more generally, this orientation needs to be reversed. We explain why policy understanding and approach need to instead promote the maintenance of home languages and support literacy acquisition in these languages.
International Journal of Multilingualism, Vol. 12, Issue 2, 151-161, Feb 11, 2015
The image on the front cover has been cropped from an image on the front cover of a brochure enti... more The image on the front cover has been cropped from an image on the front cover of a brochure entitled 'The Slave route', published by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) (nd.). It is available at
als.asn.au
Early in the genesis of Mauritian Creole (MC), the French definite articles le/la incorporated in... more Early in the genesis of Mauritian Creole (MC), the French definite articles le/la incorporated into a large number of the nouns that they modified, resulting in the occurrence of bare nouns in argument positions, yielding (in)definite, singular, plural and generic interpretations. These changes triggered a parametric shift in noun denotation, from predicative in French to argumental in MC, and account for the fact that MC has a very different determiner system from that of French. I argue that MC nouns are Kind denoting terms, which share some of the distributional properties of English bare plurals, namely, their ability to function as arguments without a determiner. The new MC indefinite singular article enn and the plural marker bann are analyzed as operators that assign existential quantification over Kind denoting nouns. I provide evidence that MC has a null definite determiner equivalent to the French definite articles le/la and English the. The Specificity marker la in MC serves to license the null definite determiner in some syntactic environments. Some of these exceptions include coordinated nouns, e.g. Père et fils se ressemblent 'Father and son look alike'. We also find bare nominal arguments in fused expressions, such as proverbs, e.g.
... Access Statistics: 37 Abstract Views - Detailed Statistics. Created: Mon, 13 Jul 2009, 10:53:... more ... Access Statistics: 37 Abstract Views - Detailed Statistics. Created: Mon, 13 Jul 2009, 10:53:06 EST by Diana Guillemin on behalf of School of English, Media Studies and Art History - Detailed History. The University of Queensland. ...
The University of Queensland Working Papers in …, Jan 1, 2007
This paper argues that at a particular stage in the genesis of Mauritian Creole (MC), the 3sg pos... more This paper argues that at a particular stage in the genesis of Mauritian Creole (MC), the 3sg possessive pronoun so, inherited from the French son, was used as a definite determiner as well as a possessive pronoun. It was used when there was a need to single out a unique element in the discourse, or to introduce a new referent which was to become the focus of attention. So was mostly used with genitive constructions, where a phonologically null determiner, represented as δ, was equally grammatical, as shown in and . In both instances, the modified NP is singular and [+definite]:
Mauritian Creole (MC) is a French lexifier creole whose substrates in the early stages of creoliz... more Mauritian Creole (MC) is a French lexifier creole whose substrates in the early stages of creolization included Kwa languages of West Africa, Bantu languages of East Africa, as well as Malagasy. Most of the MC lexicon is from French and the creole has retained the strict ...
... Introduction.doc, Introduction, application/msword, 61.5KB, 177. Author(s), Guillemin, Diana.... more ... Introduction.doc, Introduction, application/msword, 61.5KB, 177. Author(s), Guillemin, Diana. Title of chapter, Definiteness and Specificity in Mauritian Creole: A syntactic and semantic overview. ... Q-Index Code, B1. Additional Notes, D. Guillemin has authored 2 chapters in this book ...
Early in the genesis of Mauritian Creole (MC), the quantificational determiners of its lexifier l... more Early in the genesis of Mauritian Creole (MC), the quantificational determiners of its lexifier language, French, incorporated into a large number of the nouns that they combined with, resulting in the occurrence of bare nouns in argument positions, yielding (in)definite, singular, ...
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Books by Diana M Guillemin
Papers by Diana M Guillemin
To the best of my knowledge, la has never been analyzed as a clausal operator in MC, although clausal determiners have been identified in Haitian Creole (HC) by Lefebvre (1992, 1998) and Lefebvre & Ritter (1993) who point to substrate influence, and Larson (2003) who provides a quantificational analysis of the clause final particle an in HC, which I adopt for my analysis of MC clause final la.
The aim of my inquiry is also to determine if the left periphery is more developed/active in languages with phonologically null operators. For example, the specificity marker la in MC has been identified as a morphosyntactic requirement to license the null definite article in certain syntactic environments (Guillemin 2011, 2014). The need for a sentential adverb, functioning as a clausal operator may similarly be attributed to the lack of a copula bearing finite Tense features.
This paper was presented at the Formal Approaches to Creole Studies 4 (FACS-4) - Paris November 6-7 2014
To the best of my knowledge, la has never been analyzed as a clausal operator in MC, although clausal determiners have been identified in Haitian Creole (HC) by Lefebvre (1992, 1998) and Lefebvre & Ritter (1993) who point to substrate influence, and Larson (2003) who provides a quantificational analysis of the clause final particle an in HC, which I adopt for my analysis of MC clause final la.
The aim of my inquiry is also to determine if the left periphery is more developed/active in languages with phonologically null operators. For example, the specificity marker la in MC has been identified as a morphosyntactic requirement to license the null definite article in certain syntactic environments (Guillemin 2011, 2014). The need for a sentential adverb, functioning as a clausal operator may similarly be attributed to the lack of a copula bearing finite Tense features.
This paper was presented at the Formal Approaches to Creole Studies 4 (FACS-4) - Paris November 6-7 2014