HUU-FA THESIS DAT?: A Syntactic Analysis of Possessive Jamaican Creole Possessive WH-elements

Author

Toni Ashlie Foster, Graduate Center, City University of New YorkFollow

Date of Degree

6-2014

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

M.A.

Program

Linguistics

Advisor

Marcel den Dikken

Subject Categories

Latin American Languages and Societies | Latin American Studies | Linguistics

Keywords

Creole, Jamaican, possessive, Syntax, Wh-element, who

Abstract

This thesis discusses the differences between the Jamaican Creole expressions huu-fa and fi-huu. Jamaican Creole is a language that was born from a combination of the lexifier language English and the substrate language Twi, therefore it is reasonable to check whether the features of JC were derived from these languages. The distribution of huu-fa and fi-huu resembles the distribution of English whose. Fi-huu and huu-fa are WH-elements that show possession, similar to the English word whose. They are made of a WH-pronoun and a form of the preposition fi "for". Both terms differ in internal structure, and distribution. The difference between huu-fa and fi-huu will be dissected in terms of substrate and superstrate influences as well as the elements involved in their formation. Ultimately, this thesis states that the internal structure of the PP huu-fa prevents it from appearing adnominally.

Recommended Citation

Foster, Toni Ashlie, "HUU-FA THESIS DAT?: A Syntactic Analysis of Possessive Jamaican Creole Possessive WH-elements" (2014). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/209