John H. McWhorter, Towards a new model of creole genesis. (Studies in ethnolinguistics, 3.) New York: Lang, 1997. Pp. xiii, 199. Hb $44.95.

Abstract

This is an informative and quite stimulating book, which offers a detailed look at the nature of creole genesis with particular emphasis on the emergence of Saramaccan (SM), one of the maroon creoles spoken in Suriname. McWhorter describes himself in the preface as a member of the third generation of creolists – a generation not afraid to challenge the conventional wisdom in the field, or to offer alternative theories. This book has the rather ambitious aim of proposing a “systematic account of creolization which integrates a number of the processes which creolists have identified as contributing the structural form of these languages” (10). In pursuing it, McWhorter re-examines two key areas of SM syntax – serial verb constructions and the copula system – to support his own eclectic view of creole formation. Despite the date of publication, the book is essentially the same as McWhorter's doctoral dissertation, completed in 1993. Hence it is somewhat dated, and omits mention of much recent and current work on creole genesis.