Subordinate constructions in English-lexifier Creoles: Adverbial Complementation

International audience Cross-clausal phenomena have received comparatively little attention in research on Creoles. There is work on purpose clauses, relative clauses and fact-type complements focusing on their general description (e.g. Winford 1985) and topics such as finiteness (Byrne 1987; van der Vate & Veenstra 2016) and substrate influence (Migge & Winford 2013; Huttar et al. 2013; Lefebvre & Loranger 2008), for example, and research has focused on the Creoles of Suriname, particularly Saamaka. It shows, for example, that there are interesting similarities but also differences with some of the main input languages, English and Gbe. Interestingly, adverbial subordination, except for purpose clauses, has received little attention. The aim of this presentation is thus to begin to close this gap through a descriptive analysis.After an overview of subordinate constructions in three English-lexifier Creoles, Nenge(e) or the Eastern Maroon Creoles, Vincentian Creole and Naijá based on the scroll resource (Manfredi et al 2023), we zoom in on a selection of subordinate clauses: temporal clauses, reason clauses, as well as clauses expressing reality conditions. We also examine the order of main-subordinate clauses, the devices and internal structure of the subordinate clause, comparing Creole and English constructions.