ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that Black English in the United States represents a case where extensive and nearly complete decreolization has obscured the Creole origins of the language. It discusses the recreolization, whereby a Creole becomes further removed from its superstrate. Derek Bickerton describes decreolization as a process which occurs whenever a Creole language is in direct contact with its superstrate. A characteristic feature of this process is the emergence of a linguistic continuum of varieties between the Creole language and the standard language which was the main contributor to the Creole's formation, eg the Guyanese post-Creole continuum. The chapter looks at how decreolization affects the distribution of tense and aspect across the Creole continuum. T. L. Markey, for instance, tries to explain what happens to the copula in decreolization by appealing to semantic factors. Markey, for example, estimates that thirty years in the life-cycle of a Creole might well be equivalent to three centuries in the life-cycle of a non-Creole.
