Phonologie du créole réunionnais: Unité et diversité by Gillette Staudacher-ValliaméeReview by: Tsutomu AkamatsuLa Linguistique, Vol. 30, Fasc. 2, Langage, sujet, lien social (1994), pp. 172-174Published by: Presses Universitaires de FranceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30249070 .

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172 La linguistique

Pekelder, les Pays-Bas; Urbana Santos-Pereira Bendiha, le Portugal; Maryvonne Akamatsu, le Royaume-Uni.

Chaque contribution nous apporte son lot de renseignements, divers, selon l'orientation de l'auteur. La derniere, celle de M. I. Cabezas Gonzalez examine l'tat de <<l'enseignement/apprentissage des langues etrangeres dans la CEE . Le bilan en est malheureusement negatif: <<il faut souligner les pourcentages de jeunes, [...] tres leves, qui ne sont meme pas capables de parler une langue. Le pourcentage communautaire est de 40 % >. Quant aux connaissances des adultes dans ce domaine, elles <<sont encore pires [et] largement insuffisantes, dans huit pays au moins, pour affronter les exigences du marche unique et pour jeter les fondations solides a la construction de l'Europe unie >, ce qu'a confirme la Commission des communautes en avril 1988 en disant que la situation 6tait << alarmante > (p. 184). L'auteur cite a ce sujet un rapport du juriste Paul Sabourin qui deji en 1979 avait mis <<le doigt sur la plaie >>, en argiiant,

' propos du

droit de circulation et d'6tablissement des personnes proclame au Titre III du traite de Rome, que <<la matirialisation et la concretisation de ce droit depen- dent etroitement de la maitrise d'une ou de plusieurs langues communautaires autres que la <<langue de depart (maternelle) (p. 185). A cet effet, il demande la mise au point d'un < reglement > organisant une < veritable politique linguis- tique commune ) qui permette enfin <<l'osmose entre les peuples de la Commu- naut >> (p. 186). Dans cette perspective l'ouvrage que viennent de publier les Presses universitaires de Valenciennes servira de vade-mecum linguistique et rappel- lera utilement que l'unicite de la monnaie n'est pas incompatible avec la pluraliti des langues.

Gillette Staudacher-Valliamee, Phonologie du creole rhunionnais: unitM et diversiti Paris, Peeters, 1992, xxii + 190 p.

Compte rendu par Tsutomu Akamatsu

This is, so far as I know, the latest welcome addition in a growing body of phonological analyses conducted in the spirit of dynamic synchrony which has established itself within the framework of functional linguistics. Staudacher- Valliamee (hereafter S-V.), herself a speaker of the Reunion Creole, collected data in 1980-1988 for this study with the help of 18 creole-speaking informants

(10 males and 8 females, born 1890-1957) during spontaneous conversations between S-V. and the informants on La Reunion itself. Each informant (idiolect) was recorded for 90 minutes.

S-V. chooses the phonological system of one of the idiolects as the point of reference (p. 25-61) - though without first telling the reader why this parti- cular idiolect is chosen - and then (p. 68-110), those of the remaining 17 idio- lects are compared with the above. We learn later (p. 149) that the idiolect thus chosen has the phonological system common to all the 18. The presentation of the phonological systems of the informants is generally clear, marred occasio-

nally by a number of misprints for symbols standing for distinctive units which it is hoped will be rectified in future editions, and also by certain recurrent notations combining phonetic and phonological tacts which can only be confu-

sing to the reader.

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Comptes rendus 173

S-V. observes that there is strong indication that the stable consonant system is the commonality among all the 18 idiolects, while the vowel system displays a good deal of flexibility. the sub-title of the book (unitM et diversitM) could probably be taken in this sense. The relevance of the factors of age, sex, profession and

geographical origin in the informants' idiolects is pointed out. It is emphasized above all (p. 173) that the 7 youngest of the informants exhibit the same richness in phonemes as the 11 informants older than they. S-V. witnesses neither addi- tion nor loss in the articulatory habits of any of her informants. There are substantial and interesting discussions (p. 111-145) conducted by S-V. about points that she perceives arise from her presentations of the 18 phonological systems. Here, the reader is immediately confronted with the practical inconvenience of

having to then look at p. 63 each time a given informant is mentioned by S-V. in order to first identify the informant and ther relook at the phonological system given on the relevant page(s). S-V. apparently fails to put herself in the shoes of the reader.

I have no reservations about the methodology employed in this study by S-V. On the other hand, I have a few reservations on points of theory. Just a few will be mentioned below. First, S-V. indicates here and there instances of neutralization and the associated archiphonemes, but she never, unfortuna-

tely, defines the archiphonemes in terms of relevant features and only refers to how the archiphonemes are realized. Secondly, S-V. elects to symbolize an archipho- neme by placing a horizontal stroke under a symbol which indicates the realiza- tion of the archiphoneme, not really the archiphoneme itself. The reader is baffled and confused to see S-V. say, for example, < [... l'opposition /f:/ - /f/ est neu-

tralisee.] L'archiphoneme consonantique se realise sous forme de consonnie brave /f/ ... > (p. 29) [Does /f/ in fact mean [f] or /f/ or /f - f:/?] or o L'archipho- neme [associated with the neutralization of /m/ - /b/] est de r6alisation nasale

longue /m:/... > (p. 39) [This is effectively a collapsing of a phonological nota- tion and a phonetic notation, which is confusing]. Thirdly, regarding the presen- tation of neutralization, I consider infelicitous a statement like v ... l'opposition /v:/ ~ /v/ se neutralise au profit de la consonne simple (cf. /v/). ) (p. 30), as the involvement of the expression 'au profit de ...' leads to misunderstanding about neutralization and should be eschewed. Fourthly, a few of S-V.'s analyses of neutralization seem dubious to me, and I will discuss just one of them here. S-V. talks about the neutralization of /d/ - /n/ in absolute final position after a nasal vowel, with the associated archiphoneme /n/' (p. 32), and subsequently about the neutralization of /d:/ - /n:/ and of /d:/ - /d/ (p. 33) (but she is never

explicit about the neutralization of /n/ - I/n:/) in the above-mentioned context, with again the associated archiphoneme being /n:/. It might at first glance seem then that S-V. is after ail talking about the neutralization of /d/ - /d:/ - /n/ - /n:/, with the associated archiphoneme which would be defi- nable as + apical >. On the other hand, S-V. tells us (p. 31) that in the above- mentioned context, there is also the neutralization of /t/ - /t:/, with the asso- ciated archiphoneme /t/ which would be definable as o apical non-nasal >. If

so, /d/ - /d:/ - /n/ - /n:/ cannot be an exclusive opposition (since o apical >> recurs in /t/ and /t:/) and therefore cannot be a neutralizable opposition. One thus reaches an impasse. I suggest the following re-analysis. [n:] which occurs in absolute final position after a nasal vowel is a realization of the archiphoneme /n-n:/ associated with the neutralization of /n/ - /n:/ and definable as <<nasal

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174 La linguistique

apical ). [t:] which occurs in the same context is a realization of the archipho- neme /t - t:/ - /d - d:/ associated with the neutralization of /t/ - /t:/ - /d/ - /d:/ and definable as << non-nasal apical> . Both /n/ - /n:/ (a simple opposition) and

/t/- /t:/-/d/-/d:/ (a multiple opposition) are exclusive oppositions, and /n - n:/ and /t- t: --d--d:/ are opposed to each other as well as to some other distinctive units in the same context. A similar reanalysis is required for the neutralization of the exclusive oppositions /p/ - /p:/ -/b/ - /b:/ and /m/ - /m:/ to replace S-V.'s analysis which seems dubious.

The question arises of course as to why S-V. is led to talk about the alleged neutralization of /d:/- I/n:/, /d:/- /d/ and /n/-/d/ (and preferably of

/n:/-/n/ as well) in a piecemeal fashion rather than that of /d/ - /d:/ - /n/ - /n:/. Why in this binaristic way? This point would also deserve some discussion.

The findings of S- V.'s phonological analysis of the Reunion Creole in this

study are very interesting and worthy of all functionalists attention. They demons- trate to the reader what the phonological systems of the speakers of this Creole

actually are, something that is simply not available in the substantial extant litera- ture attributable to non-practioners of dynamic synchrony on this and other creoles (and pidgins). I should say lastly that the provision of indexes would have been helpful.

Catherine E. Harre, Tener + past participle, A case study in linguistic description, Rout-

ledge, Londres et New York, 1991, 213 p.

Compte rendu par Cecilia Hare

Ce livre presente une etude synchronique et diachronique de la construction du verbe espagnol tener <<possider, avoir>> avec un participe pass&. Son but est, d'une part, de decrire synchroniquement toute l'6tendue des realisations possibles et de recenser leurs valeurs, et d'autre part, d'6tablir des liens entre ces risultats et l'ivolution historique de cette piriphrase verbale. L'etude va donc au-dela des limites de l'espagnol < general >, puisque, d'habitude, les deux unites en ques- tion sont accompagnmes d'un complement accusatif, le participe fonctionnant comme attribut de celui-ci, donc avec un participe passe soumis a l'accord.

Cette construction, meme si elle est relativement marginale du point de vue de la frequence, revet un interet certain aussi bien par sa complexite syntaxique que parce qu'elle est souvent rapprochee du systeme verbal. En effet, elle peut commuter avec le passe compose et elle est tres grammaticalisee.

Ainsi la question de l'existence de verbes <<auxiliaires>> autres que ceux qui participent exclusivement ta la conjugaison occupe une partie importante du livre. Les solutions proposees pour la langue espagnole par d'autres linguistes sont

passees en revue de maniere detaill~e et critique. Les travaux faits ' propos

du frangais et de l'anglais sont 6galement pris en consideration. S'il semble impos- sible d'etablir des limites claires entre les verbes << auxiliaires > et les autres puisque certains verbes sont plus auxiliaires que d'autres et puisque aucune des methodes

proposees pour les departager ne produit les resultats escomptes, Catherine Harre conclut que cette notion est utile : les verbes dits o auxiliaires >> permettent d'intro-

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