Abstract Objects in Creole Languages. A Study on Guadeloupean Creole and Other French-based Creoles

The term abstract objects is introduced in linguistics by the metaphysical and logical tradition, to designate entities characterized by the absence of some fundamental physical properties, such as space-temporal localization,  the ability to form cause-effect processes or the sensory perceptibility. The purpose of the book is to give an account of some particular strategies by which French-based creole languages deal with the linguistic encoding of abstract objects, when they are expressed in morphosyntactic formats of name, adjective predicate and completive clause. Three case studies are presented. The first one is dedicated to the phenomenon of article agglutination. The second case study concerns the compatibility of adjectives belonging to different semantic classes with verbal syntactic constructions and morphological markers in Haitian, Martinican and Guadeloupean Creoles. Finally, the third case study is the description of the syntactic coding in the Creole of Guadeloupe of the fact type and potential type completive clauses.