The problem of conventionality in the development of creole morphological systems

This paper focuses on the problem of the conventionalization of grammatical morphology during language formation, asking how a form comes to have a shared grammatical meaning in an emerging linguistic community. Results from an experiment, inspired by changes in the use of space in Nicaraguan Sign Language, are presented that demonstrate the difficulty of conventionalization for grammatical forms. We show that even in cases where meaning should be relatively easy to discern, adult listeners are not consistent, either internally or when compared to each other, in the inferences they draw. The paper ends with a discussion of the nature of the problem with respect to emerging languages more broadly, and speculates on how grammatical forms might come to have shared meanings in a newly emerging language, focussing on the role that children might play in the process.