***** Universalist and Africanist theories, a synthesis

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John Sutcliffe best sums up recent calls for a synthesis of the two positions:

"Universals theory is still, perhaps, seen as in opposition

to the 'Africanist' theory, and obviously a true

understanding of what Atlantic Creoles are and how they

were formed will eventually bring the two apparently

opposing theories together." {<[LINK]> Sutcliffe 12 }

His synthesis, however raises new aspects of an old problem--how and whether to disaggregate the "pan-African" from the "global." In fact, there is a striking resemblence between Willaim Welmers's assertion of a pan-Niger Kordofonian clause structure and Noam Chomsky's "minimalist" approach. In particular, compare Welmers' "CONSTRUCTION MARKER + PRONOUN + MODAL + VERB + TONAL AFFIX" with Chomsky's argument for lexical head-projected chains operating within the parameters of a universal X-bar grammar. {<[LINK]> Welmers quoted in Sutcliffe 57. Chomsky 1992, passim, but esp. 24, 26, 28-30)} This is an old problem for students of African culture in the Americas, creolists included, one which structuralism and geneaology fail resoundingly to address. Generative and historicist approaches remain. ............................................... <[LINK]>