Jacques Arends, Josje Verhagen, Eva van Lier, Suzanne Dikker and Hugo Cardoso 1 On the presence versus absence of morphological marking in four Romance-based creoles 1. Introduction 2 This paper addresses the ongoing debate on the status of morphology in creole languages. The focus will be on the presence versus absence of specific types of morphological mark- ing in four Romance-based creoles: Angolar, Palenquero, Papiamentu, and Seychellois. First of all, we shall discuss the so-called ‘Creole Prototype’ as defined by McWhorter (1998). Then, we will present the morphological inventories of the creole languages under consideration, discussing both inflectional and derivational morphology. These data will be evaluated with reference to McWhorter’s claims about inflectional and derivational mor- phology in creoles, as well as DeGraff’s (2001) and other scholars’ objections to these. The respective positions taken rely heavily on the canonical classificatory distinction between inflectional and derivational morphology. Therefore, in the last section we will explore whether the results will turn out to be more clear-cut when using a different classification of morphology, namely the distinction between contextual and inherent inflection (Booij 1993), as has been suggested by Kihm (2003). 2. McWhorter’s Creole Prototype McWhorter (1998, 2001) argues that creole languages form a synchronically definable typological class. In his view, prototypical creoles are distinguishable from non-creole languages in terms of the clustering of the following three traits: (i) little or no inflectional affixation, (ii) little or no use of tone to lexically contrast monosyllables or encode syntax, and (iii) semantically regular derivational affixation. ––––––––––– 1 To our great consternation and regret, Jacques Arends died unexpectedly in August 2005. We are very grateful to have worked under his inspiring coaching. We dedicate this article to his very fond memory. 2 We are grateful to two anonymous referees as well as to the editors of this volume for providing us with much needed feedback as well as for saving us from several serious errors. As always, all remaining errors are ours.