The first chapter of this thesis examines the influences of
Spanish and Portuguese on the development of Papiamento, and concludes
that Papiamento is most likely of Afro-Portuguese origin. The influence
of Spanish, however, has grown steadily and to such an extent that Papiamento,
regardless of its origin, has definitely become a Spanish
creole.
A contrastive analysis of the internal constituents of Papiamento
and Spanish verb phrases, constituting the principal objective of this
thesis, is presented in chapter two. Points of conflict and agreement
in the formation of verb constructions in the two languages are emphasized
in the course of the contrastive analysis, and the salient points
are summarized in charts.
The last part of the the sis consists o f a thematic index of works
on Papiamento and a linguistic bibliography.