Pidgins and Creoles

1. Pidgins and Creoles

2. Pidgins and Creoles A pidgin is a contact language that developed in a situation where speakers of different languages need a language to communicate. A pidgin becomes a creole when it is adopted as the native language of a speech community.

3. Creoles in the Caribbean

4. Superstrate and substrate languages Superstrate language Provides the bulk of the vocabulary and is more prestigeous. (also called the ‘lexifier language’) Substrate languages Provide a few words but may have significant influence on the grammatical structure.

5. Pidgin and creole studies • Pidgin and creole languages have been studied extensively in linguistics: • Sociolinguistic aspects • Grammaticalization • The innateness hypothesis

6. Butler English Butler English is a pidgin language spoken in India. The language emerged when Indian servants had to find a way to communicate with their English masters. It is still spoken in hotels, clubs, and households.

7. Butler English 1. Omission of grammatical morphemes (1) Because ball is going nearly 200 yards. (2) Members hitting ball. 2. No inflectional morphology (1) two spoon coffee (2) Master like it.

8. Butler English 3. Me vs. I Me not drinking madam 4. Extensive use of progressive verb forms and putting masala and 5. No copula That the garden.

9. Butler English 6. Negation without auxiliary then I not worry No water add. 7. ‘No’ (or ‘eh’) is used as a general tag-question English-speaking sabih is all gone, no? He nice, eh?

10. PNG - Tok Pisin

11. Melanesian Pidgin Tok Pisin Papua New Guinea Bislama Vanuatu Pijin Solomon Islands

12. Papua New Guinea Independence 1975

13. Tok Pisin Newspaper Wantok

14. Papua New Guinea Urban centers

15. Creolisation In urban centers, the children of mixed couples learn Tok Pisin as their first language. Thus, Tok Pisin is changing from an ‘extended pidgin’ to a creole language.

16. Tok Pisin - Vocabulary spak (‘spark’) = drunk nogut (‘no good’) = bad baimbai (‘by and by’) = soon sekan (‘shake hands’) = to make peace kilim (‘kill him’) = to kill /hit /beat pisin (‘pigeon’) = bird / pidgin gras (‘grass’) = gras /hair /fur

17. Tok Pisin – Word Formation gras = gras/hair/fur mausgras = moustache gras bilong hed = hair ‘grass belong head’ gras belong fes = beard ‘grass belong face gras belong pisin = feathers ‘grass belong bird’ gras antap long ai = eyebrow ‘grass on top of long eye’

18. Tok Pisin – Word Formation man bilong save > saveman ‘expert’ ‘man belong know’

19. Tok Pisin - Vocabulary Tolai lapun old kumul bird of paradise palai lizard Malay binatang insect lombo chilli sayor vegetable leaf

20. Tok Pisin - Vocabulary German gumi rubber beten pray raus get out bros chest

21. Tok Pisin

22. PNG - Tok Pisin

23. Melanesian Pidgin Tok Pisin Papua New Guinea Bislama Vanuatu Pijin Solomon Islands

24. Tok Pisin Superstrate language: English Substrate language: Austronesian and Papuan languages

25. Tok Pisin Vocabulary The bulk of the vocabulary comes from English (i.e. the superstrate language). In addition, Tok Pisin includes words from various Austronesian and Papuan languages (e.g. Tolai, Malay). Finally, Tok Pisin includes some words of German origin (e.g. gumi, beten, raus)

26. Tok Pisin – Word Formation gras = gras/hair/fur mausgras = moustache gras bilong hed = hair ‘grass belong head’ gras belong fes = beard ‘grass belong face gras antap long ai = eyebrow ‘grass on top of long eye’

27. Plural marker (1) nil nil ‘spines’ needle needle (2)SG PL yu yu-pela bik haus bik-pela haus -pela ‘fellow’ (3)SG PL man ol man ol ‘all’

28. Pronouns em he / she / it SUBJ him / her / it OBJ yu you SG yutupela you two DUAL yutripela you three TRIAL yupela you all PL

29. Causative/transitive marker (1) Em i rit ‘He is reading.’ Em i ritim buk ‘He’s reading a book.’ (2) Wara i boil pinis ‘The water has boiled.’ Meri i boilim wara pinis ‘The woman has boiled the water.’ (3) Bai mi rait. ‘I’ll write.’ Bai i raitim pas. ‘I’ll write a letter.’ make him > makim boil him > tellim

30. Predicative Marker (1) a. mi kam ‘I come’ b. yu kam ‘You come’ c. em i kam ‘He/she comes’ d. Tom i wok ‘Tom works’ (2) The man, he talked to the woman.

31. Qustion Words Tok Pisin wanem ‘what name’ = ‘what/which’ husat ‘who’s that’ = ‘who’ Guyanese Creole wisaid ‘which side’ = ‘where’ wa mek ‘what makes’ = ‘why’ Cameroon Creole wetin ‘what thing’ = ‘what’

32. Word Order (1) mi kukim rais. I cook rice ‘I cooked the rice.’

33. Complex Sentences (1)Mi no save. Ol I wokim dispela haus. I don’t know (that) they work in this house. (2)Mi no save olsemol i wokim dispela haus. ‘I didn’t know that they built this house.’

34. Relative clauses (1) Stereo ia mitla putim lo kout ia, em no lukim. ‘The stereo which we put in the coat he didn’t see.’ (2) ia: here > the > REL (3) [[tree] here] [that has leaves] here]]

35. Verb Phrase in Krio a bin rait ‘I wrote’ a de rait ‘I am writing’ a bin de rait ‘I was writing’ a don rait ‘I have written’ a bin don rait ‘I had written’ a bin don de rait ‘I had been writing’

36. Verb Phrase in Krio bin = PAST de = PROGRESSIVE don = PERFECT

37. Future (1) em bai kam He/she will come ‘He/she will come’ bai ‘by and by’

38. Past (1) Em bin tok He/she PAST say ‘He/she said … Bin ‛been’

39. Immediate Future (1) em i laik go long gaden (S)he P is about to go to the garden ‘He/she is about to go to the garden.’ laik ‛like’

40. Perfect (1) mi kukim pinis I cook COMPLETE ‘I have cooked it.’ pinis ‛finish’

41. Habitual marker (1) Miplea sa harim ol gan i pairap. We HAB hear PL gun P fire ‘We heard the guns firing.’ sa ‛save’ > ‛know’ > Habitual

42. Continuous marker (1) ol i wokabout i stap. They P walk CONT ‘They were walking.’ i stap ???

43. How does a pidgin language develop grammatical expressions? What drives the process of creolisation?

44. The Bioprogram Hypothesis The human species comes equipped… with the capacity to reconstitute language itself - should the normal generation-to-generation transmission of input data be inserted or distorted by extralinguistic forces. (Muysken & Bickerton 1988)

45. Grammaticalization Source Target: AUX go (motion) gonna will (intention) will have (possession) have

46. Grammaticalization Source Target: P during (verb) during in front of (PP) in front of a-gone (PRE-verb) ago

47. Grammaticalization Source Target: CONJ by cause (PP) because DEM while SUB while given given

48. Grammaticalization Source Target: PRO/ART some body (NP) somebody one (numeral) the one one (numeral) a

49. Grammaticalization Source Target: Bound NOUN -ly NOUN -hood did -ed

50. Grammaticalization Grammaticalization is cross-linguistically so pervasive that some linguists suggested that all grammatical expressions are eventually derived from a lexical source.