1887
Volume 40, Issue 2
  • ISSN 0172-8865
  • E-ISSN: 1569-9730
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Abstract

Abstract

This article provides a comparative analysis of the suppletive allomorphy of two personal pronouns in the five African English-lexifier Creoles (AECs) Krio (Sierra Leone), Pichi (Equatorial Guinea), Ghanaian Pidgin English, Nigerian Pidgin, and Cameroon Pidgin. The alternation of the 3 object forms (a clitic) and (a non-clitic) is conditioned by a tonal obligatory contour principle (), a vowel height , animacy, and focus in different constellations across the five AECs. In addition, an epenthetic /r/ is recruited in four of the AECs to ensure that the is not breached. The analyses suggest that pronominal suppletion in the AECs has been fashioned by processes of change and differentiation typical of geographically extensive language families, such as migration from linguistic homelands, acquisition by non-founder populations, interlectal cross-diffusion, as well as contact and convergence with adstrate, substrate, and superstrate languages.

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2019-06-13
2025-04-29
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