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Volume 34, Issue 2
  • ISSN 0920-9034
  • E-ISSN: 1569-9870
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Abstract

Abstract

This study investigates the expression of perfect meanings in thirty English-lexifier pidgins and creoles or related varieties, such as African American Vernacular English or Singlish. The data were elicited with the help of sixteen sentences and a short text from Dahl’s (1985: 198–206) typological tense-aspect questionnaire. The perfective, as the perfect’s ‘anti-prototype’ (Dahl 2014: 273), is also considered. The possession of a grammaticalized perfect category is particularly frequent in West Africa, where it is likely to constitute a case of substrate influence; moreover, the gram is considerably less frequent in English-lexifier pidgins and creoles than in non-creole languages, which may be related to recent grammaticalization processes.

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2019-11-25
2024-12-09

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The perfect in English-lexifier pidgins and creoles
Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 34, 195 (2019); https://doi.org/10.1075/jpcl.00039.hac
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  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): creole exceptionalism; English-lexifier pidgins and creoles; experiential; grammaticalization; perfect of result; perfective; persistent situation; recent past; substrate influence; typology

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