Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages - Volume 1, Issue 1, 1986

It is argued in this paper that there are three kinds of relative clause (RC) strategies in Gullah: the deletion, WH-pronoun, and resumptive pronoun (RP) strategies. The deletion strategy applies to RC's beginning with a null (0) COMP or a purposive fuh, the WH strategy applies to Ø-COMP RC's, and the RP strategy applies to any of the above kinds. The latter actually complements the former two in allowing relativization where a gap is not permitted, viz., from the genitive function to the bottom of the Keenan-Comrie NP Accessibility Hierarchy (NPAH). However, it is sometimes attested where a gap is permitted. The deletion and WH strategies are akin in allowing a gap under the same NPAH-based constraints, which is the opposite of the application of the RP strategy. But it is argued that Gullah's WHrel is only COMP-like but not a COMP itself. In a different vein, the question of the origin of these RC strategies is also addressed in this paper. The evidence points to the predominant role of English superstrate influence and to the restriction of possible, corroborative, African substrate influence only to the COMP-like interpretation of WHrel.

Two arguments against the influence of African languages as an explanation for the typological similarities among the Afro-European Pidgins and Creoles have been the variety of the African languages and the unlikelihood that a single substrate language would have contributed the same feature to so many different languages, each with its own history. It is demonstrated that many of the features widespread among Afro-European languages are equally widespread among African languages, regardless of their genetic affiliations. They are thus legitimately regarded as at the same time African and Atlantic Creole areal features. They encompass the local varieties and require no single substrate or group of substrates to explain their appearance among Afro-European languages. The large number of examples and their wide geographical extension is evidence for the validity of the areal explanation. It is expected that further research will increase the number of examples, as well as demonstrate their even greater frequency among African languages. Universal and genetic explanations of resemblance should be supplemented by the areal hypothesis, which explains African influence as resulting from very common and widely distributed features, rather than to a single substrate language or group of languages.

Butler English is the conventional name for a reduced and simplified variety of Indian English which has been characterized as a "minimal pidgin." This paper analyzes in detail the speech of 7 speakers (aged between 17 and 65) with a view to finding out, first, the salient features of this variety of English, second, the relationship between 19th and 20th century Butler English, and third, the source of the shared features. The texts revealed a dynamic mix of universal features of pidginization, folk beliefs about English, and incipient independent constructions. This mix indicates that Butler English is neither a "minimal pidgin" nor mere "broken language." It sheds interesting light on the origins of pidgins, but shows that attempts to "pidgin-hole" pidgin-like systems are doomed to failure.

Some linguists regard predicate adjectives in Sranan and other creole languages as stative verbs, one argument being the absence of a copula before such adjectives. An analysis by Seuren, on the other hand, treats predicate adjectives as true adjectives in Sranan: an underlying copula fails to surface before them. This paper argues for an analysis which treats Sranan predicate adjectives as a type of stative verb, and accounts for the appearance of the copula in a relatively small number of cases by positing the existence of "extent phrases" in Sranan. These may modify a verb or copula; except under certain conditions, they contain a quantifier and an adjective. This accounts not only for the appearance of copulas with predicate adjectives, but also for the "repetition" of the adjective as in o bradi a liba bradi? (how broad the river broad) 'How broad is the river?'