Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages - Volume 12, Issue 1, 1997

This paper examines variation in the noun phrase gender agreement rule in the Afro-Brazilian Portuguese dialect of Helvétia. The analysis of the variation proceeds within a quantitative framework; it considers structural implications, in generative terms, and sociolinguistic aspects, yielding evidence relevant to the definition of the postcreole nature of the dialect. Structural parallels are found with Portuguese L1 acquisition and with varieties of creole Portuguese, and the relationship of the Helvétia dialect to more standard varieties of Brazilian Portuguese is clarified. An evaluation of structural variables reveals how the gender agreement rule is being incorporated into the grammar of the dialect at different rates along different structural paths and in different pragmatic functions, reflecting intricacies of the grammar associated with the noun. Finally, a scrutiny of the effect of extralinguistic variables on gender agreement clearly reveals the acquisitional nature of the variation.

Comparative and sociohistorical facts suggest that Sranan arose among castle slaves on the Gold Coast in the 1630s. Jamaican Maroon Spirit Language is an offshoot of early Sranan, which allows the deduction that créole English had developed in Suriname by 1671. However, during the English hegemony there, 1651-1667, Suriname harbored only small plantations, where Whites worked closely with equal numbers of Blacks. Such conditions were unlikely to produce Sranan, and conditions in other English colonies were similar, disallowing them as possible sources of importation. Disproportionate lexical and structural influence from Lower Guinea Coast languages, and other evidence, suggests that the language actually took shape on the West African coast.

This paper examines the pluralization system of Nigerian Pidgin English (NPE). Extrapolating from proposals in the literature on English-based créoles as well as other vernaculars, we utilize quantitative methodology to assess the contribution of syntactic, semantic, and phonological features to variability in plural marking.Although the English plural marker -s is most robust in the data, its patterning reflects neither English grammar nor a conventional functionalist distribution. Instead, surface variability in NPE is conditioned by two factors: animacy and nominal reference. Our findings suggest that these are substratal features whose effects are sensitive to speaker position on the créole continuum. This is strong empirical confirmation that the grammar underlying variable linguistic elements may be inferred from the distribution and conditioning of surface variants, even when none of them originate from that grammar.