Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages - Volume 35, Issue 1, 2020

Abstract

This paper discusses the general distribution and interpretation of bare noun phrases (BNPs) in Reunion Creole (RC). To set the required background for this description, it also discusses the count-mass distinction and offers an insight into the determiner system since elements such as prenominal lo and postnominal -la have received rather divergent designations and analyses in the literature. Observations rely on oral data and felicity judgments.

We show that RC BNPs can occupy the same positions as noun phrases (NPs) modified by a determiner and that they can be left-dislocated, clefted and topicalized. We provide evidence that, except for some specific contexts, monosyllabic BNPs are not licensed and that the form lo is mandatory to build a grammatical NP out of nouns formed by a unique light syllable.1 We also demonstrate that, in these cases, lo is actually a semantically empty element. BNPs are number-neutral; we argue that existential BNPs are pseudo-incorporated in some cases but that they always have weak reference. BNPs can receive generic and kind readings, as well as an existential and a certain definite interpretation: they are weak definites, i.e. they are semantically, never pragmatically definite (following Löbner 1985, 1998, 2011, 2015).

Abstract

This study focuses on a pidgin predominantly used by Asian immigrants in the city of Abha in the southwestern region of Saudi Arabia, examining multifunctionality as it appears in three grammatical categories, definiteness, predication, and pronouns. Whereas previous studies on Gulf Arabic Pidgin have described the variety in terms of multifunctionality (e.g. Avram 2004; Bakir 2014, and Potsdam and Alanazi 2014), the current study focuses on the different pathways that bring it about. Three types of multifunctionality are described in terms of refunctionalization, generalization and neutralization. hada (< *haaða ‘this’) is refunctionalized to mark definiteness and as a deictic marker fills the function of the demonstrative. fī, (< *fi ‘at, exist’) has multiple functions being used as a preposition, an existential marker in the meaning of ‘there is/are’, a generalized predicate marker when occurring before adjectival, nominal and verbal predicates. The pronominal system shows simplification from ten to five pronouns only. The study is based on data collected in interviews with a random sample of twenty-four Asian participants of both sexes. Their ages ranged from 26 to 45 years old and their length of stay in Saudi Arabia ranged from four to nine years. They occupied different jobs. A total of twenty nine hours of audio-visual interview data were analysed.

Abstract

Focusing on madrassah1 Islamiyat2 textbooks written in Kreol by two local textbook writers for use in Sunni madrassahs in Mauritius, the present study shows how the writers have adopted Kreol, enriching and adapting it with loanwords from Arabic, to communicate religious information to the children attending the madrassah. The corpus for this study being a sample of locally produced Islamiyat textbooks, document analysis constituted the primary method of data collection and analysis. Interviews with the textbook writers were carried out in order to obtain insiders’ insights into the strategies they used to convey Islamic ideas in Kreol, a language not lexically equipped for this. The analysis reveals that the textbook writers used ‘loanwords by necessity’ – cultural borrowings (Haspelmath 2009) that were adapted through transliteration (Hassan 2016) – for proper names and honorifics, as well as for people, objects, practices and beliefs. A search in the Diksioner Morisien (Carpooran 2011) reveals that a majority of these loanwords do not currently appear in the Dictionary, suggesting the emergence of a new register. I thus argue that at the grassroots level, the Sunni Muslim community is in the process of developing a new religious register of Kreol, which is currently being used and which is also being transmitted to younger generations through the madrassahs. This reflects the Mauritian Sunni Muslims’ strong sense of attachment to Kreol, a language that tends to be associated with the Creole community in Mauritius.

Abstract

This article argues that the three existing varieties of Chavacano are descendents of one and the same proto-variety. While their direct relatedness used to be agreed upon, it has recently been questioned to differing extents by Lipski (e.g. 1992, 2010, 2013) and Fernández (e.g. 2006, 2011). There is a large gap in Chavacano research insofar as systematic attempts at verifying or falsifying the alleged kinship between the varieties are missing to date. This article makes a first such attempt and argues that the varieties are indeed genetically related.

Abstract

Although World Englishes (WE) scholarship is concerned with the study of English varieties in different social contexts, there is a tendency to treat postcolonial ones as homogenous regional phenomena (e.g., Philippine English). Few researchers have discussed variation and social differentiation in detail with empirical evidence. Thus, in order to understand how layers of different varieties of WE operate within a specific group of speakers, this study takes an empirical intergroup approach from a substratist framework. This study explores distinctive features of a metropolitan Manila variety of Chinese English used in the Philippines, Manila Chinese English (MCE), an English contact variety used by Manila Chinese Filipinos. After comparing the frequencies of selected features observed in a 52,000-word MCE database with frequencies in Manila English and American English corpora, this study found that a distinct variety – MCE – most likely emerged in the 1960s due to the extensive contact between general Manila English and local tongues of Chinese Filipinos such as (Hybrid) Hokkien and Tagalog, which function as MCE’s substrate languages. This study takes into account MCE’s structure, sources, and genesis, and discusses MCE in relation to Philippine English as positioned in Schneider’s dynamic model, to demonstrate how intergroup variations coexist but take divergent paths within a WE variety.

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