Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages - Volume 5, Issue 1, 1990

This paper discusses a variety of Southeast Asian Creole Portuguese (henceforth SACP) formerly spoken in Bidau, Dili, East Timor. An outline of the sociohistorical setting of the language is followed by a discussion of data sources and references to Bidau Creole Portuguese (BCP) in the literature on Timor. Included is a discussion of an unpublished letter from the Vigário Geral of Timor to Hugo Schuchardt, containing a comparative list of sentences in "corrupt Portuguese," Metropolitan Portuguese, and Tetum. The body of the paper is concerned with the analysis and description of a limited and fragmentary corpus that was tape recorded in the early 1950s by the Missao Antropológica de Timor. These materials, together with the available written sources, permit a preliminary account of certain aspects of the phonology (the sequence V + [ng], palatal affricates, [r], and reflexes of Old Portuguese /ei/ and /l/) and the morphosyn-tax of the creole (the NP, the genetive possessive construction, the predicate, the negators and TMA system, and clause structure). Comparisons are made with other varieties of East Asian Creole Portuguese and SACP throughout. It is found that the language of Bidau is closely related to the creoles of Malacca and Macao.

So-called "pseudo-complementizers," i.e., complementizers that are homophonous with a verb meaning 'say', are a widespread feature among creole (and some noncreole) languages. Kriyol kuma belongs to this category. The homophony thesis is criticized, and it is argued that kuma is a verb in all of its uses. When in a Comp-like position, it is analyzed as a gerund in an intermediate clause that is a matrix for the lowest clause. Because of its lexical specifications (strict intransitivity), kuma must move into its own Comp whenever the lowest clause is selected and has to be 0-marked by the verb of the highest clause. A structure results that is superficially indistinguishable from an ordinary embedding configuration.

A pidgin may share with other languages patterning of narrative in lines and groups of lines (verses). Chinook Jargon texts show patterns of the same kind as found in the speakers' respective Indian languages. A Saanich Salish jargon text is examined in detail, and its cultural and aesthetic interest pointed out, as well as its contribution to a general analysis of travel and outcome in Indian narratives. The recurrence in languages, including pidgins and creoles, of just a few alternative types of ethnopoetic patterning suggests an innate basis, but a functional explanation cannot be ruled out.