The case of pidgin and creole languages - Linguistics

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semantics of Mandarin. It is even possible that the use of side as a general location
marker is a calque from Mandarin.
Conclusions
Modern “expanded pidgins” and creoles have a full-sized selection of spatial terms.
However, these terms seem to differ both from those of the lexifier language and from the
substrate languages. Typologically, there are no clear universals to these terms: some, but
not all, make use of body parts to express 'in front of' and 'behind', and some, but not all,
use prepositions rather than postpositions to talk about space. Some, but not all, have a
generalized term to express proximity without direction.
Pidgin data was inconclusive. It is perhaps significant that old Tok Pisin only used one
word, log/long, to cover all spatial relations. The hypothesis would predict, in fact, that
this pattern would be typical of pidgins. If true, one good explanation is that pidgins,
innovated by adults, created a minimal system of spatial terms that was later expanded as
discourse contexts increased and children acquired the language. L2 learners do structure
languages differently and can leave their mark on a natural language.
However, there was no evidence that Chinese Pidgin English significantly restructured
their spatial semantics to accommodate English speakers. While possible that this is a
counterexample to the L2 learner hypothesis, this effect would also be expected if
Chinese Pidgin English was learned only by Chinese speakers for the purpose of