The case of pidgin and creole languages - Linguistics

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Katseff Page Page numbers 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
Katseff Page Page numbers communicating with English speakers. Because the pidgin did not need to be learned by people of diverse linguistic background, it would not be necessary for them to talk about space differently. Inasmuch as words for spatial relations are indicative of cognitive structure, our learned, language-specific categories for space have a profound effect on how we approach, learn, and innovate language. A final note The pidginlike processes of syntactic simplification is not unique to pidgins and creoles. Such processes are in fact found in other locations with extensive linguistic diversity and longstanding contact, as in New Guinean languages. Before and beside Tok Pisin, groups without a common language in neighboring villages have modified their languages to encourage better communication. In a process which Thurston (1989) calls exoterogeny, a language used by groups with different language backgrounds diverge from the parent language in order to be more learnable (Ross 1996). Such a process could have been at work in creating a new set of spatial terms.
Page 1 and 2: Shira Katseff Ling 105 12 May 2006
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The case of pidgin and creole languages - Linguistics

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