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Universal constraints and local conditions
in Pidginization
Case studies from New Guinea
William Foley
University of Sydney
This paper looks at the processes involved in the genesis of three pidgins of
New Guinea. I will argue that the main principle at work in the formation of
the morphosyntax of pidgins is a general human capacity for language
simplification, but that these processes of simplification are subject both to
the effects of specific linguistic features in the local multilingual contact
situation that gives rise to the pidgin and to constraints resulting from a
universal linguistic endowment. By a comparative look across a range of
morphosyntactic features at the processes of simplification that produced
three unrelated pidgins of New Guinea, Yimas Pidgin, Hiri Motu and Tok
Pisin, the article exemplifies some of the types of structures that can result in
pidgins from this general human capacity for language simplification, sifted
through both local conditions and universal constraints.
Keywords: pidgins, language contact, language simplification, grammatical
relations, tense-aspect, New Guinea, Papuan languages, Austronesian
languages
.
The processes of Pidginization
It is generally agreed that pidginization is a process that occurs in a multilingual contact situation (Siegel 2000; Thomason 2001). A pidgin language is
one that results in a multilingual contact situation in order to aid communication between groups speaking distinct languages. Of course, pidginization
is only one result, and perhaps an unusual one at that, of a multilingual contact situation; others include stable multilingualism, with or without language
Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages : (), ‒.
 ‒ ⁄ - ‒ © John Benjamins Publishing Company
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William Foley
convergence, as in Kupwar village in India (Gumperz & Wilson 1971), mixed
languages like Media Lengua (Muysken 1988, 1997) or Michif (Bakker 1997),
a lingua franca or koineization (Siegel 1985, 1993) (this perhaps restricted to
situations involving closely related languages or dialects of the same language)
and language death (Gal 1979; Kulick 1992). The results of pidginization are an
amalgam of the linguistic elements of two or more languages, as with a number
of the processes enumerated above, but what crucially distinguishes pidginization from all of these others is a necessary simplification of the resulting amalgam language from the source languages in the original multilingual contact
situation. One language, typically that of the socioeconomically dominant cultural group usually contributes the bulk of the vocabulary to the pidgin: this
is the superstrate language. The other contributing language(s) are substrate
languages.
A fundamental question of pidginization concerns the linguistic processes
that give rise to the grammatical structure of the resulting pidgin language. An
overarching process here is what Thomason (2001) calls negotiation. In the
classic pidginization context, none of the contributing ethnolinguistic groups
knows the others’ language(s), or has the desire or means to acquire it. Still
communication must take place, and as speakers of the various languages try
to accomplish this, they make guesses about what will work. If these guesses hit
the mark, there is a good chance they will stick; if they fail, something else will
be tried. Gradually through this process of hits and misses across the language
lines, in short, a negotiation, an agreed linguistic format for these exchanges
emerges, and, if the contact situation remains of long standing, decades or
generations, a stable pidgin will likely be crystallized and be passed on to
succeeding generations.
But the real question in this scenario is what guides these guesses. Speakers
actually have two types of knowledge. First, they know their own language, so
one option available is to simply lexify the sentences of their own language with
word forms they learn from the other language(s), a type of extensive borrowing. Because of the typical differences in social status among the speakers of
the languages in pidginization contexts, the lexical items will mainly be drawn
from the superstrate language, the highest status language in the multilingual
interactions (though apparent exceptions do occur, e.g. Chinook Jargon, whose
lexicon is mainly drawn from Native languages of the northwest coast of North
America). This in essence is the relexification theory of pidgin genesis, a current and influential view advanced by Lefebvre (1998), who claims that pidgin
and creole languages result from relexification of the substrate language(s) by
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Universal constraints and local conditions in Pidginization
lexical items from the superstrate language, an analog of the processes that gave
rise to mixed languages like Media Lengua (Muysken 1988, 1997). In this view
the basic structure of a pidgin may be simplified vis a vis the source languages,
but mainly along the lines laid down by the substrate language(s), so that its
structure will parallel in many respects that of one or more of the substrate
languages. While Lefebvre (1998) makes a case for such a process at work in
the development of Haitian Creole, this approach cannot be a complete account of the processes of pidginization. Indeed an independent process of simplification, over and above one of relexification (and reanalysis and leveling,
other processes appealed to by Lefebvre (1998)), is necessary to account for the
origins of most pidgins. So while relexification does and must play a role in
the processes of linguistic negotiation in pidginization, it cannot be generally
the whole or even the main factor. Pidgin languages are typically simpler than
both their superstrate and substrate languages, and processes of simplification
are crucial in their formation.
So the claim here is that the basic grammar of a pidgin is typically arrived at
by radical simplification of the contributing languages (this claim can be modulated in the case where the contributing languages, and especially the substrate
language(s) are both relatively homogeneous and already rather morphologically simple, isolating languages, as is possible in the linguistic processes that
led to the genesis of Haitian Creole (Lefebvre 1998)). Other processes discussed
by Siegel (1997, 2000), such as leveling, e.g. the elimination of variant forms
and the retention of others in the resulting pidgin, clearly play a role in the
crystallization and stabilization of a pidgin, but in my view, a secondary one
to simplification: the processes of simplification generate the variants in the
incipient code in the first place, among which the leveling forces then select.
But this notion of simplification itself needs spelling out: what specifically is
entailed when we talk about processes of linguistic simplification?
Siegel (2000) provides a summary of simplification processes under four
rubrics: a) reduction; b) increased regularity; c) greater transparency; and d)
lack of markedness. A general thrust of much of Charles Ferguson’s work is the
view that it is part of the linguistic competence of adult speakers of a language
to know how to simplify it, if social circumstances should warrant this. Besides multilingual contact situations, another social context which may require
this competence is baby talk. Table 1, adapted from Ferguson (1982) displays
the features of simplified language forms in contrast to those of the source
language:
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William Foley
Table 1. Linguistic simplification
More complex linguistic structure
Simpler or simplified linguistic structure
Lexicon
Larger vocabulary in a given domain or
overall; specialized registers. Compounds
and polymorphemic words
Smaller vocabulary, generic terms rather
than specific. Monomorphemic words;
paraphrases of semantically complex words
Syntax
Subordination; hypotaxis. Free or variable
word order conditioned by syntax. Presence
of copula, pronouns, function words
Coordination; parataxis. Invariable word
order. Absence of copula, pronouns,
function words
Morphology
Extensive systems of inflectional and
derivational affixes. Allomorphy, including
of stems
Heavily reduced or no inflectional and
derivational affixes. No allomorphy,
invariant stems
Phonology
Consonant clusters. Polysyllabic words
CV monosyllables and CVCV disyllables
There is a close correlation between Siegel’s (2000) four rubrics of simplification and the processes listed in Table 1: reduction, exemplified by smaller
vocabulary and heavily reduced or no affixation; increased regularity, in invariable word order and no allomorphy; greater transparency, also in no allomorphy and the presence of monomorphemic words or paraphrases of semantically complex words. Markedness is more difficult, in that what counts
as marked versus unmarked is often strongly theoretically informed, but one
rather uncontroversial way to get a handle on this is through the widespread
distribution of typological features. On this metric, parataxis, i.e. coordinate
in preference to subordinate clauses, exhibits an unmarked setting, as no language lacks coordination as a clause combining option, but some do lack subordination, such as many polysynthetic languages. CV syllable structure is another unmarked setting: all languages have this syllable type, but some, e.g.
Polynesian languages, only have it.
So we can take Siegel’s four rubrics, as exemplified in the more specific processes of Table 1, as a set of parameters for linguistic simplification. But is there
a still more general principle we can reduce these to? I believe so, and this is it:
the restriction of words to generic terms, the elimination of allomorphy, the use
of parataxis rather than embedding, and the adoption of invariant word order
for grammatical relations all ease the processing load of the hearer. There is
no need to cope with variations and irregularities. Furthermore, the loss of in-
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Universal constraints and local conditions in Pidginization
flections and function words and their replacement by full lexemes maximizes
the area of the language easiest for the foreigner to acquire – the lexicon. Indeed, early writers (Silverstein 1972; Mühlhäusler 1979) noted how some early
pidgins consist of no more than a reduced lexicon put through the grammatical rules of one’s native language. Ultimately, of course, this insight is the basis
of the relexification hypothesis, but this will only look like pidginization if the
rules of the native language are simplified during the process; otherwise the result would be a mixed language like Media Lengua, and these two results must
not be conflated. Media Lengua (Muysken 1988, 1997) is a morphologically
complex language, like Quechua, but with a Spanish root lexicon. It is a far cry
from any pidgin (or creole) in structure. Simplification is the crucial component in pidginization; relexification is operative, but on structures produced by
simplification.
The idea that linguistic simplification (in all simplified registers: pidgins,
foreigner talk, baby talk, etc.) rests on a intention to ease the processing load
of the hearer is elaborated in recent work by Kusters (2003). He distinguishes
two types of speech communities: Type 1, more closed, isolated and largely
monolingual; and Type 2, open communities with a history of extensive contacts and much second language acquisition. He argues that there is a statistical
(not absolute, statistical) correlation between linguistic complexity (measured,
say, by the features of Table 1) and the type of speech community: languages
spoken in Type 2 communities show higher features of linguistic simplification
than those of Type 1 (it hardly needs saying that pidgins are prototypically associated with Type 2 communities). The reason is obvious: speakers in Type 2
communities need to communicate efficiently to non-native speaking hearers
and to do so, they employ the parameters of linguistic simplification exemplified above. Kusters (2003) develops his own three principles of linguistic
simplification, which re-iterate the above framework: 1) the Economy Principle, that demands as few inflectional categories as possible (this is reduction);
2) the Transparency Principle, which requires that the relation betweeen form
and meaning be as clear as possible (this is greater transparency); and 3) the
Isomorphy Principle, which requires that the order of elements be the same in
different domains (this is increased regularity).
Ultimately, then, pidgins are linguistic accommodations arrived at by simplification of one’s native language along the lines laid out by the basic principles enunciated above, combined with relexification of the output simplified structure with formal items mainly derived from the superstrate language.
This definition represents a general, plausibly universal, potential, and one well
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William Foley
within adult linguistic competence, but, being rather vague, it allows a very
wide latitude in its actual realization in any given pidginization context. Thus,
pidgins may be structurally quite different depending on the local linguistic resources, i.e. the typology of the source languages contributing to the pidginization process. For example, we would expect to find different basic word orders in pidgins whose source languages were all verb final from those which
are verb medial. The difference in word order in Hiri Motu and Tok Pisin in
exactly this feature and in their source languages respectively amply confirms
this claim. Further, the amount of simplification necessary to reach adequate
linguistic accommodation among speakers can also be variable. To the extent
that the languages or most speakers of them share a feature, albeit not a maximally invariant or simple one, that feature may appear in the resulting pidgin.
The suffix marking transitive verbs in Tok Pisin is one such example, an analog
being present in nearly all substrate Oceanic languages.
The central question in the genesis of pidginization through linguistic simplification concerns the role of local versus universal constraints on outputs.
Under the general principle of accommodate to the hearer and the rubrics of
reduction, increased regularity, greater transparency and lack of markedness,
are there universal constraints that operate over various components of grammar leading to similar results regardless of the input languages? Or are local
conditions always determinative, so that the structure of pidgins is a localized compromise from the specific structures of the input languages? We do
not know enough to answer this question, because there are as yet insufficient
data from the crucial key witnesses – pidgins without European superstrates
and particularly those developing prior to European colonial contact. This paper is intended to offer some data to start answering this question from one
small corner of the globe, but that which was last to feel the blowtorch of the
European colonial expansion.
In the next three sections I will investigate grammatical structures in three
pidgins of Papua New Guinea, Yimas Pidgin, Hiri Motu and Tok Pisin, and
compare these to parallel structures in their source substrate and superstrate
languages. These pidgins run the gamut from stable, but restricted (Yimas Pidgin) to fully expanded and creolized (Tok Pisin), with Hiri Motu somewhere in
between. I will demonstrate that the resulting patterns of grammatical simplification differ significantly in the three languages and reflect the different types
of structural patterns contributed by the local source languages.
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Universal constraints and local conditions in Pidginization
. Yimas Pidgin
As mentioned in the previous section, pidgins arise in attenuated language
contact situations, either due to a wide social gulf between the speakers of
the superstrate and substrate languages or to social contacts of a more transient nature, such as trading networks. Yimas Pidgin is an example of the latter
cause. It is a pidgin derived from Yimas and Arafundi, two languages of the
Sepik area in Papua New Guinea (all data from my own fieldwork). It is actually one of a family of Yimas based pidgins used by male Yimas villagers in
their trading relations with neighboring groups. There are at least three others
(Williams 2000), but Yimas is the superstrate, dominant lexifier language in
all of them (see Foley 1991) for a grammar of Yimas). As in keeping with the
general Sepik pattern (Gewertz 1983) the primary trading network is Arafundi
sago, the carbohydrate staple, exchanged for Yimas fish. These trade contacts
are not sporadic, but are sustained and passed down in clans from generation to
generation. Trading partners as well as the proper pidgin language used in interactions with them was part of the clan based patrimony passed from father
to son. A clear status differential marks these exchanges: the Yimas fish suppliers occupy a superior position socially and economically vis à vis the sago
suppliers. Other goods besides fish and sago are exchanged between the two
groups, but in all cases it is the Yimas which supply the prestige goods. Given
these social circumstances, it is expected that the pidgin used will have Yimas
as the superstrate language and Arafundi as the substrate, hence Yimas Pidgin.
Yimas Pidgin is a relatively stable pidgin; native speakers of both Yimas and
Arafundi speak it much the same, the major differences being phonological. It
is not creolized, having no native speakers; indeed it is on the verge of dying
out, its function having been usurped by Tok Pisin (New Guinea Pidgin English). Lexically, it is largely Yimas: over 80% of the lexicon is Yimas derived,
the rest coming from Arafundi or from unplaced sources (plus a small mixture of Karawari forms, probably a transfer from the Yimas-Karawari Pidgin).
Grammatically, Yimas Pidgin represents a massive simplification of Yimas, a
highly morphologically complex polysynthetic language, with some admixture
of simplified Arafundi structures. It is demonstrably not Arafundi relexified
with Yimas content morphemes. It is, in turn, quite different from the Yimas
pidgin used to trading partners speaking Alamblak (Williams 2000), demonstrating that it is indeed a true conventionalized pidgin, not just a foreigner talk
register of Yimas. It is particularly noteworthy that still another Yimas lexified
pidgin was used in trading contacts with Karawari speakers (Williams 2000).
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William Foley
Yimas and Karawari are closely related languages (Yimas is not related genetically to either Arafundi or Alamblak, nor they to each other), almost dialects of
the same language: Karawari speakers within earshot could often understand
a good deal of what I was saying when engaged in casual conversations with
Yimas villagers. The fact that a pidgin was employed in Yimas-Karawari trade
encounters, not stable bilingualism or a koine (Siegel 1997) derived from the
two, is powerful testimony to the salience of these clan based conventionalized codes, the pidgins, as indexes of the intervillage trading encounter. In this
section I will focus on the radical simplification of the grammars of the contributing languages to the Yimas-Arafundi Pidgin (just Yimas Pidgin in the
following), with a view to comparison with related processes in the formation
of Hiri Motu and Tok Pisin.
Yimas is a highly complex language morphologically, with extensive allomorphy and suppletion and a great plethora of bound forms, especially in
the verbal system. Yimas Pidgin is derived from this by massive reduction, by
eliminating all allomorphy and suppletion and almost all bound forms, and
by drastically cutting most distinctions in any category. Let me consider some
examples in greater detail.
. Nominal inflection
Yimas is a super gender language parallel to Bantu languages, with ten major noun classes and six minor ones. All nouns are marked for gender and
as well take inflection for number: singular, dual and plural (often portmanteau with gender indication). Noun modifiers like adjectives and possessives
agree in gender and number with the nouns they modify (however, forming
a NP constituent with the noun as head is not necessary; Yimas is a nonconfigurational ‘free scrambling’ language like Warlpiri (Hale 1983)). Consider
the following examples:
(1) a.
patn
ama-na-kn
betelnut.V.SG 1SG-POSS-V.SG
‘My betelnut is big.’
ama-na-ra
b. par kat
betelnut.V.PL 1SG-POSS-V.PL
‘My betelnuts are big.’
ama-nac. tr
tooth.VI.SG 1SG-POSS-VI.SG
‘My tooth is big.’
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kpa-n
anak
big-V.SG COP.V.SG
(Y)
kpa-ra arak
big-V.PL COP.V.PL
(Y)
kpaakk
big-VI.SG COP.VI.SG
(Y)
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Universal constraints and local conditions in Pidginization
d. tr ki
ama-na- ki
kpa- ki akiak
tooth.VI.PL 1SG-POSS-VI.PL big-VI.PL COP.VI.PL
‘My teeth are big.’
e. tanm
ama-na-m
kpa-m
apk
bone.VII.SG 1SG-POSS-VII.SG big-VII.SG COP.VII.SG
‘My bone is big.’
(Y)
(Y)
Yimas Pidgin loses all gender distinctions and all inflection for number. The
number of a noun can be marked by kundamwin ‘two’ and manba ‘many’,
both from Arafundi, placed after it (reduction combined with increased transparency and regularity). The forms for class V singular (the unmarked class in
Yimas with the largest membership) are extended to cover all nouns, as in (2)
(2) a.
SG: patn
trG]
ama-nakGn kGpan anak
tan>m 1SG-POSS big
COP
‘My betelnut/tooth/bone is big.’
b. PL: patn
trG] manba ama-nakGn kGpan anak
tanGm many 1SG-POSS big
COP
‘My betelnuts/teeth/bones are big.’
(YP)
(YP)
Thus, the pervasive allomorphy of number marking conditioned by gender
class for nouns and noun modifiers is completely eliminated, leading to a
more transparent linking of meaning and form in Yimas Pidgin, i.e. manba
(many) unambiguously always signals plural number in Yimas, regardless of
noun modified.
In some ways, the resulting pidgin structure reflects Arafundi grammatical patterns; Arafundi nouns lack gender and are not inflected for number. Number can be explicitly indicated by kGndamu\ ‘two’ or manba ‘many’,
but this is optional. This much parallels Yimas Pidgin. However, Arafundi
nouns are inflected for their possessor with a suffix, kot-k hand/foot-1SG.POSS
‘my hand/foot’, so the Yimas Pidgin structure in (2), in which the possessor is expressed with an independent word, is sourced in the parent Yimas
structure of (1).
. Expression of grammatical relations
Being a polysynthetic language, Yimas encodes almost all grammatical information about a clause with the verb (Boas 1911; Baker 1996; Evans & Sasse
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William Foley
Table 2. Yimas agreement affixes
DL
1 PL
SG
DL
2 PL
1 SG
SG
3 PL
DL
↓
PRO
kapa
ipa
ama
kapwa
ipwa
mi
A
]krakayka]krannannnmpump-
↓
S
kapaipaamakapwaipwamanapuimpa-
O
]krakra]a]kulkulnannapuimpa-
D
]krakra]a]kulkulnan-nakn
-mpun
-mpn
2002). The verb can occur with many prefixes and suffixes, with the former
predominating. The suffixes largely express notions of tense, aspect and mood;
there are five potentially filled suffixal slots to the verb. The prefixes are more
numerous, with eight potentially filled positions. The prefixes express notions
like modality; adverbial notions like place, direction, duration and manner;
and valence alternations to the verb like reciprocal formations, causativization
and applicatives.
Prefixes to the verb also indicate core grammatical relations. Core NPs
lack all case marking (there is a single oblique case marker -n ∼ -nan for all
non-core NPs) and word order at the clause level is remarkably free (in any
case the great bulk of clauses consist of just a verb anyway). Core grammatical relations are signaled in a very complex way by prefixes which indicate
gender class, number and person. These exhibit a very complex person-based
split for their case marking schema: first and second person forms follow an
underlying nominative/accusative pattern and third person forms, an ergative/absolutive one (see Dixon (1994) or Tallerman (2005) for a discussion of
nominative/accusative versus ergative/absolutive alignments and the use of A,
S, and O as notation for core grammatical relations; D represents the recipient argument of a ditransitive verb like ‘give’). The relevant prefixes are set
out below:
Examples (3)–(8) illustrate the use of these affixes:
(3) ama-wa-t
pu-ka-tay
pu-]a-tay
1SG.S-go-PERF 3PL.O-1SG.A-see 3PL.A-1SG.O-see
‘I went’
‘I saw them’
‘They saw me’
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(Y)
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Universal constraints and local conditions in Pidginization
(4) pu-wa-t
pu-n-tay
na-mpu-tay
3PL.S-go-PERF 3PL.O-3SG.A-see 3SG.O-3PL.A-see
‘They went’
‘He saw them’
‘They saw him’
(5) ta-ka-wa-t
ta-ka-tay-c-um
NEG-1SG.A-go-PERF NEG-1SG.A-see-PERF-3PL.O
‘I didn’t go’
‘I didn’t see them’
ta-]a-tay-c-um
NEG-1SG.O-see-PERF-3PL.A
‘They didn’t see me’
(6) ta-pu-wa-r-um
ta-pu-n-tay-c-um
NEG-3-go-PERF-3PL NEG-3-3SG.A-see-PERF-3PL.O
‘They didn’t go’
‘He didn’t see them’
ta-mpu-tay-c-ak
NEG-3PL.A-see-PERF-3SG.O
‘They didn’t see him’
(Y)
(Y)
(Y)
(7) ura]
k-mpu-]a-tkam-t
coconut.VI.SG VI.SG.O-3PL.A-1SG.D-show-PERF
‘They showed me the coconut.’
(Y)
(8) ura]
k-mpu-tkam-r-mpun
coconut.VI.SG VI.SG.O-3PL.A-show-PERF-3PL.D
‘They showed them the coconut.’
(Y)
Arafundi is less complex morphologically, but still exhibits extensive crossreferencing for core grammatical relations. Arafundi is a straightforward
nominative/accusative language in cross-referring. Subjects are obligatorily
marked by suffixes to the verb but these are portmanteau, representing basic
tense/aspect/mood distinctions. There are three basic sets of subject suffixes,
illustrated in ow-k wash-1SG.PERF ‘I washed’ versus ow-] wash-1SG.IRR ‘let
me wash’ versus ow-p-cGk wash-PROG-1SG.IMPERF ‘I am washing’. Objects
are optionally also indicated by suffixes immediately after the verb root: pokonanci-na-cGk hit-2SG.O-FUT-1SG.A.IMPERF ‘I will be hitting you.’ Pronominal objects may be marked with an accusative case marker instead of being
cross-referenced: poko-nci-wam hit-1SG.O-3PL.A.PERF versus c-i poko-wam
1SG-ACC hit-3PL.A.PERF ‘they hit me’. There is also an optional case marker
for nouns. This occurs most frequently on subjects of transitive verbs, so it
looks like an ergative case marker, but its basic function is to mark the subject in
cases of potential ambiguity (although I will gloss it ERGative for convenience).
Because word order among NPs in a clause is free, this could potentially occur
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William Foley
whenever the subject or object are both animate; hence the disambiguating
function of this marker:
(9) a.
nu]gum-Gn nam
poko-e
man-ERG woman hit-3SG.PERF
‘The man hit the woman.’
b. nam-Gn
karGma
yGp-e
woman-ERG cassowary see-3SG.PERF
‘The woman saw the cassowary’.
(Ar)
(Ar)
Interestingly, this case marker can even be used on subjects when they cooccur with pronominal objects, which, being accusatively case marked, leave
no ambiguities as to the assignment of grammatical relations:
(10) nu]gum-Gn c-i
poko-e
man-ERG 1SG-ACC hit-3SG.PERF
‘The man hit me.’
(Ar)
Finally, this ergative suffix is typically used with ditransitive verbs, to mark the
subject, as the dative NP is not case marked, although it is cross referenced in
the verb (the verb ‘give’ has a zero stem allomorph for 3PL recipients):
(Ar)
nam-Gn
nu]gum mGnkis Ø-makG-na-tam
woman-ERG man
sago
give-3PL.O-FUT-3PL.A.IMPERF
‘The women will give the men sago.’
(Ar)
b. nu]gum-Gn nam
mGnkis Ø-makG-na-tam
man-ERG woman sago
give-3PL.O-FUT-3PL.A.IMPERF
‘The men will give the women sago.’
(11) a.
All cross-referencing is eliminated in Yimas Pidgin. And contrary to most pidgin languages, word order among NPs is still free. NPs are generally not case
marked either:
(12) a.
ama patn
awt-nan
1SG betelnut get-NFUT
‘I got betelnut.’
b. tupwi mGn am-bi ta-nan
sago 3SG eat-DEP PROG-NFUT
‘He’s eating sago.’
(YP)
(YP)
In cases of potential ambiguity of grammatical relations, i.e. more than one
animate NP, an optional case marker is employed, but in this case in a manner
opposite to that of the Arafundi system. Thus, in the ditransitive clause it is
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the dative NP which is marked with a postposition namban, derived ultimately
from a Yimas allative postposition nampan ‘toward’:
(13) a.
mGn tupwi ama namban asa-nan
3SG sago 1SG DAT
give-NFUT
‘He gave me sago.’
b. ama mGn manba namban mariawkGn anak
1SG 3SG many DAT
talk
FUT
‘I will tell them’
(YP)
(YP)
This postposition is also optionally extended to transitive clauses to mark animate objects (à la Spanish a) to disambiguate the subject and object grammatical relations, given the free word order:
(14) a.
ama mGn namban
1SG 3SG DAT
‘I hit him.’
b. mGn ama namban
3SG 1SG DAT
‘He saw me.’
kratGkG-nan
hit-NFUT
(YP)
tay-\an
see-NFUT
(YP)
The use of namban is a move toward greater transparency and regularity in
addition to reduction; instead of the myriad of allomorphs of affixes of variable position in the verb to indicate objects and datives, there is just a single
form. The use of a postposition to mark dative NPs and animate object NPs
has no precedent in either source language (although the pattern, a conflation of dative and object, is exemplified by the use of the same prefix forms
for first and second person dative and object arguments in Yimas; see Table
2). However, this system is widespread in the more isolating languages of the
Middle and Lower Sepik, like Yessan-Mayo, Watam and Iatmul, and the last
of these is itself a language of high prestige, which formed the basis of an earlier trade pidgin in the Sepik. Earlier generations of Yimas speakers were fluent
in this pidgin, and it is quite possible that it provided a model for this system of indicating grammatical relations in Yimas Pidgin. In fact, one cannot
completely rule out the possibility that the Yimas based pidgins are themselves
relexifications of the earlier, but unfortunately unattested and now extinct, Iatmul Pidgin. But the fact that there are very significant structural differences
between the Yimas-Arafundi Pidgin discussed here and the Yimas-Alamblak
Pidgin (Williams 2000) suggests otherwise: that they are both local developments. If they were simply relexifications of an earlier Iatmul Pidgin, we would
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William Foley
expect them to be more alike. The very feature under discussion here illustrates
this point. While both pidgins extend an ostensive dative indicator to mark animate objects, they do so in very different ways, with quite distinct sources in
the parent Yimas superstrate language: the Yimas-Arafundi Pidgin, as we have
seen, adapts the Yimas allative postposition nampan ‘toward’ to this function;
the Yimas-Alamblak Pidgin has a more complex system, but essentially uses a
bound suffix, -nakn, derived either from the third person singular verb agreement suffix for dative, -nakn (see Table 2) or a possessive agreement suffix for
class V singular nouns (see example (1a)), also -na-kn (Williams 2000). The
crucial point here is that Yimas Pidgin does not employ word order or hierarchical configurational phrase structure to signal grammatical relations (note
invariable word order in Table 1). Put simply, word order or configurational
phrase structure was just unavailable for this function, as neither source language used it to signal grammatical relations. At the clause level, both languages
are non-configurational with free order of NPs, Yimas being much more extreme in this area than Arafundi, as Yimas generally lacks even coherent NP
structure (on this, see Foley (1991: 180–191)).
. Tense-aspect marking
Being a highly wrought polysynthetic language, Yimas mainly lacks independent adverbial words for direction, place, time, or manner, these being mostly
expressed through verbal affixes. Tense is highly complex with many distinctions (remote past, far past, near past, immediate past, present, habitual, near
future, remote future), but is reduced in Yimas Pidgin to future versus nonfuture (past and present):
(15) a.
ama mGn namban kratGkG-nan
1SG 3SG DAT
hit-NFUT
‘I hit/am hitting him.’
b. ama mGn namban kratGkGn anak
1SG 3SG DAT
hit
FUT
‘I will hit him.’
(YP)
(YP)
The non-future is derived from the Yimas near past tense suffix -nan, for events
occurring yesterday, while the future comes from the unmarked form of the
copula, which is used in Yimas for timeless unbounded statements. Thus, the
source semantics is bounded versus unbounded events (Yimas -nan NEAR
PAST is the most temporally bounded of its tense suffixes, denoting events
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Universal constraints and local conditions in Pidginization
occurring yesterday; the others have a wider range), which developed into
non-future (present/past) versus future.
Aspect in Yimas is also complex and indicated in a number of different
ways. Some aspectual inflections occupy the final position of the tense suffixes:
(16) amtra
ya-ka-am-t
food.V.PL V.PL.O-1SG.A-eat-PERF
‘I have eaten the food.’
(Y)
While other aspectual inflections are indicated by incorporated adverbial prefixes:
(17) pu-yakal-taw-ant-ntut
3PL.S-CONT-sit-hear-REM.PAST
‘They were waiting and listening.’
(Y)
Aspect in Arafundi is also indicated in diverse ways, either as a portmanteau
suffix with the subject’s person and number:
(18) poko-Ø-e
hit-3SG.O-3SG.A.PERF
‘He hit him.’
(AR)
Or as an independent suffix:
(19) \G] yGm ow-pG-cGk
1SG water wash-PROG-1SG.IMPERF
‘I am bathing.’
(AR)
Yimas Pidgin, in keeping with many pidgins around the world, including the
other two New Guinea based pidgins discussed below, expresses aspect much
more transparently and regularly, via serial verb like constructions. The Yimas
verb mntk- ‘finish’ provides the perfective marker mGndGk, while the Yimas Pidgin marker for imperfective aspect, ta-, is multiply sourced as either the Yimas
verbs taw- ‘sit’, tay- ‘see’ or ta- ‘put’ or the Arafundi verb te- ‘get’. These aspectual verbs are used in serial verb constructions following the main predicating
verb, which is tenseless and suffixed with the dependent verb marker -mbi derived from Yimas -mpi of the same function. The aspectual verb carries the
tense ending for the clause:
(20) a.
ama mi namban andG-mbi mGndGk-nan
1SG 2SG DAT
hear-DEP PERF-NFUT
‘I heard you already.’
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(YP)
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William Foley
b. ama mi namban andG-mbi ta-nan
1SG 2SG DAT
hear-DEP IMPERF-NFUT
‘I’m listening to you.’
(YP)
. Clause linkage
This use of -mbi to mark tenseless dependent verbs also figures prominently in
Yimas interclausal connections. Clauses in Yimas Pidgin are typically loosely
joined in a sentence using this dependent suffix; there is no switch reference
marking, and clauses linked through the dependent suffix may have shared or
disjoint subjects:
(21) ya]i kandGk kura-mbi am-bi tandaw-nan
pot LOC put-DEP eat-DEP sit-NFUT
‘(they) put (it) in a pot and ate it sitting down.’
(YP)
This pattern is also found in Yimas, but is complemented by an extensive system of clausal linkage through nominalization, both finite and non-finite, as
exemplified in this bit of text:
(22)
(Y)
ma-y
mnta i-mp-awl-k]A
pot.VIII.SG other-VIII.SG then VII.SG.O-3PL.A-get-IRR
mnta warapak-mpi-ca-k-mp-n
B [kpa-y
big-VIII.SG then flay-SEQ-put-IRR-VII.SG-OBL
ya]i-\an
wul-k-mp-n
pot.VIII.SG-OBL put down-IRR-VII.SG-OBL
wut-mpi
na-mpu-t-krapak-mpi-]a-k]B
put down-SEQ 3SG.O-3PL.A-RCP-divide-SEQ-give-IRR
[kalk
na-mpu-wul-k]C
C
V.SG.O-3PL.A-put down-IRR
sago pudding.V.SG
‘They got another pot, a big one, and then having flayed and put (her) in
the pot, having put (her) down there, they took their share, and they made
sago pudding.’
A [ya]i
Arafundi in keeping with many central highlands languages of New Guinea
employs clause chaining with switch reference, a construction exemplified by
the following:
(23) a.
\G] nam
yepe-a ambuk
1SG woman see-SR go.1SG.PERF
‘I saw the woman and left.’
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Universal constraints and local conditions in Pidginization
b. \G] nam
yepe-tum-u] a\
1SG woman see-DR-1SG go.1SG.PERF
‘I saw the woman and (she) left.’
(AR)
The suffix -a indicates the subjects of the two clauses linked together are the
same, while -tum indicates they are different. In addition -u] in (23b) expresses
that the subject of its clause is first person singular. If it were second singular,
the proper suffix would be -man.
Nominalizations, finite and non-finite, and switch reference are totally
lacking in Yimas Pidgin, which exclusively employs clause linkage through
simple juxtaposition or marking dependence with -mbi.
. Summary
The processes of language simplification we have demonstrated in the genesis
of Yimas Pidgin can be summarized according to the rubrics of Siegel (2000)
and Kusters (2003):
A. reduction (Siegel 2000) or the Economy Principle (Kusters 2003): loss of
gender and number distinctions of nouns; loss of verbal agreement affixes
for core grammatical relations; loss of a complex person-based split for the
alignment of grammatical relations; collapse of a eight tense system to a
binary distinction.
B. increased regularity (Siegel 2000) or the Isomorphy Principle (Kusters
2003): number of all nouns indicated by either kundamwin ‘two’ and
manba ‘many’; single invariant forms of adjectives and possessives; animate objects of all persons signaled by namban; aspect indicated by serial
verbs, as opposed to a complex array of prefixes and suffixes.
C. greater transparency (Siegel 2000) or the Transparency Principle (Kusters
2003): number of nouns indicated by separate words, rather than bound
suffixes portmanteau with gender; grammatical function signaled overtly
by separate word namban on animate objects and recipients, situations in
which potential ambiguity could obtain; aspect signaled by serial verbs in
consistent postverbal position, rather than a mix of prefixes and suffixes.
D. lack of markedness (Siegel 2000): clause linkage by unelaborated clause
chaining, rather than nominalizations, either finite or non-finite, or switch
reference systems.
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William Foley
. Hiri Motu
Hiri Motu has a better documented, if somewhat more complex, history than
Yimas Pidgin. The superstrate language is Motu, spoken around Port Moresby
in Papua New Guinea, but determining the substrate language(s) is rather
tricky, with probably multiple sources. The Motu are a coastal Austronesian
people who migrated to the central Papua area from further east, as its closest linguistic relatives largely lie to the east. When the Motu arrived on the
central Papuan coast they came into contact with the Papuan language speaking Koita, who inhabited the area. Motu shows some innovations vis a vis the
related Austronesian languages further east which probably reflect Koita influence. The Motu entered into an elaborate trading relationship with the Koita,
who provided game and bush products for Motu pots and sea products; on the
whole the Motu and Koita were closely integrated socially and economically.
As a coastal, sailing people, the Motu also traded further afield. The most spectacular of their extensive trading networks involved the hiri trading voyages to
the Gulf of Papua, a dangerous journey of some 400 km. There live the Eleman speaking peoples and the Koriki, with whom the Motu traded pots and
received lumber and sago in return.
In the trading contacts of the Gulf of Papua, pidginized version of the Eleman languages or Koriki were used by the Motu to communicate with their
trading partners (Dutton 1983). What the Motus used in their contacts with
the Koita is not known, but with the arrival of Europeans in the Port Moresby
area in 1874, clear reports emerged of a simplified form of Motu used in talking
to foreigners. It is most implausible that this grew up with the arrival of Europeans, and it is probably the continuation of an indigenous tradition, a contact
language for the Koita. As more immigrants arrived in the Port Moresby area,
their highly diverse linguistic backgrounds of European languages, Chinese,
Malay and other Oceanic Austronesian languages insured that simplified Motu
would have been the only language in common, and it quickly assumed the
role of a contact language between them, ultimately gelling into what we know
today as Hiri Motu. Thus, the history of Hiri Motu differs from that of Yimas
Pidgin in that, while Hiri Motu has a single superstrate language, it has multiple substrate languages, prominent among them Koita, Eleman languages,
other Oceanic Austronesian languages, and English. The lexicon reflects this;
while most of its basic vocabulary is derived from Motu, the rest is composed
of words that come from Polynesian languages, other Austronesian languages
of Papua and pidginized forms of English. There are also at least some words
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Universal constraints and local conditions in Pidginization
from the Gulf of Papua languages, e.g. nakimi ‘brother-in-law’ from Koriki
(Dutton 1985).
. Nominal inflection
Grammatically, Hiri Motu is a simplified version of Motu, reflecting its source
in some variety of Simplified Motu, but Motu itself, while an Austronesian language, already shows some divergence from other Austronesian languages of
Papua in the direction of Koita, as we shall see below. Nouns in Motu are generally not inflected for gender or number, a given noun functioning vaguely
as singular or plural according to context. (This is true of Koita and the Eleman languages, as it is of Arafundi and many other Papuan languages). Adjectives, however, do mark number for their modified nouns when definite
(Dutton 1985).
(M)
(24) a.
dabua kurokuro-na
cloth white-SG
‘the white cloth’
b. dabua kurokuro-dia
cloth white-PL
‘the white clothes.
(M)
As with Yimas Pidgin agreement between modifier and head noun disappears
in Hiri Motu, the only vestiges being agreement for number with namo ‘good’
and kida ‘bad’: (Dutton 1985):
(HM)
(25) dala maoromaoro ta
path straight
one
‘a straight path’
Motu, like Oceanic Austronesian languages generally, has a type of gender
distinction in possessive NPs. These languages distinguish between inalienable and alienable possession and, within alienable possession, between things
which are edible or otherwise. Inalienable nouns are marked for possession
simply by suffixing the possessor suffix (indicating person and number) to the
noun, as in the typical Austronesian Oceanic pattern (Pawley 1976):
(26) a. natu-dia
child-3PL.POSS
‘their child/children’
b. ima-gu
hand-1SG.POSS
‘my hand’
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(M)
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William Foley
Alienable possession is again marked in the typical Austronesian Oceanic pattern, by suffixing the possessor suffix to a classifier preceding the possessed
noun (Pawley 1976):
(27) a.
a-gu
boroma
edible-1SG.POSS pig
‘my pig/pork for eating’
b. e-gu
boroma
property-1SG.POSS pig
‘my pig (as property)’
(M)
(M)
The substratum Papuan languages are more variable in this domain. Eleman
languages, represented here by Toaripi, mark the possessor with a possessive
suffix/particle attached to the basic pronoun forms, which precedes the possessed noun; there is no classification of nouns for possession (Brown 1973):
(28) a.
ara-ve
mai
1SG-POSS hand
‘my hand’
b. Mirou ve
marehari
Mirou POSS younger brother
‘Mirou’s younger brother’
(T)
(T)
Koita is more complicated. It has a number of gender-type clauses into which
possessed nouns fall, leading to different morphological forms for possessive
constructions according to the head noun (Dutton 1975):
(29) Normal form
class 1:
omoto
class 3:
ihiko
class 4:
deγa
class 5:
uri
class 8:
kuhi
a.
possessed
-te class
omote
-ke class
ihikoke
-ye class
deγaye
-de class
uride
-ve class
kuhive
form
(K)
‘head’
‘ear’
‘buttocks’
‘nose’
‘sore’
di
ihikoke
1SG.POSS ear
‘my ear’
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(K)
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Universal constraints and local conditions in Pidginization
b. yau
vai>aue
3PL.POSS spear
‘their spear’
(K)
Hiri Motu possessive constructions are radically simplified from Motu in the
direction of the Eleman languages, but the actual constructions involved are
quite different, so the Eleman languages could not have been a model for them.
Rather they reflect the parent Motu system neutralized, so that the unmarked
Motu ‘property’ possessive class is extended to cover all possessives regardless
of the possessed noun (Dutton 1985):
(30) a.
lau-egu
1SG-1SG.POSS
‘my father’
b. lau-egu
1SG-1SG.POSS
‘my house’
c. lau-egu
1SG-1SG.POSS
‘my food’
tamana
father
(HM)
ruma
house
(HM)
aniani
food
(HM)
. Expression of grammatical relations
The indication of grammatical relations in Motu is a mix of general Austronesian Oceanic patterns and probable imports from Koita. Most Austronesian
Oceanic languages signal subject and object via pronominal agreement affixes
to the verb with somewhat variable word order for subject and object NPs
across the languages: SVO (Tolai), VOS (Fijian, Kilivila) or SOV (Motu). As
the great bulk of Austronesian languages are VO in grammatical structure, the
switch to OV in Motu and other languages of mainland New Guinea probably
reflects diffusion from adjoining Papuan languages, which typically do have
this constituent order. Both Koita and the Eleman languages are OV languages.
Motu fairly closely preserves the subject and object verb agreement affixes inherited from the proto-language of the Austronesian Oceanic languages.
Subjects are marked by a set of prefixes and object by suffixes (third person object suffixes are restricted to animate NPs), as set out in Table 3 (Lister-Turner
& Clark 1930):
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William Foley
Table 3. Motu agreement affixes
1
2
3
1 INCL
1 EXCL
2
3
SG
PL
PRO
SUBJ
OBJ
lau
oi
ia
ita
ai
imui
idia
naoetaaoe-
-gu
-mu
-(i)a
-da
-mai
-mui
-dia
These are illustrated in the following examples:
(31) a.
na-gwadai-a
1SG.SUBJ-pierce-3SG.OBJ
‘I pierced him’
b. e-ubu-gu
3SG.SUBJ-feed-1SG.OBJ
‘She fed me.’
(M)
(M)
With a true ditransitive verb like heni- ‘give’ the object suffix actually agrees
with the dative NP:
(32) buka e-heni-gu
book 3SG.SUBJ-give-1SG.OBJ
‘He gave me a book.’
(M)
The substrate languages, Koita and Toaripi, also have verb agreement to signal
grammatical relations, but along very different lines. Verb agreement works on
a ergative-absolutive system, so that the verb agrees in number but not person
with absolutive NPs, either the object of a transitive verb or the subject of an
intransitive one:
Koita (Dutton 1975):
(33) a.
da-ka
mu
1SG-SUBJ PERF
‘I stood’
b. yau-ka
mu
3PL-SUBJ PERF
‘They stood’
c. da-ka
mu
1SG-SUBJ PERF
‘I saw you (SG)’
ra-ma-nu
stand-SG-PAST
(K)
ra-ha-nu
stand-PL-PAST
(K)
a
era->a-nu
2SG see-SG-PAST
(K)
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Universal constraints and local conditions in Pidginization
d. da-ka
mu
1SG-SUBJ PERF
‘I saw you (PL)’
e. *da-ka
mu
1SG-SUBJ PERF
ya era-geve-nu
2PL see-PL-PAST
(K)
ya era->a-nu
2PL see-SG-PAST
(K)
Toaripi (Brown 1973):
(34) a. are itoi
b. ere itoteai
3SG stand.SG
3PL stand.PL
‘He stands’
‘They stand’
c. ere ere-ve
etau oroti voa vuopōpe
3PL 3PL-POSS thing canoe in put.SG
‘They put their thing in the canoe’
d. ere ere-ve
etauroro oroti voa ōpōpe
3PL 3PL-POSS things
canoe in put.PL
‘They put their things in the canoe’
e. *are are-ve
etauroro oroti voa vuopōpe
3SG 3SG-POSS things
canoe in put.SG
(T)
(T)
(T)
(T)
The (e) examples in both the Koita and Toaripi are ungrammatical because the
verb is agreeing in number with the singular transitive subject (ergative), rather
than the plural transitive object (absolutive). With ditransitive verbs like ‘give’,
the dative NP controls the object verb agreement (Dutton 1975; Brown 1973):
(35) a.
1. da mo-ima
2. no mo-higeue
1SG give-SG
1PL give-PL
‘Give it to me!’
‘Give it to us!’
b. ava mea fere
la a-ro
miarai
3SG this betelnut OBJ 2SG-OBJ give.SG
‘He gave this betelnut to you.’
(K)
(T)
Hiri Motu follows Yimas Pidgin in losing almost all verbal agreement. The
pronominal forms in the language are derived directly from the Motu independent pronouns (ita- ‘see’ has the allomorph itai- when it co-occurs with
the transitive suffix -a, as in 36b, c):
(36) a.
ia noho
3SG stay
‘He’s here.’
b. lau itaia oi
1SG see 2SG
‘I saw you’
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(HM)
(HM)
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William Foley
c.
(HM)
boroma lau itaia
pig
1SG see
‘I saw a pig.’
The only vestiges of the Motu agreement system in Hiri Motu is a suffix -a
derived from Motu -a 3SG.OBJ, which is a fossilized marker of transitive verbs
(see example (36b)) and -dia from Motu -dia 3PL.OBJ which marks plural
objects and replaces -a on transitive verbs (Dutton & Brown 1975):
(37) boroma lau ita-dia
pig
1SG see-3PL.OBJ
‘I saw pigs’
(Compare (36c))
This agreement for number of the object of a transitive verb could reflect influence from Koita or Eleman languages, which also do this by following their
absolutive NP agreement pattern. The above examples demonstrate some variation in Hiri Motu word order (SVO, SOV, OSV, etc.), so clearly word order is
not a reliable guide to grammatical relations in Hiri Motu (see Dutton (1997)
for discussion on parameters for this variation). Nor indeed is pronominal verb
agreement, given its total lack in the language. Rather the language makes use
of a few mutually exclusive case marking and topic and focus marking particles
to keep the grammatical relations straight. These are derived from Motu (and
the Motu system in turn is probably due to diffusion from Koita, as Koita like
all languages of the Koiarian family of languages makes heavy use of such particles (Olson 1981); these are largely lacking in Austronesian Oceanic languages
other than Motu). To understand what is happening it is best to start with
Motu, which has three basic particles: ese, na, and be. Ese is the most straight
forward of these; it marks the subject of transitive verbs, especially in cases of
possible ambiguity. It is, thus, an ergative case:
(38) a.
hahine ese natu-na
e-ubu-dia
woman ERG child-3SG.POSS 3SG.SUBJ-feed-3PL.OBJ
‘The woman fed her children’
b. sisia ese boroma e-kori-a
dog ERG pig
3SG.SUBJ-bite-3SG.OBJ
‘The dog bit the pig.’
(M)
(M)
na is a type of topicalization marker. It is used when objects are topicalized,
preceding the subject in word order:
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(39) boroma na sisia ese e-kori-a
pig
TOP dog ERG 3SG.SUBJ-bit-3SG.OBJ
‘The pig, the dog bit.’
(M)
Or na can mark the dative NP with a ditransitive verb:
(40) tau ese mero na buka e-heni-a
man ERG boy TOP book 3SG.SUBJ-give-3SG.OBJ
‘The man gave the boy a book.’
(M)
And na can even mark subjects of intransitive verbs if they are topicalized or
there is some doubt as to their role:
(41) tau na vada e-la
man TOP PERF 3SG.SUBJ-go
‘The man has gone.’
(M)
na also marks subordinate clauses, in the manner of topicalizing particles in
many Papuan languages (Haiman 1978):
(M)
(42) ia bain-e-ma
(a)i na bai-na-hamaoro-a
3SG FUT-3SG.SUBJ come time TOP FUT-1SG.SUBJ-tell-3SG.OBJ
‘When he comes, I’ll tell him.’
be marks focussed, new information NPs, in contrast to the topicalized, presupposed NPs marked by na (Dutton 1985)
(43) a.
lada-mu
be
name-2SG.POSS FOC
‘What’s your name?’
b. lada-gu
na
name-1SG.POSS TOP
‘My name’s Asi.’
daika?
who
(M)
Asi
Asi
(M)
This Motu system appears to be a truncated version of the much richer related
system of Koita topic and focus particles. Dutton (1975) provides a list of over
a dozen of these particles, and it is much too elaborate to go into any detail
here. Suffice to say there is a set including -ka, which appears to be restricted
to marking subjects (see examples (33) above), and a topicalizer -na ∼ -ra,
common in equational sentences and overtly topicalized NPs in verbal clauses,
as in:
(44) a.
ata vire-ra
haroro koita-vara
man that-TOP preach person-SPEC
‘That man’s a pastor.’
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b. au-na
oregenu?
3SG-TOP where
‘Where is it?’
c. a-na
oregene a
oti-Ø-ma
2SG-TOP where 2SG go-SG-PRES
‘Where are you going?’
(K)
(K)
and a focus marker -ki:
(45) a.
da-ka-ki
roku i-Ø-nu
1SG-SUBJ-FOC papaya eat-SG-PAST
‘(It was) I (who) ate the papaya.’
b. da-ki
era-@a-nu,
a-ka
veitera
1SG-FOC see-SG-PAST, 2SG-SUBJ NEG
‘I saw it, you didn’t.’
(K)
(K)
Strikingly, -ki also marks dative NPs with verbs other than mo- ‘give’:
(46) Madi-ra-ki
Kila-ki
ro-Ø-nu
Madi-SPEC-FOC Kila-FOC tell-SG-PAST
‘(It was) Madi (who) told Kila (something).’
(K)
Toaripi lacks such a syntactized use of focus/topic particles (although, interestingly, the Gulf of Papua trade language used by the Motu and based on the
Eleman languages does have them (Dutton 1983), probably as a result of Motu
providing the syntactic model for them in the pidginization process). Rather
like Yimas Pidgin, Toaripi uses a case marker to mark dative NPs and object
NPs, especially animate or otherwise syntactically, ambiguous ones; the particle
is la (a suffix -ro occurs with pronouns) (Brown 1973):
(47) a.
ara mea fere
la a-ro
miarai
1SG this betelnut OBJ 2SG-OBJ give.SG
‘I gave you these betelnuts.’
b. ara-ro
ere sa elori
1SG-OBJ 3PL cut open
‘They cut me open.’
c. mea o
a-ro
leisa moita
this word 2SG-OBJ who said
‘Who said this to you?’
d. lea marisa teve uta la sape
this girls
not hole OBJ mend.PROG
‘These girls were mending holes in the net.’
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(T)
(T)
(T)
(T)
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But:
e.
Meavea uvi
turōpe
Meavea house built
‘Meave built a house.’
(T)
Note that the object marker is required on dative NPs (a, c) and animate object
NPs (b), but appears to be optional for inanimate objects (d, e), in this case
probably reflecting discoursal factors. Note that Toaripi word order is fairly
flexible: while usually SOV (a, d, e), an OSV order is possible (b, c), necessitating the marking of at least one of the animate NPs functioning as grammatical
relations. Toaripi marks the object in contrast to Motu and Koita, which both
mark the subject, Motu on an ergative basis and Koita on an accusative one.
Hiri Motu follows Motu and Koita in using particles to mark grammatical
relations, but instead of three Motu particles (ese, na and be), it only uses two,
so that be expands to take over the functions of na (Dutton 1985). ese is used,
like in Motu, as a disambiguating ergative case marker:
(48) tau ese hahine ia botaia
man ERG woman 3SG hit.TR
‘The man hits the woman.’
(HM)
Note that these Hiri Motu data would lead us to query the value of McWhorter’s
(2001) observation that creole languages do not exhibit ergativity. No known
creole language may, but certainly at least one pidgin language does, and would
lead us to expect that there is no impediment to this feature in creoles. The
lack is just a contingent fact; after all, Hiri Motu could easily be acquired natively as a creole. The particle be marks both topicalized and focussed NPs
(Dutton 1985):
(49) a.
oiemu ladana be daika
your name who
‘What’s your name?’
b. lauegu ladana be Asi
my
name Asi
‘My name is Asi.’
c. inai sisia be lauegu boroma ia lulua
this dog
my
pig
3SG chase.TR
‘This dog chased my pig.’
d. gabu ia daroa negana(i) be mero maraki ia tai
place 3SG sweep time
boy small 3SG cry
‘While she was sweeping the place, the small boy cried.’
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(HM)
(HM)
(HM)
(HM)
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be does not, however, extend in Hiri Motu to yet another use of na in Motu,
the marking of dative NPs with ditransitive verbs. In this case the ubiquitous
postposition dekanai, derived from Motu dekana(i) ‘beside/towards’ is used:
(50) oi henia lau dekanai
2SG give.TR 1SG OBL
‘You give (it) to me.’
(HM)
Note that dative use of Hiri Motu dekanai ‘toward’ parallels that of Yimas nampan ‘toward’, but in Hiri Motu it does not extend to marking animate object
NPs.
. Tense-aspect marking
Motu has two basic tenses: future versus non-future (present or past). This is
signaled by a prefix in b- preceding the subject pronominal prefix versus Ø:
bai-na-gini FUT-1SG.SUBJ-stand ‘I’ll stand’ versus na-gini 1SG.SUBJ-stand ‘I
stand’ or ‘I stood’. (This could perhaps be better analyzed as a realis-irrealis
distinction, in line with many other Austronesian languages of New Guinea).
Koita and Toaripi are both much more complex, with many tense distinctions,
including multiple distinctions within past and future. Hiri Motu follows Motu
with a basic binary future/non-future distinction, but the means to indicate
it are rather different. In keeping with the general morphological simplification in Hiri Motu, non-future is not marked, but future is expressed with an
adverbial dohore (sometimes shortened to do), derived from Motu dohore ‘by
and by’ (this usage may have been influenced by the Tok Pisin future marker
baimbai). So:
(51) a.
lau itaia
1SG see.TR
‘I see/saw it.’
b. dohore/do lau itaia
FUT
1SG see.TR
‘I’ll see it.’
(HM)
(HM)
Aspect in Motu is expressed in various ways. Imperfective aspect is indicated
by suffixes to the verb, -va for present continuous and -mu for past continuous:
(52) na-itaia-mu/-va
1SG.SUBJ-see.TR-PRES.IMPERF/-PAST.IMPERF
‘I am/was seeing it.’
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Universal constraints and local conditions in Pidginization
Perfective aspect is marked with a adverb vada ‘completed’ preceding the verb:
(53) vada na-itai-a
PERF 1SG.SUBJ-see-3SG.OBJ
‘I have seen it.’
(M)
In Koita, aspect is expressed with a set of particles immediately following the
subject constituent:
(54) a.
au-ki
gure
ni-vi-ma
3SG-FOC IMPERF cry-SG-PRES
‘(It is) he (who) keeps on crying.’
b. da-ka
mu i-Ø-nu
1SG-SUBJ PERF eat-SG-PAST
‘I’ve already eaten it.’
(K)
(K)
In Toaripi, aspect is again indicated in various ways: the imperfective aspect
is expressed by compounding a verb with the verb root -pea ‘be, dwell’, while
perfective is marked with the preverbal adverbial evera ‘finished, already’, much
like Motu.
Hiri Motu is most like Toaripi in its expression of aspect and not too dissimilar from Yimas Pidgin. The Motu imperfective aspect suffixes are lost and
this is indicated with a serial verb like construction involving noho ‘dwell, stay’:
(55) lau itaia noho
1SG see.TR IMPERF
‘I am/was looking at it.’
(HM)
Perfective is indicated by the adverbial vadaeni (derived like true Motu vada
from vadaeni ‘enough’), also placed after the verb:
(56) lau itaia vadaeni
1SG see.TR PERF
‘I have seen it.’
(HM)
The source model for the Hiri Motu aspectual system could have been the
Toaripi system, but that is not likely, given the general lack of Toaripi contributions to Hiri Motu. Another possibility is Tok Pisin, as its aspectual system,
involving i stap ‘stay/IMPERF’ and pinis ‘finish/PERF’, is closely parallel, as we
shall see in the next section. But the Hiri Motu aspectual system is also similar
to that of Yimas Pidgin, and this suggests general forces are at work here.
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. Clause linkage
Finally, clause linkage in Hiri Motu is largely similar to Motu, with straightforward conjunction and embedding, although it favors a more paratactic style.
It is somewhat simplified structurally and uses fewer conjunctions, but is otherwise not hugely different from Motu. The following bit of Hiri Motu text
illustrates (Dutton 1985):
(57) vada ai
be patrol loaloa edeseni Japani idia noho (HM)
then 1PL.EXCL
patrol roam where Japanese 3PL dwell
edeseni noho
where dwell
‘We used to go on patrol to where the Japanese were staying.’
lau kakana
ruosi, ai
ruosi lau inei dala ta, dala
1SG elder brother two 1PL.EXCL two go this path one path
ta ia mai Sananda dekenai ia lau Doboduru
one 3SG come Sananda OBL
3SG go Doboduru
‘My elder brother and I we both went along this path; a path it runs from
Sananda, it goes to Doboduru.’
Note the simple juxtaposition of clauses in this last sentence, representing a
preference against embedded structures. Motu in this case would have prenominal relative clauses (Lister-Turner & Clark 1930):
(58) [biku e-ani
ore] boroma-dia na vada e-heau
banana 3SG.SUBJ-eat finish pig-PL
TOP PERF 3SG.SUBJ-run
(M)
boio
away
‘The pigs that ate up the bananas have run away.’
Such a convoluted structure would be strongly disfavored in Hiri Motu, the
weak paratactic juxtaposition of clauses exemplified above is typical.
In point of contrast, the clause linkage systems of both Koita and Toaripi
are very different from Motu and Hiri Motu. They make extensive use of clause
chaining (Foley 1986) with dependent verbs, and, in the case of Koita, switch
reference morphology as well (Brown 1973; Dutton 1975):
(59) uamori ere-ve
larietau ovi pat-ei
elavo
voa
women 3PL-POSS food
up bring-DEP men’s house inside
mi-ōri, ere larietau kokoruk-a av-i
au lo-pe
give-DEP 3PL food
gather-DEP sit-DEP eat do-PAST
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Universal constraints and local conditions in Pidginization
‘The woman brought the food up and gave (it) (to them) inside the men’s
house; they (the men) gathered the food, sat down and ate it up.’
(60) a.
da-ka
mu oro-γi
eva-γa-nu
1SG-SUBJ PERF come-SR see-SG-PAST
‘I came and saw him.’
b. au-ki
da ihirom-ege da-ki
oti-Ø-nu
3SG-FOC 1SG call-DR
1SG-FOC go-SG-PAST
‘(It was) he(who) called me and I (who) went.’
(K)
(K)
In the (a) example the subjects of the two clauses are the same, hence -γi SR, but
in (b) they are different (-ege DR). Note how similar, particularly the Toaripi
example, is to clause linkage in Yimas Pidgin, and the difference of both of
these styles to the clause linkage employed in Hiri Motu, which is more Oceanic
Austronesian in type. The difference in clause linkage style between these two
pidgins, Yimas Pidgin and Hiri Motu, clearly reflects the language mix in the
contact situations giving rise to them: only OV, clause chaining languages in
the case of Yimas Pidgin, but a wider typological mix for Hiri Motu, consisting of VO, paratactically conjoining Austronesian languages and English, but
also OV clause chaining Papuan languages. The fact that Hiri Motu is more
like the former type reflects either its general unmarkedness in pidgin genesis (to be overriden in certain situations like that of Yimas Pidgin, where all
contributing languages share a particular discourse style) or the greater influence of Oceanic Austronesian speakers and their language type in the specific
genesis of Hiri Motu.
. Summary
The processes of language simplification we have demonstrated in the genesis
of Hiri Motu can also be summarized according to the rubrics of Siegel (2000)
and Kusters (2003):
A. reduction (Siegel 2000) or the Economy Principle (Kusters 2003): loss of
adjective agreement; loss of possessive gender class distinctions for nouns;
loss of verbal agreement affixes for subject and object ; contrast between be
and na neutralized, with be taking over functions of both; loss of a tense
contrast in imperfective aspect.
B. increased regularity (Siegel 2000) or the Isomorphy Principle (Kusters
2003): single invariant forms of adjectives and possessives; no suppletive
verb forms for object number agreement; use of only one particle be for
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William Foley
subjects of intransitive verbs, instead of the contrast between na TOP and
be FOC; extension of the oblique postposition dekanai to indicate dative
NPs of ditransitive verbs, making these parallel to other locative roles; future tense marking invariable, instead of a prefix with a number of persondetermined allomorphs; imperfective aspect also invariable, rather than
portmanteau with tense; aspect marking always postverbal.
C. greater transparency (Siegel 2000) or the Transparency Principle (Kusters
2003): grammatical relations signaled by overt particles, the ergative ese,
the oblique dekanai, and be, rather than a mix of particles and bound verbal affixes; future tense indicated by a preverbal independent word, rather
than a bound prefix; aspect signaled by independent forms in consistent
postverbal position.
D. lack of markedness (Siegel 2000): clause linkage by simple parataxis, rather
than embedding, which is common in Motu, or clause chaining, as in Koita
or Toaripi.
. Tok Pisin
Tok Pisin is by far the best known of the pidgin languages spoken in Papua
New Guinea. It is an English derived pidgin, so that English is its superstrate
language (with a small contribution from German), but its substrate languages
are numerous Oceanic Austronesian languages of the Pacific islands, especially Polynesian languages like Samoan and the Austronesian languages of the
New Ireland/Rabaul area, notably Tolai, and the Australian Pidgin English of
colonial eastern Australia (see Mühlhausler (1983), Keesing (1988) and Baker
(1993) for social histories of the genesis of Tok Pisin). Because Tok Pisin is
better known than the other two pidgins discussed and because its superstrate
language is English (over 80% of the basic vocabulary is derived from English),
I will be somewhat briefer in my consideration of this language. Also, because
the morphological structure of both its superstrate language and substrate languages are comparatively simple, unlike for Yimas Pidgin and Hiri Motu, I will
not be focusing on the specific issue of simplification in the genesis of Tok Pisin,
but rather the likely origins of its grammatical structures or their apparent lack
in its source languages; the similarity or difference of these structures to comparable domains in Yimas Pidgin and Hiri Motu will be discussed in Section 5.
Though the superstrate language for Tok Pisin is English, its substrate languages are highly varied. I will focus on the Oceanic substrate of Melanesian
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Universal constraints and local conditions in Pidginization
languages, particularly those from which most of the plantation laborers were
drawn: New Britain, New Ireland, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. While there
is good evidence for the pivotal role of Australian Pidgin English in the genesis
of Tok Pisin (Baker 1993), it is still generally accepted that Oceanic languages
are major substrate contributors (Siegel 1999). Sorting out the relative contribution of superstrate and substrate languages to the syntactic patterns of Tok
Pisin is a relatively tricky task for this pidgin due to the similarity of syntactic
structure between English and these Oceanic languages, although, as we shall
see, when these diverge, Tok Pisin typically exhibits Oceanic-like structures,
not English ones.
. Nominal inflection
Tok Pisin has no gender distinctions for nouns, but most current dialects do
mark number for animate nouns, by procliticizing the third person plural pronoun ol ‘they’ to the noun: ol man ‘the men’, ol pato ‘the ducks’. This is clearly
different from English, which pluralizes with an inflectional suffix /-6z/, but
does closely parallel usage in many Oceanic languages: Raga (Vanuatu) ira
vavine 3PL woman ‘the women’, Lau (Solomons) genera ngwane 3PL man ‘the
men’ (Keesing 1988). Possession is indicated in Tok Pisin by bilong from English belong in the order possessed bilong possessor: dok bilong pikinini: dog of
child ‘the child’s dog’. This is the opposite of the usual order in English possessive NPs, nor does it reflect the typical Oceanic order (Fijian nu-qu vale
POSS-1SG house ‘my house’, Mota (Vanuatu) no-k o matip POSS-1SG.DET
coconut ‘my coconut’, so this must be an independent development during
the pidginization process. Baker (1993) plausibly demonstrates its source in
Australian Pidgin English). Note, too, that the common Oceanic gender-type
distinctions among possessed nouns (see Section 3.1) is neutralized.
. Expression of grammatical relations
Tok Pisin is a canonical SVO language, as is both its superstrate English, and
very many of its substrate Oceanic languages:
(61) a.
Tok Pisin
pikinini i
paitim dok asde
child
AGR hit
dog yesterday
‘The child hit the dog yesterday.’
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William Foley
b. Tolai (New Britain) (Capell 1969)
a
tutuna i
gire ra
pap
DET man 3SG.SUBJ see DET dog
‘The man is seeing the dog.’
c. Kwaio (Solomon Islands) (Keesing 1988)
ma’a a-gu
ka
aga-si-a
boo naaboni
father POSS-1SG 3SG.SUBJ see-TR-3SG.OBJ pig yesterday
‘My father saw a pig yesterday.’
d. Sie (Vanuatu) (Lynch & Capell 1983)
etm-en
yi-tai
lau
father-3SG.POSS 3SG.SUBJ-make canoe
‘His father made a canoe.’
Other Oceanic languages may have a verb initial order, but derive a SVO order via topicalization of the subject, e.g. Fijian. But this similarity of Tok Pisin
syntax to that of English is more apparent than real, for when the language
is more deeply scrutinized, it is clear that the actual encoding of grammatical
relations in the language is radically different from that of English and these
differences, point for point, resemble patterns in the Oceanic languages. First,
Tok Pisin, unlike English, exhibits overt morphological encoding for a distinction between transitive and intransitive verbs. Almost all transitive verbs are
marked by an overt transitivizing suffix:
(62) VINTR
boil
bruk
pas
pulap
slek
VTR
boil-im
bruk-im
pas-im
pulap-im
slek-im
‘boil’
‘break’
‘close’
‘full, fill’
‘loose, loosen’
(TP)
This pattern is widespread among Oceanic languages (see also discussion of
Motu in Section 3.2):
(63) a.
Tolai (Mosel 1980)
aliv
aliv-e ‘float’
momo mom-e ‘drink’
b. Kwaio (Keesing 1988)
aga
aga-si
‘see’
gumu gumu-ri ‘pound’
fana fana-si ‘shoot’
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Intransitive verbs which denote activities are also morphologically marked in
Tok Pisin, by reduplication:
(64) VINTR
lukluk
waswas
pekpek
pispis
puspus
VTR
luk-im ‘see’
was-im ‘wash’
‘defecate’
‘urinate’
‘copulate’
(TP)
This pattern of reduplicating intransitive activity verbs is also widespread in
Oceanic languages, but totally lacking in English, here illustrated by Tolai
(Mosel 1980):
(65) kukul
kul ‘buy’
tutumu tumu ‘write’
pekapeke peke ‘excrete’
(To)
Secondly, Tok Pisin has a preverbal clitic particle i used with person singular
and non-singular subjects, which is essentially a subject agreement form. This
may be derived from English he (although there are also clear Oceanic precursors with the form i (see Keesing 1988)), but the overall syntactic structure is
completely alien to English:
(66) a.
mipela i
go nau
1PL
AGR go now
‘We’re going now.’
b. ol man i
pait-im ol dok
PL man AGR hit-TR PL dog
‘The men are hitting the dogs.’
(TP)
(TP)
Essentially such a system is found in nearly every Oceanic language. Regardless of their basic constituent ordering of NPs, Oceanic languages exhibit SVO
order in their agreement morphemes for the grammatical relations of subject and object. Subjects are cross-referenced by an agreement morpheme proclitic to the verb and objects by an enclitic. Kwaio (Keesing 1988) is absolutely
prototypical:
(67) ma’a a-gu
ka
aga-si-a
boo naaboni (Kw)
father POSS-1SG 3SG.SUBJ see-TR-3SG.OBJ pig yesterday
‘My father saw a pig yesterday.’
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As these clitics function as anaphoric agreement markers (Bresnan & Mchombo
1987), full NPs realizing the subject and object grammatical relations are freely
dispensable (Oceanic languages are ‘pro-drop’ languages):
(68) a.
ka
aga-si-a
naaboni
3SG.SUBJ see-TR-3SG.OBJ yesterday
‘He saw it yesterday.’
b. ka
aga-si-’adauru
3SG.SUBJ see-TR-1PL.INCL.OBJ
‘He saw us.’
(Kw)
(Kw)
It seems plausible to claim that while both the subject agreement predicate
i and the transitive suffix -im may have parent English morphemes, he and
him respectively, the system within which they function is wholly derived from
Oceanic patterns, not English ones. That Tok Pisin has often been viewed as
clearly reflecting English source structures is simply due to the superficial similarity of its SVO word order to that of English. A deeper look reveals that this
SVO structure, while parallel to English, is probably not due to English, but
to substrate Oceanic languages which are also SVO, for the remainder of the
system for encoding grammatical relations in Tok Pisin is wholly non-English,
but fairly clearly is an analog of Oceanic patterns.
. Tense-aspect marking
Like Hiri Motu, but unlike Yimas Pidgin, Tok Pisin does not have obligatory inflection for tense. However, tense notions can be expressed by a set of preverbal
particles (this is also how Oceanic languages do it):
(69)
Compare Tolai (Mosel 1984):
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(70)
‘The man saw/will see the dog.’
Interestingly, there are traces of the future/non-future system found earlier in
Hiri Motu and Yimas Pidgin, for a sentence unmarked for any time specification will typically be freely interpretable as present or past:
(71) man i
pait-im dok
man AGR hit-TR dog
‘The man is hitting/hit the dog.’
(TP)
While a future reading requires an overt tense marker or other future time
specifier like tumora ‘tomorrow’:
(72) man i
laik pait-im dok
man AGR FUT hit-TR dog
‘The man is gonna hit the dog.’
(TP)
Aspect in Tok Pisin is expressed in ways exactly parallel to Yimas Pidgin, by
using serial verb constructions involving stap ‘stay, live’ for imperfective and
pinis ‘finish’ for perfective.
(73) a.
ol man i
wok-im haus i
stap
PL man AGR make-TR house AGR IMPERF
‘The men are building the house.’
b. ol man i
wok-im haus pinis
PL man AGR make-TR house PERF
‘The men have built the house.’
(TP)
(TP)
Interestingly, while this structure is clearly not derived from English, it also
is not all that common among Oceanic languages. What is most common in
Oceanic languages is that the formations of the two aspects are not parallel.
In Tolai (Mosel 1984), for instance, imperfective aspect is commonly signaled
by reduplication of the verb (this is the most widespread way to signal this
semantic domain among Oceanic languages):
(74) u
ia-ian
kau-gu
vudu
2SG RED-eat POSS-1SG.POSS banana
‘You are eating my bananas.’
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(To)
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William Foley
While perfective aspect is indicated by a preverbal perfective particle parallel to
the tense markers in (70) above (Mosel 1984):
(75) iau na tar
ian kau-m
vudu
1SG FUT PERF eat POSS-2SG.POSS banana
‘I will have eaten your bananas.’
(To)
There are, however, some Oceanic languages, although an apparent minority,
which do form this aspectual contrast in parallel in a Tok Pisin-like way. Northeast Ambae of Vanuatu is one such language (Hyslop 2001), employing eno ‘lie’
for the imperfective and rovo ‘finish’ for the perfective:
(76) a.
gu
wehi-eu mo
eno
2SG.TEL hit-1SG.O REAL IMPERF
‘You were beating me.’
b. ra-ru
mo
laqa mo
rovo
3NSG-DL REAL speak REAL PERF
‘When they had spoken/finished speaking.’
(NEA)
. Conclusion: Local and universal constraints on pidginization
In the title of this paper I posed the question of the relative role of universal
constraints versus local conditions on the outputs of the pidginization process. I stated my intention to investigate this through a comparative study of
three pidgins of New Guinea, particularly non-European derived ones. Having
looked at what has happened in the formation of Yimas Pidgin, Hiri Motu and
Tok Pisin, it appears that both may be relevant, and it is now certainly clear in
these New Guinea case studies that the latter is a very important factor. It is true
that all three languages show similar universal processes of language simplification: reduction and increased regularity in the loss of inflection and the elimination of allomorphy, i.e. loss of noun class in Yimas Pidgin, loss of possessed
noun gender in Hiri Motu and Tok Pisin, loss of number marking in Yimas
Pidgin and Hiri Motu, loss of agreement or cross-referring to signal core grammatical relations in Yimas Pidgin and Hiri Motu. But the grammatical systems
resulting from such losses are quite different in each of the three languages, and
these differences reflect the local conditions, i.e., the structures of the source
languages, for the genesis of each pidgin. Thus, the source languages for Yimas
Pidgin and Hiri Motu are non-configurational languages with free constituent
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Universal constraints and local conditions in Pidginization
order for NPs functioning as core grammatical relations. The source languages
for Tok Pisin, on the other hand, are not and typically have a more fixed VO
order (usually SVO or more rarely VSO or VOS). Consequently, Yimas Pidgin
and Hiri Motu have relatively free order of core NPs, but Tok Pisin is a fixed
SVO language. Motu and Koita both use a complex system of case marking
and topicalization particles to signal core grammatical functions; Hiri Motu
does the same, unusually for a pidgin employing an ergative case marking system like its superstrate Motu, but this is also exhibited in the verbal agreement
patterns of its substrates. Yimas Pidgin, on the other hand, chooses to mark
animate direct objects and dative NPs and to leave other core NPs unmarked.
This reflects a widespread case marking schema of other languages of the Middle Sepik; but interestingly, it is not a feature of Yimas, which completely lacks
case marking and signals core grammatical functions via verb agreement, nor
of the substrate language Arafundi, which does have case marking, but of an
ergative type, marking the subject of a transitive verb, rather than the object, as
Yimas Pidgin does. But the mark-the-object rule is around in the local linguistic area; it is in the air (or water!), so to speak. Many of the morphologically
simpler, more isolating languages in the region indicate core grammatical relations in this way, particularly the languages spoken by the high status cultures
of the Middle Sepik, such as Iatmul; consequently it was a readily available option to solve the problem of signaling core grammatical functions in Yimas
Pidgin. The fact that the Yimas-Alamblak Pidgin does not signal grammatical relations in this way does argue against a hypothesis that this solution was
sourced in a relexification of an Iatmul-based pidgin. The high status of this
cultural group would lead us to expect a Iatmul Pidgin to serve as a model for
all Yimas based pidgins if this were true. This divergence between the two varieties indicates that both were local solutions to the problem of negotiating a
language of exchange through linguistic simplification with speakers of different kinds of linguistic backgrounds and knowledge. Finally, Tok Pisin, like its
source Oceanic languages and English, leaves the core grammatical relations of
subject and object unmarked, letting the fixed SVO order perform the signaling function. However, unlike Yimas Pidgin and Hiri Motu, and rather like its
local source Oceanic languages, it also uses verbal morphology to encode grammatical relations, namely the proclitic i for subject agreement and the transitive
suffix -im for object. All of these developments across the three pidgins indicate
the importance of local conditions for the genesis of pidgins.
Another example concerns clause linkage patterns across the three pidgins, and this probably reflects constraints of greater transparency and lack of
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William Foley
markedness. Hiri Motu and Tok Pisin have a preference for weakly integrated,
paratactic structures, relying on coordination or simple juxtaposition. In this,
they reflect the favored patterns of their substrate Oceanic Austronesian languages, but also perhaps the typical method of pidgins around the world, and,
in any case, this is the unmarked setting for interclausal connections. But Yimas Pidgin employs the more typologically unusual clause chaining structure
in clause linkage, a choice no doubt due to the fact that all languages in the
multilingual mix that gave rise to it were Papuan languages, for which this
schema is normative (although Yimas itself does still have other devices, like
nominalization, which may be at least as frequently used in discourse). This
difference among the three pidgins again demonstrates the important role of
local conditions in pidgin genesis.
But this is not the whole story. For when we look at the systems of tense and
aspect in the three pidgins, they are remarkably similar in spite of enormous
differences in this area in the various sets of source languages. For example, all
three pidgins have a neutral future/non-future tense system, with non-future
the unmarked option, in spite of the significant formal differences between the
three pidgins:
Yimas Pidgin Hiri Motu Tok Pisin
Non-FUT -nan
Ø
Ø
FUT
-n anak
dohore
bai
The fact that the end result of the process of pidginization in the three languages is so similar, regardless of the very different local conditions (e.g. Yimas has eight tense distinctions; Motu has basically two; English essentially
has two, but past versus non-past; and other Oceanic languages are highly
variable in their degree of elaboration in this domain) suggests that universal
constraints are operative here. Furthermore, in the specific case of Yimas Pidgin, none of the contributing languages to it or its sisters, the Yimas-Alamblak
or Yimas-Karawari pidgins, have a basic binary tense system like this; it has
no pre-existing models and could only have arisen during the pidginization
process itself.
A similar point can be made for aspect. Again, all three languages show
remarkable similarities: serial verb-like constructions involving a verb like ‘sit,
stay’ for imperfective and ‘finish’ for perfective This is especially striking for
Tok Pisin because such a feature is not pronounced in most of its Oceanic
source languages. The same point can also be made for Yimas Pidgin, as models for this aspectual system are lacking in all its source languages, although
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Universal constraints and local conditions in Pidginization
again they are found in some other languages of the Sepik region. The similar
way of marking aspect in all three languages in spite of their very different local
conditions strongly suggests universal constraints are at work here. What is the
source of these constraints in the domain of tense-aspect-mood is not clear. I
believe it has something to do with the high level of abstractness of these semantic categories; there is not much in the perceivable world that corresponds
to perfect aspect or irrealis mood, unlike actors and objects. In second language acquisition, the difficulties in acquiring control over categories like the
imperfect or the subjunctive as opposed to nominative or accusative are well
known. But pinning this intuition down more precisely and indeed ascertaining whether there is any truth to it will require a great deal more work. I end
my speculations here.
The process of pidginization is an interesting and important one in linguistic change. It reveals in a fascinating way the creative skills humans use to
arrive at linguistic accommodations with linguistic others. Comparative studies of pidginization results may ultimately reveal the delicate interplay of local
linguistic conditions with more robust universal linguistic constraints, and in
doing so, provide an arena in which linguists can usefully study the role of both.
Abbreviations
A
ACC
AGR
Ar
CONT
COP
D
DAT
DEP
DET
DL
DR
ERG
EXCL
FOC
FUT
HAB
subject of a transitive verb
accusative case
agreement marker
Arafundi
continuative
copula
dative/recipient of
a ditransitive verb
dative case
dependent
determiner
dual number
different referent
ergative case
exclusive
focus
future
habitual
HM
IMPERF
INCL
IRR
K
Kw
LOC
M
NEA
NEG
NFUT
NSG
O
OBJ
OBL
PAST
PERF
PL
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Hiri Motu
imperfective
inclusive
irrealis
Koita
Kwaio
locative case
Motu
Northeast Ambae
negative
non-future
non-singular
object of a transitive verb
object
oblique
past
perfective
plural
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William Foley
POSS
PRES
PRO
PROG
RCP
REAL
RED
REM.PAST
S
SEQ
SG
SPEC
SR
possessive
present
pronoun
progressive
reciprocal
realis
reduplication
remote past
subject of an intransitive verb
sequential
singular
specific
same referent
SUBJ
T
To
TOP
TP
TR
V–VIII
Y
YP
1
2
3
subject
Toaripi
Tolai
topic
Tok Pisin
transitive
Yimas gender classes
Yimas
Yimas Pidgin
first person
second person
third person
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