Pidginization and Simplification of Language
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PACIFIC LINGUISTICS Sell.ie.6 B - No. 26 PIDGINIZATION AND SIMPLIFICATION OF LANGUAGE by P. MUhlhausler Department of Linguistics Research School of Pacific Studies THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY Mühlhäusler, P. Pidginization and simplification of language. B-26, vi + 167 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1974. DOI:10.15144/PL-B26.cover ©1974 Pacific Linguistics and/or the author(s). Online edition licensed 2015 CC BY-SA 4.0, with permission of PL. A sealang.net/CRCL initiative. PA CIFIC LINGUIS TICS is issued through the Lin9ui��ie Ci�ele 06 Canbe��a and consists of four series: SERIES A - OCCAS IONA L PAPERS SERIES B - MONOGRA PHS SERIES C - BOOKS SERIES V - SPECIA L PUB LICATIONS EDITOR: S.A. Wurm. ASSOCIATE EDITORS: D.C. Laycock, C.L. voorhoeve, D.T. Tryon, T.E. Dutton. EDITORIAL ADVISERS: B. Bender, University of Hawaii K.A. McElhanon, University of Texas D. Bradley, University of Melbourne H. McKaughan, University of Hawaii A. Capell, University of Sydney P. Miihlhiiusler, Linacre College, Oxford S. Elbert, University of Hawaii G.N. O'Grady, University of Victoria, K. Franklin, Summer Institute of B.C. Linguistics A.K. Pawley, University of Hawaii W.W. Glover, Summer Institute of K. pike, University of Michigan; Summer Linguistics Institute of Linguistics G. Grace, University of Hawaii E.C. Polome, University of Texas M.A.K. Halliday, University of Sydney G. Sankoff, universite de Montreal A. Healey, Summer Institute of W.A.L. Stokhof, National Center for Linguistics Language Development, Jakarta; L. Hercus, Australian National University University of Leiden N.D. Liem, University of Hawaii J.W.M. Verhaar, University of Indonesia, J. Lynch, University of Papua New Guinea Jakarta ALL CORRESPONDENCE concerning PACIFIC LINGUISTICS, including orders and subscriptions, should be addressed to: The Secretary, PACIFIC LINGUISTICS, Department of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific Studies, The Australian National University , Canberra , A.C.T. 2600. Aust;ral ia. (§) Copyright P. Muhlhausler. First published 1974. Reprinted 1978 and 1981. The editors are indebted to the Australian National University for help in the production of this series. This publication was made possible by an initial grant from the Hunter Douglas Fund. National Library of Austra lia Card Number and ISBN 0 85883 113 9 INTRODU CTION This mongraph was originally presented as a thesis which was a partial requirement for the degree of M.Phil . of the University of Reading . It was written under the joint supervision of Dr I.P. Warburton and Dr P.J. Trudgill of the Department of Linguistic Science during the 1971/72 academic year . T�ere has been significant progress in the field of pidgin and creole studies since . Furthermore, the author has had the opportunity to carry out extensive fieldwork on New Guinea Pidgin in 1973 and 1974 which has led him to a reappraisal of some of the ideas proposed in the original thesis . However , changes have only been made where this seemed absolutely essential . Finally the author wants to apologize for the idiosyncracies in the use of the English language resulting from German and Afrikaans sUbstratum influences . Canberra , October 1974 . iii TAB LE OF CONTENTS Page 1. THE PREDI CAMENT OF THE PIDGINIST 1 1.1. PROLEGOMENA 1 1. 2. THE NATURE OF THE DATA 3 1 .3. GRAMMAT ICAL THEORY AND PIDGINS 6 1. 4. DIACHRONIC STUDIES OF PIDGINS AND CREOLES 6 1.5. SYNCHRON IC STUDIES OF PIDGINS AND CREOLES 9 2. THE DEFINITION OF THE TERMS 'P IDGIN', 'P IDGINIZATI ON', 11 'CREOLE' AND 'CREOLIZAT ION' 2.1. INTRODUCTION 11 2.2. A LOOK AT EARLIER DEFINITIONS 12 2.3. THE RELATIVITY OF THE TERMS 'PIDGIN' AND 'CREOLE ' 1 4 2.4. DEFINITIONS IN PURELY LINGUISTIC TERMS 1 8 2.5. FOUR CRITERIA FOR THE DEFINITION OF PIDGIN 22 3. SOCIOLINGUISTIC PARAMETERS OF PIDGINIZAT ION AND 27 CREOLIZAT ION 3.1. SOME EARLIER PROPOSALS 27 3.2. A PRELIMINARY LIST OF PARAMETERS 29 3.3. A CLOSER LOOK AT SOME PARAMETERS 29 3.4. ADDITIONAL PARAMETERS 4 5 3.5. SOME CONCLUSIONS 48 4. THE CONNECTION BETWEEN LINGUISTIC AND SOCIOLINGUISTIC 4 9 FACTORS 4.1. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 4 9 4.2. CORRELATES OF SIMPLIFICATION 50 4.3. IMPERFECT LEARNING OF A FOREIGN LANGUAGE 53 4.4. THE SOCIOLINGUISTIC CORRELATES OF IMPOVERISHMENT 61 4.5. SOCIOLINGUISTIC PARAMETERS OF UNINTELLIGIBILITY 62 iv v Page 4.6. SOCIOLINGUISTIC PARAMETERS OF STABILITY 6 3 4.7. SUMMARY OF CHAPTER FOUR 64 5. SIMPL IFI CATION OF LANGUAGE 6 7 5.1. INTRODUCTION 6 7 5.2. DIFFERENT USES OF THE NOTION OF SIMPLICITY 67 5.3. THE DISCUSSION OF SIMPLIFICATION IN THE 6 9 LITERATURE 5.4. SIMPLIFICATION AND IMPOVERISHMENT 73 5.5. MARKED CATEGORIES AND THEIR LOSS IN 76 PIDGINIZATION 5.6. SIMPLIFICATION OF THE MORPHOPHONEMIC COMPONENT 84 5.7. STRICT ORDER OF SURFACE STRUCTURE ELEMENTS AND 92 SIMPLIFICATION 5.8. SIMPLIFICATION IN THE LEXICON I 97 5.9. SIMPLIFICAT ION IN THE LEXICON II 103 6. THE DETERMINATION OF FORM CLASSES IN PIDGINS 111 6.1. PROBLEMS IN PRETHEORETICAL CLASSIFICAT ION III 6.2. FORM CLASSES IN GENERATIVE THEORY 118 6.3. DERIVATION VERSUS CROSS-CLASSIFICATION 129 7. CONCLUSIONS 135 BIBLIOGRAPH Y 1 4 1 Mühlhäusler, P. Pidginization and simplification of language. B-26, vi + 167 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1974. DOI:10.15144/PL-B26.cover ©1974 Pacific Linguistics and/or the author(s). Online edition licensed 2015 CC BY-SA 4.0, with permission of PL. A sealang.net/CRCL initiative. CHAPTER 1 1. THE PREDI CAMENT OF THE PIDGINIST 1.1. PROLEGOMENA Progress in linguistics depends on two ma in factors : the deve l opment of an explicit linguistic theory and the availability of data that are re liable enough to be used in the testing of these theories. A look at the present state of pidgin studies will show that both conditions are far from being met . Most of the studies that have been done were undertaken without any theoretical framework and even those studies that were made within the framework of structuralist linguistics were often made on a limited and unreliable corpus of data. One of the reasons for this is that pidgins and similar 'marginal ' languages were of marginal interest for mo st linguists . Although they are mentioned in most standard textbooks , only a few pages were devoted to them, and earlier opinions ab out pidgins were often uncritically taken over in otherwise critical studies . The same holds for creole languages , which were often considered as a variation of the same phenomenon . "The study of creoles and pidgins has gained impetus only during the last fifteen years . .These languages , long viewed as the product of linguistic miscegenat ion and therefore beneath the dignity of scholars of , the more traditional schools , have for too long gone unregarded." (Hancock 1971a : p.11 7) . This does not mean that some excellent work has not been done by scholars such as Schuchardt , R.A. Hall, LePage and Taylor , work that is a valuable foundation for further research. But the success of most earlier work is due to the personal devotion of a few scholars and their insistance on particular problems . Today , pidgin studies have reached a degree of maturation that should make it possible to leave behind the pre-theoretical phase of investigation and deve lop 1 Mühlhäusler, P. Pidginization and simplification of language. B-26, vi + 167 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1974. DOI:10.15144/PL-B26.1 ©1974 Pacific Linguistics and/or the author(s). Online edition licensed 2015 CC BY-SA 4.0, with permission of PL. A sealang.net/CRCL initiative. 2 a theory that can accommodate the ob s ervations' made during that phase . This will necessarily be beyond the power of a single scholar . The work of many scholars will be needed as well as interdisciplinary collaboration between linguists, sociolinguists , and sociologists . The aim of this thesis is to examine certain present-day tendencies in pidgin and creole studies , to discuss some of the questions that must be asked in this field, and to make some suggestions about how grammatical theory can help in understanding the phenomena under debate . Most of the results will seem tentat ive and unsatisfactory , but some may indicate the direction to be taken by further investigations . Before any discussion, however, I want first to mention some difficulties of a more general nature in some detail - difficulties that are responsible for the predicament in which the pres ent-day pidginist finds himself. In this discussion the term creole will be used as well as the term pidgin. The reasons for this will become clear later . As mentioned above , many linguists have held the view that pidgins are not worthy objects for a scientific investigation, but rather mere curiosities . This view has been discussed at some length (e .g. Hall: review Sayer; Hall 1954; Hymes 1971: preface Schuchardt 1909 and elsewhere ) and little therefore remains to be said here . However, some prejudices that were exposed by Hall and others are still with us . They are , perhaps, more subtle today , but no less dangerous for that . Labov has recently criticized the first generative account of a creole (Bailey 1966) on very similar grounds , name ly that the language is described in terms of its deviation from the standard language : "The description of a non-standard language is to be a kind of grammaire des fautes , a pedagogi cal caricature of the language rather than a portrait of it. Whatever value such constructions have for the teachers or learners , they cannot contribute anything to our study of the adequacy of languages.