Aspects of variation in educated Nigerian Pidgin
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Dagmar Deuber
Abstract
This paper presents quantitative analyses of variation in selected areas of the grammar of Nigerian Pidgin as spoken by educated speakers (who also have a good command of English, the lexifier): tense/aspect marking, copula forms and verbal negation. The background is the theory going back to work by DeCamp and Bickerton in the 1970s on Jamaica and Guyana, respectively, that a linguistic continuum inevitably develops in certain situations of contact between a pidgin/creole and its lexifier. The data presented here, however, do not indicate the existence of a pidgin-to-English continuum in Nigeria. This may be taken as evidence that the Caribbean creole continua have arisen due to specific sociohistorical circumstances and that such continua are not bound to develop elsewhere.
Abstract
This paper presents quantitative analyses of variation in selected areas of the grammar of Nigerian Pidgin as spoken by educated speakers (who also have a good command of English, the lexifier): tense/aspect marking, copula forms and verbal negation. The background is the theory going back to work by DeCamp and Bickerton in the 1970s on Jamaica and Guyana, respectively, that a linguistic continuum inevitably develops in certain situations of contact between a pidgin/creole and its lexifier. The data presented here, however, do not indicate the existence of a pidgin-to-English continuum in Nigeria. This may be taken as evidence that the Caribbean creole continua have arisen due to specific sociohistorical circumstances and that such continua are not bound to develop elsewhere.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- Introduction 1
-
Part I: Structure
- The phonetics of tone in Saramaccan 9
- Tracing the origin of modality in the creoles of Suriname 29
- Modelling Creole Genesis 61
- The restructuring of tense/aspect systems in creole formation 85
- Syntactic properties of negation in Chinook Jargon, with a comparison of two source languages 111
- Sri Lankan Malay morphosyntax 135
- Sri Lanka Malay 159
- The advantages of a blockage-based etymological dictionary for proven or putative relexified languages 183
-
Part II: Variation
- A fresh look at habitual be in AAVE 203
- Oral narrative and tense in urban Bahamian Creole English 225
- Aspects of variation in educated Nigerian Pidgin 243
- A linguistic time-capsule 263
- The progressive in the spoken Papiamentu of Aruba 291
- Was Haitian ever more like French? 315
- The late transfer of serial verb constructions as stylistic variants in Saramaccan creole 337
- Index 373
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- Introduction 1
-
Part I: Structure
- The phonetics of tone in Saramaccan 9
- Tracing the origin of modality in the creoles of Suriname 29
- Modelling Creole Genesis 61
- The restructuring of tense/aspect systems in creole formation 85
- Syntactic properties of negation in Chinook Jargon, with a comparison of two source languages 111
- Sri Lankan Malay morphosyntax 135
- Sri Lanka Malay 159
- The advantages of a blockage-based etymological dictionary for proven or putative relexified languages 183
-
Part II: Variation
- A fresh look at habitual be in AAVE 203
- Oral narrative and tense in urban Bahamian Creole English 225
- Aspects of variation in educated Nigerian Pidgin 243
- A linguistic time-capsule 263
- The progressive in the spoken Papiamentu of Aruba 291
- Was Haitian ever more like French? 315
- The late transfer of serial verb constructions as stylistic variants in Saramaccan creole 337
- Index 373
