Tok Pisin & Hawai’i Creole English:

EnglishWantoks or Siblings?

c

Craig Alan VolkerProfessor of Linguistic Research

Divine Word University, Madang, PNgcvolker AT dwu.ac.pg

Watpo sem sem?

Same Oceanic origin?

Diffusion?

Chance & universals?

Oceanic Origins

pau / pinis: Hanahana pau, orait, yufera slip.Wok pinis, orait, yupela slip.

pronounsSingular Dual Trial Plural mi mitufera mitrifera miferayu yutufera yutrifera yufera him (data not certain)

Oceanic, in modern HCE, not in data

stap / stei durative: Ai laik stei tok stori.

bin / wen past: Ai wen bai da kain.

locative prepositions: andanit a da chri

transitive marker (“im”) : Yu no laik yusim hama?

answering negative questions

Typical Oceanic not in data

inclusive / exclusive “we”

predicate marker (“i”)

no general preposition “long”

productive reduplication

Oceanic but also Japanese

serial verbs of direction:Yufera kachi diswankam! / Gachi diswan go!

no interrogative fronting:Yu laiki wat?

Common with Chinese Pidgin English

bilong / birong: Him haus birong mi

-fela / -fera adjectives: Man him bigfera. Tufera gud wahine.

-fela / -fera determiners: wanfera man / *wanfera tebol

Common English-derived wordsconjunctions: olsem, sapos, taim, orait

Olsem hanahana pau...

“ol” plural

adverbs of intensity: lelebet, tomachiRerebet mani, tomachi pirikia.

atingAting mi Japan go.

Word orderusually SVO

so prepositions & det-adj-n:Wanfera gud wahine

sometimes SOV (like Japanese): Taim mi Japan go.

sometimes postpositions (like Japanese):Mi stap ten klok made.

Wantoks or siblings?

some words and morphemes have common ancestors

Structure in data not Oceanic

Some later diffusion into Hawai’i Creole English of Oceanic structures

Mahalo

tenkyu tru

Craig Alan Volker, Divine Word University, ca.volker@yahoo.de