Vocabulary and grammarThe vocabulary of a pidgin or a creole has a great many similarities to that of the standard language with which it is associated. English-based pidgins derive as much as 90 percent of their lexicon from English:
However, it will be much more limited, and phonological and morphological simplification often leads to words assuming somewhat different shapes. Emphasis is often indicated by reduplication:
Kamtok big (big) big big (enormous) luk (see) luk luk (stare at)
Certain concepts require a somewhat elaborate encoding: for example, in Tok Pisin ‘hair’ is gras bilong het, ‘beard’ is gras bilong fes, ‘feathers’ is gras bilong pisin, ‘moustache’ is gras bilong maus, ‘my car’ is ka bilong me, and ‘bird’s wing’ is han bilong pisin. A pidgin or creole may draw on the vocabulary resources of more than one language. Tok Pisin draws primarily from English but also from Polynesian sources, e.g., kaikai (‘food’), and even German, because of historical reasons, e.g., rausim (‘throw out’ from the German heraus, ‘outside’). The source may not always be a ‘polite’ one, e.g., Tok Pisin bagarap (‘break down’) is from the English bugger up. So ka bilong mi i bagarapis ‘My car broke down.’ In examples like pikinini man (‘boy’ or ‘son’), pikinini meri (‘girl’ or ‘daughter’), pikinini dok (‘puppy’), and pikinini pik (‘piglet’), we can see not only the process of showing ‘diminutives’ through this use of pikinini but also a connection to the Portuguese word pequeño (‘little’). Most words are polysemous. Kamtok's hia (<hear), for example, means 'hear/ 'sense,''understand.' Most words are multifunctional. Kamtok's bad (<bad) can function as an adjective: tu bad pikin (two bad children) as a noun: Wi no laik dis kain bad. (We do not like this kind of badness.) as an adverb, modifying a verb: A laikam bad. (I like it very much.) as an adverb, modifying an adjective-verb: I gud bad. (He's very good.) as an adjective-verb: Di pikin bad. (The child is bad.)
Abstractions are often indicated by compounds.
They often have a small number of prepositions, sometimes as few as two, one to indicate location, another to indicate possession. For example, instead of changing the form of you to your, as in the English phrase your book, English-based pidgins use a form like bilong, and change the word order to produce phrases like buk bilong yu. In Tok Pisin, for example, the two most frequently used are long (< along) and bilong (< belong). Mi stei long Mosbi. (I live in Port Moresby.) haus bilong mi (my house) haus bilong wanpela meri (a woman's house).
Word order is rigid. In many pidgins, including Kamtok, it follows the pattern of: (Adjunct) + Subject + Predicate + (Object) + (Adjunct) Las nait wi bin si wi papa fo haus Last night we saw (visited) our father in his house. Weti yu difain josnau? What are you looking for now? Wuna go kwik kwik. Go immediately.
We should not be surprised that there is such a complete reduction of inflection in pidgins. Differences like one book–two books, he bakes–he baked, and big– bigger are quite expendable. Inflectional suffixes such as -s (plural) and -’s (possessive) on nouns in Standard English are rare in pidgins, while structures like tu buk (“two books”) and di gyal place (“the girl’s place”) are common.
Temporal and aspectual distinctions are indicated by context, by an adjunct, or by a set of auxiliaries which occur in a fixed order: Negation may be achieved through use of a simple negative particle no in the English-based Krio, e.g., i no tu had (‘It’s not too hard’).
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