Tok Pisin

Question 1

Which countries were hundreds of thousands of enslaved Pacific Islanders forced to work on plantations?

Answer 1

Australia (Queensland) and Fiji

Question 2

From what early plantation pidgin does Tok Pisin descend from?

Answer 2

Melanesian Pidgin English

Question 3

What’s the difference between a creole and a pidgin?

Answer 3

PIDGIN: A reduced language that comes from extended contact between groups of people with no language in common. Need for verbal communication in a limited domain, often slavery or trade.

CREOLE: Elaboration of a pidgin with new grammatical forms, acquired as a first language by a community.

Question 4

What is a substrate and what is a lexifier?

Answer 4

Substrate - less ‘powerful’ language

Lexifier - In the cases of this course, English

Question 5

Give 5 examples common in simplified pidgin grammar.

Answer 5

No inflected plural
Analytic possessive
Pronouns: no case/gender
No articles
Copula deletion

Question 6

Give some grammatical features of Tok Pisin.

Answer 6

‘bin’ is used as a past tense particle, ‘bai’ is future tense particle
Difference between inclusive and exclusive pronouns (SUBSTRATE INFLUENCE)
Dual category (SUBSTRATE INFLUENCE)
Polysemous propositions (small inventory of adpositions)