Multifunctionality in Pitkern-Norf’k and Tok Pisin

Mühlhäusler, Peter

doi:10.1075/jpcl.23.1.04muh

Article published In: Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages
Vol. 23:1 (2008) ► pp.75–113

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Multifunctionality in Pitkern-Norf’k and Tok Pisin

Peter Mühlhäusler | University of Adelaide

Published online: 18 April 2008

https://doi.org/10.1075/jpcl.23.1.04muh

This paper investigates claims as to the role of categorial multifunctionality in the Pitkern-Norf’k (PN) language. It concludes that the grammar of this construction is far less productive than that of either English or Tahitian (the principal substratum language). Essentially, multifunctionality in PN is a subset of English. In this, it is very different from Tok Pisin, which developed an independent system of categorial multifunctionality over the first 80 years of its existence. The paper makes some suggestions as to why the productivity of the derivational lexicon is so different in the two languages.

Keywords: Pitkern-Norf’k, multifunctionality, Tok Pisin, substratum, grammatical description, lexical productivity, superstratum, English-derived contact languages

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