This volume contains a selection of fifteen papers presented at three consecutive meetings of the Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics, held in Washington, D.C. (January 2001); Coimbra, Portugal (June 2001); and San Francisco (January 2002). The fifteen articles offer a balanced sampling of… read more
Although there is a substantial amount of linguistic research on standard language acquisition, little attention has been given to the mechanisms underlying second dialect acquisition. Using a combination of function-based grammar and sociolinguistic methodology to analyze topic marking strategies,… read more
Belizean Creole (BC) has a counterfactual structure expressed by a preverbal combination of the past and future morphemes (me wan V). There is no equivalent structure in the English superstrate of Belizean Creole, so the possibility of the continuity and transmission of African substratal features… read more
1.Problems of definition
1.1 Gender and sex in society
1.2 Pidgins and creoles
2. Focus on Belize
2.1 Sociolinguistic background
2.2 English influence on Belizean Creole
2.3 Previous studies of gender in Belize
2.4 Gender in nominal reference and proverbs
3. … read more
The continuous process of language mixing which takes place in the development of creole continua is particularly suited to favor the emergence of language universals. Topic-comment structures are found to be extensively used in English-based Caribbean basilects. Furthermore, topic prominence is… read more
