Unity in diversity

Abstract

The homogeneity of the substrate and the grammar of space in the African and Caribbean English-lexifier creoles Kofi Yakpo John Singler's principle of the homogeneity of the substrate can account for the shape of locative structures in the Afro-Caribbean English-lexifier Creoles (AECs). These are modelled on typologically highly uniform substrate and adstrate structures across a broad swath of West and Central Africa. Common to the creoles and the African languages are the scarcity of Path-incorporating prepositions, the use of general locative prepositions in static and motion events, as well as the use of pre-or postpositional relator nouns. At the same time, the grammars of space of individual AECs like Sranan (Suriname) and Pichi (Equatorial Guinea) have diverged from each other due to differing lengths of contact with the lexifier English, and contact with different European superstrate languages.

The indigenization of Ghanaian Pidgin English

“…For example, the predominantly isolating morphological structure of Ghanaian Pidgin and the adstrates goes along with fuzzy boundaries between lexemes and function words (Ansaldo et al, 2018), as we have witnessed in the case of copular expression. At the same time, the lexical similarity of Ghanaian Pidgin and English also provides opportunities for borrowing from the lexifier because it facilitates change of phonologically similar Ghanaian Pidgin lexemes and function words in the direction of their English etymons (Yakpo, 2017(Yakpo, , 2023.…”