Green, M. and Ozon, G. orcid.org/0000-0003-0888-1933 (2019) Valency and transitivity in a contact variety: the evidence from Cameroon Pidgin English. Journal of Language Contact, 12 (1). pp. 52-88. ISSN 1877-4091
Abstract
We explore valency and transitivity patterns in Cameroon Pidgin English (cpe) from a language contact perspective, with particular focus on (a) lexical and (b) constructional phenomena. With respect to (a), many verbs of English origin surface in cpe with additional senses and valency properties to those they display in the lexifier, illustrating the drive towards polysemy in a language with a relatively small lexicon. We also describe category change, whereby English non-verbal expressions (typically adjectives) emerge as verbs in cpe. In terms of (b), verbs undergo valency changes as a consequence of participation in productive serial verb constructions. These constructions are built around a small set of high-frequency verbs, some of which also occur in the light verb construction, which represents another strategy for the creation of complex predicates. We review the evidence for constructional substrate influence. The data under discussion are drawn from two small corpora of spoken cpe.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2019 Melanie Green and Gabriel Ozón. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the prevailing CC-BY-NC License at the time of publication (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). |
Keywords: | valency; transitivity; serial verb; light verb; Cameroon Pidgin English; corpus linguistics |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Arts and Humanities (Sheffield) > School of English (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number British Academy SG140663 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 26 Oct 2016 13:23 |
Last Modified: | 10 Jun 2019 15:00 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Brill Academic Publishers |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1163/19552629-01201003 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:106154 |