George Boeree | europijin
Hi, again.
About your question concerning verb markers in pidgins and creoles: The
only group of pidgins that use verb markers, to the best of my
knowledge, are the various Melanesian pidgins, including Tok Pisin used
in Papua New Guinea. They use i (from he) before the verb if a third
person subject is used. They also use a suffix -im (from him) on their
verbs if the verb is followed by an object. Australian English
sometimes does this, too. It is interesting, sort of like a grammatical
version of www.whatever.com: subject:verb;object! Polynesian pidgins,
such as Hawaiian English, don't do either of these, and neither do any
other pidgins or creoles I could check on the net. So, while it is a
nice tool for clarity, it doesn't seem to be terribly popular.
Thought you'd be interested!
George