new books : pidgins & creoles the structure and status of pidgins and creoles including selected papers from the society for pidgin and creole linguistics arthur k . spears & donald winford ( eds . ) due 1997 ix , 436 pp . creole language library , 19 us / canada : cloth : 1 55619 174 x price : us $ 99 . rest of the world : cloth : 90 272 5241 6 price : hfl . 175 , - - john benjamins publishing web site : http : / / www . benjamins . com for further information via e-mail : service @ benjamins . com destined to become a landmark work , this book is devoted principally to a reassessment of the content , categories , boundaries , and basic assumptions of pidgin and creole studies . it includes revised and elaborated papers from meetings of the society for pidgin and creole linguistics in addition to commissioned papers from leading scholars in the field . as a group , the papers undertake this reassessment through a reevaluation of pidgin / creole terminology and contact language typology ( section one ) ; a requestioning of process and evolution in pidginization , creolization , and other language contact phenomena ( section two ) ; a reinterpretation of the sources and genesis of grammatical aspects of saramaccan and atlantic creoles in general ( section three ) ; a reconsideration of the status of languages defying received definitions of pidgins and creoles ( section four ) ; and analyses of aspects of grammar that shed light on the issue of what a possible creole grammar is ( section five ) . contents : intro : on the structure and status of pidgins and creoles : donald winford . section one : 1 . jaargons , pidgins , creoles and koines : what are they ? : salikoko s . mufwene ; 2 . a typology of contact languages : sarah g . thomason . section two : 3 . directionality in pidginization and creolization : philip baker ; 4 . mixing , leveling , and pidgin / creole development : jeff siegel ; 5 . matrix language recognition and morpheme sorting as possible structural strategies in pidgin / creole formation : carol myers - scotton ; 6 . the creolization of pidgin morphophonology : william j . samarin . section three : 7 . saramaccan creole origins : portuguese - derived lexical correspondences and the relexification hypothesis : michael aceto ; 8 . lost in transmission : a case for the independent emergence of the copula in atlantic creoles : john h . mcwhorter . section four : 9 . creole - like features in the verb system of an afro - brazilian variety of portuguese : alan n . baxter ; 10 . the verb phrase in afrikaans : evidence of creolization ? : christa de kleine ; 11 . shaba swahili : partial creolization due to second language learning and substrate pressure : vincent a . de rooij ; 12 . the status of isicarntho , an nguni - based urban variety of soweto : g . tucker childs . section five : 13 . new light on eskimo pidgins : hein van der voort ; 14 . reduplication in ndyuka : mary l . huttar and george l . huttar ; 15 . tense - aspect-mood in principense : philippe maurer . the genesis of a language the formation and development of korlai portuguese clancy j clements 1996 xviii , 282 pp . creole language library , 16 us / canada : cloth : 1 55619 171 5 price : $ 79 . 00 rest of the world : cloth : 90 272 5238 6 price : hfl . 140 , - - john benjamins publishing web site : http : / / www . benjamins . com for further information via e-mail : service @ benjamins . com korlai portuguese ( kp ) , a portuguese - based creole only recently discovered by linguists , originated around 1520 on the west coast of india . initially isolated from its hindu and muslim neighbors by social and religious barriers , the small korlai community lost virtually all portuguese contact as well after 1740 . this volume is the first-ever comprehensive treatment of the formation , linguistic components , and rapidly changing situation of this exotic creole . the product of ten years of research , korlai creole portuguese provides an exciting , in-depth diachronic look at a language that is now showing the strain of intense cultural pressure from the surrounding marathi - speaking population . framed in thomason and kaufman 's 1988 model of contact-induced language change , the author 's analysis is enriched by numerous comparisons with sister creoles , apart from medieval portuguese and marathi . this book contrastively examines the following areas : phonemic inventories , phonological processes , stress assignment , syllable structure , paradigm restructuring , paradigm use , lexicon , word formation , semantic borrowing , loan translations , grammatical relation marking , pre - and postnominal modification , negation , subject and object deletion , embedding , and word order . contact languages a wider perspective sarah g thomason ( ed . ) 1996 xi , 487 pp . creole language library , 17 us / canada : cloth : 1 55619 172 3 price : $ 165 . 00 rest of the world : cloth : 90 272 5239 4 price : hfl . 275 , - - john benjamins publishing web site : http : / / www . benjamins . com for further information via e-mail : service @ benjamins . com this book contributes to a more balanced view of the most dramatic results of language contact by presenting linguistic and historical sketches of lesser-known contact languages . the twelve case studies offer eloquent testimony against the still common view that all contact languages are pidgins and creoles with maximally simple and essentially identical grammars . they show that some contact languages are neither pidgins nor creoles , and that even pidgins and creoles can display considerable structural diversity and structural complexity ; they also show that two-language contact situations can give rise to pidgins , especially when access to a target language is withheld by its speakers . the chapters are arranged according to language type : three focus on pidgins ( hiri motu , by tom dutton ; pidgin delaware , by ives goddard ; and ndyuka - trio pidgin , by george l . huttar and frank j . velantie ) , two on creoles ( kituba , by salikoko s . mufwene , and sango , by helma pasch ) , one on a set of pidgins and creoles ( arabic - based contact languages , by jonathan owens ) , one on the question of early pidginization and / or creolization in swahili ( by derek nurse ) , and five on bilingual mixed languages ( michif , by peter bakker and robert a . papen ; media lengua and callahuaya , both by pieter muysken ; and mednyj aleut and ma ' a , both by sarah thomason ) . the authors ' collective goal is to help offset the traditional emphasis , within contact-language studies , on pidgins and creoles that arose as an immediate result of contact with europeans , starting in the age of exploration . the accumulation of case studies on a wide diversity of languages is needed to create a body of knowledge substantial enough to support robust generalizations about the nature and development of all types of contact language . creole and dialect continua standard acquisition processes in belize and china ( prc ) genevieve escure 1997 x , 307 pp . creole language library , 18 us / canada : cloth : 1 55619 173 1 price : $ 89 . 00 rest of the world : cloth : 90 272 5240 8 price : hfl . 150 , - - john benjamins publishing web site : http : / / www . benjamins . com for further information via e-mail : service @ benjamins . com 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 , the unguided acquisition of a standard by speakers of nonstandard varieties is examined in two distinct linguistic and geographical situations : in a caribbean creole situation ( belize ) , with special attention to the acquisition of acrolects by native speakers of basilects , and in a noncreole situation ( prc ) , documenting the acquisition of standard chinese ( putonghua ) by speakers of nonstandard varieties represented in cultural revolution literature , wuhan chinese , and suzhou wu story-telling style . in both cases psychosocial factors , linguistic bias toward nonnative renderings of the standard varieties , the social status of their speakers , and related political and educational consequences play an important role in the development of second dialects . the broad-ranging analysis of a single feature of oral discourse leads to the formulation of cross-linguistic generalizations in acquisition studies and results in an evaluation of the putative uniqueness of creole languages . related issues addressed include the effect of linguistic bias on the development and use of language varieties by marginalized groups ; the interaction of three major language components - semantics , syntax , and pragmatics - in spontaneous communication ; and the development of methods to identify discourse units . the ultimate goal underlying the comparison of specific discourse variables in belizean and chinese standard acquisition is to evaluate the relative merits of substratal , superstratal , and universal explanations in language development . for further information please e-mail bernadette keck : service @ benjamins . com
