home

Here's your wiki for Bickerton (1984). Have fun!


 * monogenesis: ** the hypothetical descent of the human race from a single pair of individuals.

Basically: pidgin+children=creole

= = initial points from Bickerton:

Creole languages arise from pidgins through children’s fundamental biological program for language (language bioprogram hypothesis).

Chomsky writes about language bioprogram hypothesis, Bickerton supports through his analysis of pidgin - creole. //Arguments for invention// ¨ Pidgin speakers become less rudimentary in language use ¨ “Only plausible candidates for such processes are the ones peculiar to children…[processes] are inaccessible to adults. Therefore forms unique to locally born speakers must have been acquired by them as children.” ¨ Creoles have in grammar innovation, specific aspects not present in the pidgin ¨ Y*P/R=PI · //Where:// Y is number of years between colonization and influx of non-dominant language speakers with no common tongues (event I) · P is total substratum speaking population at event I  · R is yearly average of post-event-I immigrants · PI=pidiginization index—higher PI shows ‘richer’ pidgin, ie retains more features from dominant language; lower shows ‘more impoverished’ pidgin ¨ There is d //ata data data that proves/indicates/shows stuff// ¨ if LBH available to children growing up in pidgin-speaking environment, language bioprogram available to and used by children in traditional communities. ¨ LBH suggests new approaches to looking at the origin of language itself and MIGHT mean some or none of the following · //Grammatical gender:// more cultural than language based? · //Hierarchy in grammaticization:// some semantic distinctions must be marked, some may, some cannot. · //Difference between ‘conceptual’ and ‘computational’ components of language// · //Creole syntax indicates what is most basic/evolutionarily earliest syntax of language in general.// · //Differences between ‘inner core grammar’ and ‘core grammar’//

//Creole languages begin where multiple languages are brought together on a permanent basis (colonialism from 1500-1900) but each individual language does not share a commonality.//