Trade pidgins in China: Historical and grammatical relationships
Author(s)
Date Issued
2016
Publisher
Wiley
Journal
Transactions of the Philological Society
Volume
114
Issue
3
Start page
298
End page
314
Abstract
Sino‐western contacts began in the sixteenth century when Europeans started open trade with China. Two trade pidgins, Macau Pidgin Portuguese (MPP) and Chinese Pidgin English (CPE), arose during the Canton trade period. This paper examines the historical and grammatical relationships of these two pidgins by drawing data from nineteenth century phrasebooks. This study argues for a close connection between MPP and CPE with reference to three grammatical features which go beyond shared vocabulary: locative copulas, form of personal pronouns, and prepositional complementisers. While these grammatical properties find little resemblance in the recognised source languages for CPE, parallel uses are attested in MPP, which therefore appears to provide the model for these properties in CPE.
SFU Affiliated Publication
No
Availability at SFU Library
No database links found.