Question

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Some of the characteristics of pidgin vocabulary are identified as follows: Polysemy, Multifunctionality, Circumlocution, Compounding, and Reduplication.

Explain each definition with examples from a pidgin.

Answer 1

For linguists, pidgins are simplified languages that develop as a means of communication between groups that don’t have a common language. As the children grow up, they magnify the terminology, articulation, and grammar so that they can use it as their main linguistic communication.

*Polysemy is the capability for a word or phrase to have numerous meanings, usually interrelated by contiguity of connotation within a semantic field. Polysemous words almost always share a similar foundation or core. Example: “get” – It means to procure,

Multifunctionality of words aids to recompense for the insignificant size of a pidgin vocabulary. Multifunctionality means that the same lexical item is used or functions in several syntactic classifications. Example: In the language of Tok Pisin, the word kaikai can means “food” or “to eat”.

Circumlocution is the use of many words where fewer would do, which means unneeded words are used, especially in a measured effort to be inexplicit or ambiguous. A good example would be “passed away” which actually means “died.”

· A compound is a lexeme, which means a word or a sign, that comprises of more than one stem. Compound words are made when two or more words are combined together to construct a new word that has an completely new connotation. For example, class and room are two different words, but when joined together, they make “classroom.”

· Reduplication refers to words made through reverberation of sounds. Examples include okey-dokey, pitter-patter.There are three types of reduplications: exact, rhyming, and ablaut.