PROCESSES OF LANGUAGE CONTACT: STUDIES FROM AUSTRALIA AND THE SOUTH PACIFIC. Jeff Siegel (Ed.). Saint-Laurent, Canada: Fides, 2000. Pp. xvi + 320. $34.95 paper.

Abstract

The present volume highlights studies of languages created by contact-induced language change in Australia and the Pacific. Editor Jeff Siegel identifies six processes involved in the formation of pidgins, creoles, and other such language contact varieties: reanalysis, simplification, leveling, diffusion, language shift, and depidginization/decreolization. The process of reanalysis is the focus of four chapters: “The Role of Australian Aboriginal Language in the Formation of Australian Pidgin Grammar: Transitive Verbs and Adjectives” by Koch; “‘Predicate Marking' in Bislama” by Crowley; “Predicting Substrate Influence: Tense-Modality-Aspect Marking in Tayo” by Siegel, Sandeman, and Corne; “My Nephew Is My Aunt: Features and Transformation of Kinship Terminology in Solomon Islands Pijin” by Jourdan; and “Na pa kekan, na person: The Evolution of Tayo Negatives” by Corne.