An analysis of the polysemic nature of prepositions in pidgins and creoles (PCs) looks at the analytic nature of PCs and the pervasive variability in their grammars, and then focuses on usage of the preposition "fo" in Anglo-Nigerian Pidgin (ANP), likely borrowed from the English "for." It is argued that while this is not the…

An analysis of the status of Anglo-Nigerian Pidgin (ANP) looks at its origins and evolution in Nigerian history, its location in the Nigerian language situation, and its current sociolinguistic status. It is concluded that ANP possesses linguistic structures that have stabilized enough to give the speaker an impression of good and bad grammar.…

This volume contains the proceedings of the symposium on African language, culture and society held at Ohio State University. Six of the papers deal with the related issues of language reform and language planning, including such aspects as the choice of national and official languages. They include both general proposals for theoretical models as…

In order to test whether certain structures characteristic of West African languages are also present in the Negro English dialect of Natchitoches Parich, Louisiana, 355 short autobiographical papers written by Negro high school students were analyzed. Another 355 papers written by white high school students were used as controls. The papers were…

Papers from a 1993 conference on linguistics, all in French, include essays on the following: Yoruba morphophonology; literary Arabic morphophonology; grammatical cohesion in Burushaski; phonological and lexical variation in French Canadian dialects, including Acadian; insults in Madrid Spanish; discourse analysis; maintenance of meaning in…