Language Bioprogram Theory - Syntactic Similarities

Syntactic Similarities

By comparing Hawaiian Pidgin and Creole, Bickerton identified twelve features which he believed to be integral to any creole:

• Sentence structure: subject–verb–object word order, with similar mechanisms for using word order to apply focus to one of these constituents.
• Articles: definite article applied to specific and identified noun phrase, indefinite article applied to specific and newly-asserted noun phrase, and zero for nonspecific noun phrase.
• TMA (tense–modality–aspect) systems
• distinction of realized and unrealized complements
• relativization and subject-copying
• negation
• existential and possessive
• copula
• adjectives as verbs
• questions
• question words
• passive equivalents

Having analyzed these features, he believed that he was able to characterize, at least partly, the properties of innate grammar. Although this hypothesis has enjoyed much popularity, it has been criticized. Bickerton in his LBH, defined very precisely what he considers to be a creole: a language that has arisen out of a prior pidgin that had not existed for more than a generation and among a population where, at most, 20% were speakers of the dominant language and where the remaining 80% were linguistically diverse. Such a definition excludes many languages that might be called creoles. Moreover, lack of historical data makes it often impossible to evaluate such claims. In addition, many of the creole languages that fit this definition do not display all the twelve features, while, according to Mühlhäusler (1986), the left-out creoles often display more of them. Another problem, raised by Mufwene (1986), is that if the same bioprogram was the starting point of all creoles, one must explain the differences between them, and language diversity in general, as the bioprogram is universal.

On the other hand, Bickerton, puts emphasis on children's contribution to the development of a creole and the abrupt character of this process. For example, in Bickerton (1983), he exhibits ungrammatical utterances made by English-speaking children between the ages of two and four, and argues that they are very similar to perfectly grammatical sentences of English-based creole languages:

Normally, the grammar behind such utterances made by children is eventually altered as parents continue to model a grammar different from this innate one. Presumably, if such children were removed from exposure to English parents, their grammars would continue to be that of creole languages.

Thomason & Kaufman (1988) argue that this emphasis on child-input implies two different linguistic communities but that it is far simpler and more consistent with the data from multilingual communities to assume that the two groups form one speech community, and that both make contributions to the development of the emergent creole. Also, Singler (1986) points out that children were scarce on plantations, where creoles appeared, for several reasons, including absence of women as well as high rates of sterility, miscarriage, and infant mortality.

However, according to Mühlhäusler (1986), the differences between the speech of children and adults in Tok Pisin are so big that communication is drastically hindered.