Tok Pisin and i: Subject and Verb Agreement in Melanesian Pidgin English and Two Other Unrelated Creoles of Melanesia

Abstract

One of the most salient features of the creole, Tok Pisin, spoken in Papua New Guinea, is the element, i. It has also proved to be one of the more difficult aspects of the language to assign a function to. The particle i, appearing in most sentences between the verb and its subject, or between nouns and postposed adjectives, especially in predicational constructions, or verbs and postposed aspectual markers, has a high frequency of occurrence in Tok Pisin (henceforth TokP). The aim of this thesis is to provide a configurational account of just one of these constructions. Through an approach based on that of the Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1993) (henceforth MP) I will explore the function of the particle where it appears to join the subject to the predicate of the clause, as in the examples below.