Competing motivations for NP order in Kenyan English

Abstract

Constituent order in Kenyan English is influenced by two motivations: the animacy hierarchy, which results in a tendency to give prominence to noun phrases referring to people, and the discourse pressure to place given information before new information. In this study, the competition between these two conflicting principles in Kenyan English is used as a case study illustrating the application of some typological concepts to the study of new varieties of English. The analysis of spoken Kenyan English in Nyaggah (1990) is extended to Kenyan English news discourse. Some differences between spoken and written Kenyan English point to a tendency towards a more standard native‐speaker variety in news discourse. The results also suggest that the animacy hierarchy is the most important determinant of constituent order in Kenyan English. The animacy hierarchy causes the [+human] NP to be placed first in most cases. However, if a [–human] NP competing for the first position is one whose referent is mentioned in the immediately preceding sentence, it becomes more topic‐ worthy and is less easily shunted into a secondary position. Other possible factors influencing constituent order are outlined.