The Expansion of Melanesian Pidgin

Abstract

A substantial pidgin text recorded in the western Solomons in 1893 is analyzed and placed in historical context. Showing complex syntactic pat-terns, the text is strikingly similar to twentieth century Solomons Pijin. It corresponds closely to an earlier text from the same area and to contem-poraneous texts from New Guinea, lending support to arguments for an early expansion of pidgin and for a monolectal origin for modern Melane-sian Pidgin dialects. The text, including hem i sequences and the "predi-cate marker" i, attests to the early development of an Oceanic pronominal pattern in the Solomons.