Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!sri-unix!quintus!ok
From: ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: words order in English and Japanese
Summary: Pijin
Message-ID: <545@cresswell.quintus.UUCP>
Date: 17 Jan 88 21:59:34 GMT
References: <1671@russell.STANFORD.EDU> <2617@calmasd.GE.COM> <1729@russell.STANFORD.EDU>
Organization: Quintus Computer Systems, Mountain View, CA
Lines: 20

In article <1729@russell.STANFORD.EDU>,
nakashim@russell.STANFORD.EDU (Hideyuki Nakashima) writes:
> linearize it.  What do you do if you do not have predefined syntax?
> Pigin is one of the good examples.

There are many pidgins in the world.  I do not know which one(s) he
has in mind.  The only one I know anything at all about is the one
spoken in the Solomon Islands (there is a book called "Pijin belong yumi"
containing a grammar and dictionary which the appropriate embassy should
be able to locate for you if you are interested; the copy I have read
belonged to an uncle and aunt of mine who learned the language as adults).
Roughly speaking, Pijin is straight Malayo-Polynesian grammar with
Solomon Islands phonology and more-or-less English vocabulary.
I understand that the Pidgin spoken in Niugini is similar.

I don't know what Hideyuki Nakashima means by "no predefined syntax".
Pijin certainly has just as much of a syntax as Indonesian or English
*now*.  As for "predefined", the first people to speak Pijin already
spoke *some* language, and everyone tried to keep as much of his/her
own language as possible.