Bazaar Malay topics

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Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/93723

Title: Bazaar Malay topics
Author(s): Bao, Zhiming; Aye, Khin Khin
Abstract: Bazaar Malay is a Malay-lexified pidgin with a Chinese substratum spoken in the marketplace of Singapore (and elsewhere in Southeast Asia). Although it is no longer a lingua franca in Singapore today, it is nevertheless still spoken by older Singaporeans. Like Chinese and Malay, Bazaar Malay is a topic-prominent language. We document three types of the Bazaar Malay topic construction and show that they are identical to the topic structures found in Chinese. The degree of convergence in the topic construction between Chinese and Bazaar Malay, and between Chinese and Singapore English, supports the systemic view of substratum transfer.
Publication type: Journal article
Research centre: Swinburne University of Technology. Sarawak Campus
Source: Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages, Vol. 25, no. 1 (2010), pp. 155-171
Publication year: 2010
FOR Code(s): 200499 Linguistics not elsewhere classified
Keyword(s): Bazaar Malay; Chinese; Contact-induced change; Languages; Malay; Pidgin; Substratum transfer; Topic prominence
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISSN: 0920-9034
Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/jpcl.25.1.06bao
Peer reviewed