Adjective phrase fronting in the Malacca Creole Portuguese noun phrase

A vestige of South Asian substrate

Bibliographic Data

ID7160495
AuthorsAlan N Baxter (0000-0003-4716-2261, The University of Queensland, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume40
Issue1
Pages7-34
Publication date2025-06-26
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Pidgin and Creole Languages (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0920-9034 • E-ISSN: 1569-9870
PublisherJohn Benjamins Publishing Company (PUBLISHER • NL)
DOI10.1075/jpcl.00123.ala
OpenAlexW4387669877
LanguageEN
References cited21

This paper is concerned with the grammar and origins of a focusing rule in Malacca Creole Portuguese, (MCP) whereby an adjectival phrase (AdjP) may be extracted from the right branch of a noun phrase and fronted to a position prior to the determiner. It begins by describing the characteristics of AdjP-fronting in MCP, according to determiner type, syntactic role of the fronted adjective, syntactic role of the determiner phrase, and the structural complexity of the AdjP. Subsequently, it considers the presence of AdjP-fronting in 19th and 20th century data of the Creole Portuguese of Tugu/Batavia, Mangalore, Cannanore, Cochin and Sri Lanka. Building on these comparisons, it then addresses the potential influences of Dravidian (Malayalam, Tamil) and Indo-Aryan (Bangla) substrates, and Dutch and English adstrates. The paper concludes that AdjP-fronting in MCP may be added to the list of typological features that demonstrate the connection between the southern Indo-Portuguese creoles and the Malayo-Portuguese creoles

Adjective · Creole language · Determiner · Determiner phrase · Geography · Linguistics · Noun · Noun phrase · Pidgin · Portuguese · Tamil · History · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Multilingual Education and Policy · Philosophy · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation

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