Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2008, Page 125

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The BÚNA-construction in Pidgin Icelandic
63, 135-136) calls pre-Pidgin or jargon. This kind of pidgin consti-
tutes an example of individual solutions to the problem of cross-lin-
guistic communication.
In consequence, one may observe the dominance of individual
strategies that include lexicalization, holophrastic talking, pragmatic
structuring and transfer. The grammar is highly reduced and strongly
depends on the context and expressive processes. Similarly, the syn-
tax is govemed by pragmatic principles and by transfers from the sub-
stratum grammar. Pidgin Icelandic is certainly not stabilized, neither
•inguistically nor socially. It is not transmitted from speaker to speak-
er or generation to generation but, to some extent, invented ad-hoc.
However, one may talk about its partial stabilization, especially in the
case of older speakers who have stopped leaming Standard Icelandic
und have conformed to the usage of its pidgin version. This partial sta-
bilization may be observed in the fact that some grammatical con-
stmctions are preferred (the BÚNA- or the VERA-constructions
for búin(n) að and vera að, cf. below) while others are never or rarely
Used (the synthetic past or the subjunctives).6 In a similar way, some
Phonetic features, words or expressions are dominant while others
°ccur only exceptionally.
It is important to realize that such a pidgin does not have a stable
aud exactly defined grammar. Instead of the grammar understood as a
set of grammatical mles, we are dealing with a set of tendencies usu-
aHy reflecting more natural or more universal solutions. Consequently,
since pre-pidgins are never concemed with the issue of correctness
and linguistic or social norm, a particular grammatical feature cannot
6e considered as inacceptable or incorrect. Instead, one can say that a
given characteristic is never or infrequently met. Due to the fact that
6 In my database there are no examples of the use of the subjunctive and only few
where the simple past appears. On the other hand, there are numerous instances where
the BÚNA-construction and the VERA-construction are used. Furthermore, the par-
hal stabilization of Pidgin Icelandic may also be justified by the fact that some uni-
Versal and natural strategies seem to be more frequent than solutions based upon the
'ndividual transfer (cf. Múhlhausler 1986:54-55, 147-148). For instance, in the data-
hase one may observe a consistent loss of the verbal inflection morphology as well as
a hequent use of preverbal modifiers for aspect-tense-mood marking.