Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2008, Blaðsíða 127

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The BÚNA-construction in Pidgin Icelandic
which “[p]idgins are examples of partially targeted or non-targeted
second-language learning, developing from simpler to more complex
systems [... They] have no native speakers”. Moreover, Pidgin Ice-
landic fulfills the linguistic and social conditions established by
Muysken (2001:160): the immigrants have highly limited opportuni-
ties of acquiring the new language, their wish to retum to their home-
land significantly obstructs the adequate acquisition of Icelandic, the
immigrants are exposed to Foreigner Talk that is used by target lan-
guage speakers,9 and finally they have reduced access to “more high-
ly valued social roles” (ibid.) and frequently lack educational oppor-
tunities. Thus, Pidgin Icelandic would not differ from the linguistic
outcome of the immigration in Germany and other Scandinavian
countries that are classified as pidgins. As observed by Muhlhausler
(1986:73), Holm (1989), and Kotsinas (2001:125-155), such immi-
grant jargons as Gastarbeiterdeutsch and Immigrant Swedish exhibit
the typical pidgin nature.
All the aforementioned information enables us to conclude that
we are dealing with a typical pre-stabilized (or partially stabilized)
Pidgin. It is important to stress that this immigrant Pidgin Icelandic is
n°t unifíed — it does not have one consistent and well defined gram-
rnar understood as a set of rules. On the contrary, it admits a great
number of variants and still depends more on individual than group
strategies.
Since the detailed analysis of pre-pidgins varieties is a significant-
ly less studied domain of language contact linguistics and the descrip-
hon of the very moment where a jargon becomes stabilized constitutes
nlmost a tabula rasa in pidgin studies, the author of this article con-
siders it necessary to describe some properties of the emerging pidgin
Icelandic. Certainly, we do not know whether this pidgin variety will
ever be stabilized. The stabilization depends on numerous social,
Political and economical factors rather than on linguistic ones. It
should also be noted that, even if the non-stabilized PI is doomed to
' For instance, in his work as a teacher, the author was instructed never to use the
lrregular past morphology (strong verbs), to replace the verb geta with kunna and
"lega, and to avoid the use of the defmite article.