Emergence of So as Complementizer in Chinese Pidgin English

Abstract

This study examines the development of so as a complementizer in Chinese Pidgin English. When used lexically, so almost always occurs in the expression so fashion ‘in this way’ which can be used as a predicate, a manner deictic and a conjunction. These functions conflate the meaning of English so and Cantonese gam2 (joeng2) ‘so, this way’. The syntax of the adverb so fashion in (1) and (2) corresponds to English postverbal and Cantonese preverbal positions respectively. 1. Foreignman talkee so fashion, how fashion that Chinaman talkee? ‘Foreigners speak like this, how did the Chinese speak?’ 2. no so fashion talkee ‘Don’t say so’ Instances of complementizer so as in (3) are first attested around the early 20th century. 3. he tinkee so my go singsong girlee night-time. ‘She thought that I went to visit the singsong girl at night.’ 4. So fashion my think so more proper. ‘I think that this is more appropriate in this way.’ In (4) the two instances of so have different functions: so fashion as an adverbial and the second so as a complementizer. Given that neither English so nor the Cantonese gam2 ‘so’ functions as a complementizer, it is argued that when both the superstrate and substrate languages lack a suitable model for the development of a grammatical category, in a language contact situation speakers may resort to universal strategies of grammaticalization. In this case complementizer so in CPE is argued to be developed from so fashion but its grammatical function is modeled on the grammaticalization path: similative > manner deixis > complementizer, a wellattested change in African languages (Güldemann 2008). Reference Güldemann, Tom (2008). Quotative Indexes in African Languages: A Synchronic and Diachronic Survey. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.