**** Ambiguous origins

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ UP: <[LINK]>

One of the most important lines of synthetic research in pidgins and creoles, but given little attention so far, is how the forms and the meanings of lexical and morphological items interact. This is especially of interest to substratists faced with the problem of multiple or ambiguous origins. One of the implications of this line of research which extends beyond the field of pidgin and creole linguistics is how a pan-African identity was formed from a wide array of ethnicities in the process of creolization. The synthetic tools proposed here do not lend themselves well to side-taking in the universalist/substratist debate because they uncover overlapping domains rather than discrete sets. In this way they fit with the prototypical definitions offered here by using family resemblances rather than exclusive boundaries for identification purposes.

• - Camouflage and masking ........................ <[LINK]>
• - Calquing ...................................... <[LINK]>
• - prototypical definitions ....................... <[LINK]o>