Cameroon Pidgin English
A comprehensive grammar
| University of Yaoundé 1
| University of Sussex
Cameroon Pidgin English (CPE) is an English-lexified Atlantic expanded pidgin/creole spoken in some form by an estimated 50% of Cameroon’s population, primarily in the anglophone west regions, but also in urban centres throughout the country. Primarily a spoken language, CPE enjoys a vigorous oral presence in Cameroon, and the linguistic examples illustrating this description are drawn from a spoken corpus consisting of a range of text types, including oral narratives, radio broadcasts and spontaneous conversation. The authors’ typologically-framed investigation of the features of the language, from its phonetics, phonology and lexicon to its syntax and discourse structure, allows the reader a clear view of the linguistic character of CPE, offering a comprehensive description of the language that will be of interest to creolists as well as linguists interested in African languages, contact linguistics and comparative linguistics.
[London Oriental and African Language Library, 20] 2017. xxi, 314 pp.
Publishing status: Available
© John Benjamins
Table of Contents
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Table of Contents
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Acknowledgments | p. xv
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Abbreviations and symbols | p. xxi
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List of maps and figures
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List of tables
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Chapter 1. Introduction | pp. 1–12
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Chapter 2. History and sociolinguistics of CPE | pp. 13–29
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Chapter 3. Phonetics, phonology and orthography | pp. 31–46
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Chapter 4. The lexicon | pp. 47–78
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Chapter 5. The syntax of the noun phrase | pp. 79–101
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Chapter 6. Pronouns | pp. 103–131
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Chapter 7. Tense, mood, modality, aspect and negation | pp. 133–157
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Chapter 8. The simple sentence | pp. 159–194
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Chapter 9. Complex predicates | pp. 195–214
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Chapter 10. The complex sentence | pp. 215–240
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Chapter 11. Information structure | pp. 241–261
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Chapter 12. Selected texts | pp. 263–282
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Appendix: Participant data
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Appendix: Participant data
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References | pp. 293–307
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Index | pp. 309–314
“This is a thoroughly well-written and extensively researched monograph on the grammar of Cameroon Pidgin English. It is clearly the most ambitious of all grammars, few as they may be, that have been published so far. For me, it will be the reference grammar for CPE given the breadth of coverage and the copious number of examples used.”
Eric A. Anchimbe, University of Bayreuth
“The thoughtful reader will find this grammar of Cameroon Pidgin English satisfying, reliable, and most laudably, thought-provoking.”
David Douglas Robertson, University of Victoria, on Linguist List 29.4003
“This book tells us a great deal about the language, and incidentally shows us what can be extracted from a well-conducted corpus-based study and deserves to be emulated. There are many ways to write a good creole grammar, and this is one of the best.”
Anthony P. Grant, Edge Hill University, in Journal of Linguistics 2018, pp. 1-5
“This book and the corpus on which it is based [...] constitute an important advance for the description and documentation of African (contact) languages.”
Kofi Yakpo, The University of Hong Kong, in Language Vol. 95, Number 3, September 2019
Cited by
Cited by 7 other publications
Ambele, Eric A. & Richard Watson Todd
2022. Translanguaging patterns in everyday urban conversations in Cameroon.
International Journal of the Sociology of Language 2022:273 ► pp. 181 ff. 
Caron, Bernard
2020.
In West African languages. Linguistic theory and communication,
Connell, Bruce, David Zeitlyn, Sascha Griffiths, Laura Hayward & Marieke Martin
2021. Language ecology, language endangerment, and relict languages: Case studies from Adamawa (Cameroon-Nigeria).
Open Linguistics 7:1 ► pp. 244 ff.
FitzGerald, Sarah
2020. A corpus‐based method for identifying word class in an English lexified extended pidgin.
World Englishes 39:2 ► pp. 348 ff.
Green, Melanie & Gabriel Ozón
2018.
In Information Structure in Lesser-described Languages [Studies in Language Companion Series, 199],
► pp. 329 ff.
Ozón, Gabriel, Sarah FitzGerald & Melanie Green
2019.
In Corpus Linguistics and African Englishes [Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 88],
► pp. 144 ff.
Yakpo, Kofi
2020.
In Advances in Contact Linguistics [Contact Language Library, 57],
► pp. 62 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 31 march 2022. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.
Subjects & Metadata
Linguistics
BIC Subject: CF/2ZP – Linguistics/Pidgins & Creoles
BISAC Subject: LAN009000 – LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General