Phonotactics

As described, Solomons Pijin, like other Austronesian languages, generally disfavors most consonant clusters. When English cognate forms from which the Pijin word is derived have such unwanted clusters, Pijin can resolve the conflict in one of three ways: by epenthesis, paragogue, or elision.

A final strategy open for dissolution of clusters is elision, specifically apocope. Pijin has used this strategy as well in order to derive canonical Pijin words from English source lexemes, as in suam ‘swamp’, kol ‘cold’, and klos ‘closed’.

Presumably, all these strategies are guided by the aim to achieve a more optimal syllable structure. The constraints imposed by various vernacular languages certainly play a role in determining the shape of the Pijin form, as do for example principles of sonority hierarchies. Systematic study is needed in order to pinpoint more precisely what rules which speakers use. In general, it can be said that the preferred syllable structure for Pijin lexical words is CV(CV). In monosyllabic words, there is a requirement for the syllable to be heavy, which means that the syllable must either be closed (CVC, e.g. kam) or that the vowel is a long one (CVV, e.g. baa, kaa, saa, tuu). In the first cases, the vowel could alternatively be described as being the result of compensatory lengthening for an etymological final-r deletion; however, this is not true for words like tuu. Minimal word weight requirements therefore account for why long vowels are found primarily in monosyllabic words.

The trochee is the preferred foot structure, but again, as seen in several of the examples of reduction above, successive stages of reduction produce new sequences that may not conform to this pattern. Such forms may be more or less stable, but are all present in the speech of urbanites. Hence, changes in phonotactics through reduction and Anglicization are also occurring.

In the urban center, the effects of the loss of vernaculars and the influence of English are compounded. Further, as it is a locus for new settings of standards, speakers are learning and creating new systems of consensus. Very few rules in Pijin are not open to negotiation, and most are tendencies rather than absolutes. The most general rule is that in the process of reduction, the stressed parts of the source word are retained longest.

Phonological reduction can also have consequences for other parts of the grammar, and an interplay between phonology and syntax and semantics can then be observed. For instance, heavy reduction may allow different forms of the word to precipitate, which in turn are available to take on new meanings. Functions that were formerly taken on by the same word can now be distributed across separate words. For instance, the gradual reduction of olketa (the third person plural pronoun ‘they’, and also the nominal plural marker) has produced a range of phonological forms, from oloketa to ot. The short form ota now is used mostly as a plural marker, while the longest forms such as olketa are reserved for expressing third person plural pronoun in object position (cf. Selbach 2000). The range of phonological variation permissible and usual in Pijin thus appears to make generous room for grammaticalization to occur.