Stress and intonation

In Solomons Pijin, stress follows two essential models: that of the Oceanic languages and that of English. Words derived from vernacular etyma follow the predictable stress pattern found in the Oceanic vernaculars, i.e. stress falls predominantly on the penultimate syllable as in kokósu ‘hermit crab’, múmu ‘stone oven’, kakáme ‘swamp taro’. Pijin words derived from English etyma (the bulk of Pijin vocabulary) will have the stress fall on the first syllable as in hóspitol ‘hospital’ and kámpani ‘company’, or on the penultimate syllable as in panikíni ‘cup’, elékson ‘election’, tráke ‘truck’. Three Pijin words are of Portuguese origin and entered Melanesian pidgins via the maritime jargon: sáve ‘to know’ and pikiníni ‘child’ follow the stress rule of Portuguese and are accentuated on the penultimate syllable, while kalabús ‘prison’ is stressed on the last syllable. These data indicate that word stress is lexically determined, and is retained on the original syllable of the etymon, regardless of what language the word is derived from, and regardless of where on the word the stress appears.

Intonation and sentence stress in Pijin give important cues for interpreting meaning. Intonation plays a vital role to mark sentence structure and is very distinctive. Subtle changes in intonation can dramatically change meaning and can transform an affirmative sentence into an interrogative sentence, or a sequence of clauses into relative clauses. Except for the short analysis that Jourdan (1985) provides of the importance of intonation for sentence meaning, intonation patterns in Solomons Pijin have not been described.

Perhaps increasing grammaticalization will reduce the need for intonation in conveying information and, as the language gets older and more standardized, perhaps the use of intonation will give way to grammatical markers, and the phonology will become more regular. Perhaps they will not, and individuals will continue to apply their own sets of rules to a language full of variation and possibility.