Semantic bleaching – A process that occurs simultaneously to grammaticalization (see grammaticalized). Semantactic – The combination and interrelation of syntax and semantics. It supports the idea that there are intuitive strategies of simplification because it shares a number of features found in cases of primary foreigner talk (lack of inversion in questions, unmarked interrogative forms in which intonation marks utterances as sentences, unmarked forms of the verb used for present and future time, reduplication, preverbal negation, etc.) Secondary foreigner talk – 'Found in literary representations and a variety of second-hand reports' (R: 83) (the speech created by Richard Adams in Watership Down). Scope (principle of) – A theory by Givón, which says that 'the closer or more relevant the meaning of the inflectional morpheme is to the meaning of the verb, the closer the expression unit must occur to the verb stem.' (R: 267) In the TMA systems of creoles, aspect occurs closer to the verb stem than tense and mood do.

By María Rosa Fernández Bell and Glenn GilbertĮditing by Alicia Spiegel and Jeffery Parsell

Pidgin and creole examples