Colexification of ‘Enough’, ‘Able’ and ‘Until’ in Tok Pisin and Papapana: Independent or Contact-induced Change?

Abstract

Considerable research has concerned the influence of Papua New Guinea’s Oceanic languages on the development of the pidgin/creole Tok Pisin, but little research has considered linguistic influence in the opposite direction. This paper adds to both bodies of research by investigating whether the colexification of ‘enough’, ‘able’ and ‘until’ in Papapana (Oceanic) and Tok Pisin results from internal or contact-induced change. Such a colexification is unattested/rare cross-linguistically therefore I argue that language contact is responsible. The Tok Pisin verb inap ‘enough, able’ grammaticalised as the preposition/subordinator ‘until’ because of semantic extensions by Oceanic language speakers whose languages demonstrate overlapping polysemies. The Papapana verb eangoi colexifies ‘enough’ and ‘able’ (common cross-linguistically), but the colexification with the lexicalised adverb eangoiena ‘able’ and grammaticalised preposition/subordinator eangoiena ‘until’ is pattern replication modelled on Tok Pisin. Based on areal data, I propose a tentative semantic map for enough, contributing to research on cross-linguistic colexification.