Re: Creole vs. Pidgin

Nik Taylor wrote:

> For instance, in Bislama, pronouns
> obligatorily mark number (singular/dual/trial/plural) and
> inclusive/exclusive in the first person, thus:
> Person  Singular   Dual         Trial        Plural
> 1 excl  mi         mitupela     mitripela    mipela
> 1 incl             yumi(tupela) yumitripela  yumipela
> 2       yu         yutupela     yutripela    yupela
> 3       em         tupela       tripela      olgeta
Where is Bislama spoken? Because Broken (Torres Strait Creole)
has the almost exact same pronoun system. (If you remove the
trial and the 'e' in the plural suffix 'pela'.)

My question is thus: how alike are creoles? I guess it doesn't
have anything to do with where they are spoken. More likely
it has something to do with the two 'merging' languages.

Every creole with English as the lexifier probably looks
something like 'mitupela'. But what about the grammar?

Is it universal to all creoles because of Chomsky's LAD
(language aquisition device) which we all are supposed to
have in our heads?
(Sounds a bit scary. Doctor to patient: I'm sorry, but
you have LAD... ;)
Or does it have something to do with the 'grammarlanguage'
(don't know the term)?
Does a creole with English and a bantulanguage as lexifier
and grammifier look different from an English/Chinese creole
regarding the grammar?

Daniel Andreasson