The Genesis of Discourse Grammar

Hirokuni Masuda applies the modified Verse Analysis to the study of creole languages seeking evidence to support the two principal theories: universalist and substratist. Hawaii Creole manifests in discourse a universal feature of patterning, which is shared by Guyanese Creole as well as by Chinook Jargon. On the other hand, Hawaii Creole also shows an idiosyncratic phenomenon of numbering, which appears to have been linguistically transferred from Japanese as substratum. Dr. Masuda's research reinforces a hypothesis that both internal innate properties and external substratal factors need to be taken into account to explain the origin of creole discourse grammar.