62 RICHARD J. FILE-MURIEI.

Pidginization and abrupt creolization are instances of language shift.
The key issue is what serves as the target language for the CFP to shift
to. T&K note that a social context is created whereby the emerging
contact language (i.e. the system used by the CFP) is the primary
language system of the community. Adults acquire this system as a
second language and the community's children acquire it as a first
language.2 But T&K's stance on the TL remains unclear. In T&K's model,
the CFP would shift away from its native languages to the language of
the slave masters, which formed part of the emerging primary language.
These speakers first adopted TL vocabulary and thereafter its grammar
to the extent that it was available, which was probably restricted due
to the social dynamic of the plantation. The failure by the CFP to
completely acquire the language of the dominant group resulted in
first language interference:

 Substratum interference is a subtype of interference that results from
 imperfect group learning during a process of language shift. That is, in
 this kind of interference a group of speakers shifting to a target
 language fails to learn the target language (TL) perfectly. The errors
 made by members of the shifting group in speaking the TL then spread
 to the TL as a whole when [the errors] are imitated by original speakers
 of that language (1988:38-39).

 T&K point out that the main factor is availability of the TL. The
situation described by T&K is similar to F&D's model of mutual
accommodation. According to Thomason and Kaufman, CFP speakers
shift towards a linguistic model to which they do not have access (or
at best, limited access). T&K do not believe that the assumption of
directionality is justified as a general proposition in the case of pidgin
genesis. They do agree that the goal of speakers who are creating a
pidgin is language learning, but not that their shared goal is necessarily
the learning of a particular language.

2. Creativist model of creole genesis

 The question of what should be taken as the TL becomes very
important. DeGraff (1999a) notes that the socially dominant languages


 Although pre-adolescent children already had a native language, they would
have certainly acquired the emerging system as native, from the little we know
about child language acquisition.