Logo in Makista: irrealis and beyond

Abstract

Makista is endogenous to Macau and belongs to the Asian group of Portuguese-lexified creoles. Academic works have highlighted several close similarities to the Malacca Portuguese Creole (Kristang), and Batavia and Tugu Portuguese Creole, as well as differences which stem from the effect of a continued co-existence with its European lexifier, as much as with its Cantonese and English adstrates. In this article, we revisit earlier descriptions of the form logo in Makista, confronting those descriptions with new evidence from a broader semantic and functional scope, which may be understood as reflecting the specificities of the creole’s continuum itself.

Keywords

• imperfective
• irrealis
• conditional
• logo
• makista