Offering a detailed investigation of three Mauritian Creole pragmatic markers based on one of the verba dicendi, dir ‘say’, in a corpus of spoken discourse, this article sets out to offer a preliminary insight into a category of elements that, to date, is mostly unexplored. By applying a methodology inspired by Canonical Typology, each marker is scored against a set of defined features, identifying their most and least prominent uses, and a detailed and comprehensive description of their functions is given. Reflecting on their synchronic properties, the article also considers their diachronic development and reflects on their very different evolutionary paths and stages of grammaticalization.

Following a series of articles about the status of Mauritian’s future markers in the 1993 edition of Etudes Créoles (Baker 1993; Hazaël-Massieux 1993; Touchard & Véronique 1993) there has been little debate about the division of labour between POU and VA in the domain of future marking. With the exception of the article by Hazaël-Massieux (1993), literature on the distinction between POU and VA in Mauritian exhibits a strong consensus that the choice of marker depends on whether the context constitutes a definite or indefinite future (Adone 1994 : 40; Baker 1972: 109; Henri & Kihm 2015: 261 amongst many others). This article gives a detailed description of how these markers have evolved and interacted over time; more specifically, it shows that the label ‘indefinite’ does not adequately capture the complex nature of VA. Attempts to explain an ‘indefinite’ future in the literature until now are at best vague and at worst inadequate. This paper suggests an alternative way of addressing the issue, following Corbett’s (2007) canonical typological approach, which breaks down meanings into ‘features’ based on assumptions and propositions in the previous research.

This study investigates the Linguistic Landscape (LL) within the German-speaking Community of Belgium with a focus on the role of French. Through examining the signs present in the towns of Eupen (north) and Sankt Vith (south), it contrasts the linguistic situation, highlighting differences regarding linguistic dominance of German and attitudes towards the use of French or other languages. Quantitative analysis consisted of photographing the signs on the main street of each town and found that German was more dominant in Sankt Vith. The qualitative analysis involved comparing similar signs and collecting interview and questionnaire data. Whilst a reason given for using German in Sankt Vith was pride in the language, similar responses in Eupen drew attention to linguistic conflict, which would have otherwise gone unnoticed had only the LL been investigated. The investigation provided an insight into the multilingual situation in East Belgium and suggests that French plays a larger role in Eupen.