The above considerations lead me to adopt the term elaboration to refer to the various processes generally subsumed under expansion of inner form and complexification of outer form.
- Valdman (1977a), Pag. 158-159

Without excluding the possibility of pidgins undergoing a certain degree of elaboration, it would seem that this process is linked centrally to the acquisition of pre-pidgin continua or pidgins by children. Since, despite their similarities, first-language acquisition and second-language learning show substantial differences, I will assume that the processes of elaboration undergone by a creole differ qualitatively from the successive restructuring characteristic of L2 learners’ approximative systems and decreolization.
- Valdman (1977a), Pag. 159