Grammar
The tense/aspect system of Belizean Kriol is fundamentally unlike that of English. There are no morphological marked past tense forms corresponding to English -ed -t. There are three preverbial particles: 'mi' and 'did' for the past, 'di' as an 'aspect marker', and a host of articles to indicate the future ('(w)a(n)', 'gwein', 'gouɲ'). These are not verbs, they are simply invariant particles which cannot stand alone like the English ‘to be’. Their function differs also from the English.
According to Decker (1996), the progressive category is marked by /di~de/. He claims that /doz/ marks the progressive and that the habitual aspect is unmarked but by its accompaniment with verbs like 'always', 'usually’, etc. (i.e. is absent as a grammatical category). Mufwene (1984) and Gibson and Levy (1984) propose a past-only habitual category marked by /juustu doz/ as in /weh wi juustu doz liv ih noh az koal az ya/ ('where we used to live is not as cold as here')
For the present tense, an uninflected verb combining with an iterative adverb marks habitual meaning as in /tam aalweiz noa entaim keiti tel pahn hii/ ('Tom always knows when Katy tells/has told about him').
- 'mi' is a 'tense indicator'
- 'di' is an 'aspect marker'
- '(w)a(n)', 'gwein', 'gouɲ') are used to indicate the future
- /ai mi ron/
- I run (habitually); I ran
- /ai di ron/
- I am running
- /ai mi di ron/
- I was running
- /ai mi ron/ or /Ai ɡaan ron/
- I have run; I had run
- /ai ɡouŋ ron/, /ai wa(n) ron/ or /ai ɡwein ron/
- I am going to run; I will run
Like many other Caribbean Creoles /fi/ and /fu/ have a number of functions, including:
- Directional, dative, or benefactlve preposition
- /den di fait fu wii/ ('They are fighting for us')
- Genitive preposition (that is, marker of possession)
- /da buk da fu mii / ('that's my book')
- Modal auxiliary expressing obligation or futurity
- /hi fi kom op ja/ ('he ought to come up here')
- Pre-infinitive complementizer
- /unu hafu ker sontiŋ fu deŋ ɡarifuna fi biit deŋ miuzik/ ('you (plural) have to contribute something to the Garifuna People for playing their music')
Read more about this topic: Belizean Creole
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