Lesson 32 of 48 · St. Elizabeth
Mark completed actions with don/done — post-verbal done first — and say 'there is / there isn't' with existential deh and with a/is.
Two small words do heavy work in this lesson. First, the completive. Di placement weh a di most Jamaican — an di oldest on record — come AFTER the verb: Mi nyam done (I'm finished eating); I wuk done (the work is finished); Di bush cut done (the bush is cut, all of it); Dem heat done an gaan (they finished eating and left). Inna dat slot done stop being a verb at all an tun a modifier, meaning entirely, right through. Yu wi hear don BEFORE the verb plenty inna present-day speech too: Mi don nyam (I've already eaten); Mi don cook fram maanin. Di two live side by side now — but if a di one weh sound most yaad yu want, put i afta di verb. With 'aready' for emphasis: Di rice done aready (the rice is already finished). Second, the existential DEH — how Patois says 'there is' or 'there are'. No 'it have', no 'there is': the thing itself comes first, then deh: Food deh a yaad (there's food at home); Mango no deh a maakit tideh (there are no mangoes at market today). The classic double negative: No money no deh (there's no money — at all). And yes, deh can double up: Food deh deh (food is there — the first deh is the verb 'be located', the second is the adverb 'there'). Even for ghosts: Yu tink seh duppy no deh? (you think ghosts don't exist?). Deh no di only way, though. There is an older pattern weh drop di English 'it' an 'there' clean out an let a or is carry di sentence: A two kind a yam dis (these are two kinds of yam); Is accident! (it was an accident!); Is Miss Enid bring i come (it was Miss Enid who brought it). Deh place someting; a an is announce dat i exist at all. Partner word: lef (remain): Two dumplin lef (two dumplings are left); Nutn no lef (nothing is left); Two nomo lef (only two left). Example run: Di yam done, but bammy deh deh still (the yam is finished, but there's still bammy). Mi don cook fram maanin (I finished cooking since morning). Wata no deh inna di tank (there's no water in the tank). Common learner errors to recast: 'It have food' (Eastern Caribbean pattern — not Jamaican) — recast as Food deh; 'There is no money' word order — recast as No money no deh; using 'finish' where don flows better — Mi finish eat becomes Mi don nyam; and fearing the double negative — in Patois the doubled no is correct and standard, not an error.
| Patois | Cassidy-JLU | English |
|---|---|---|
| don | don | already, completely (before verb) |
| done | don | finished (after verb / as verb) |
| aready | aredi | already |
| deh | de | to be (somewhere); to exist |
| deh deh | de de | is there (verb + adverb) |
| no ... no deh | no ... no de | there is no ... (at all) |
| lef | lef | to remain, be left over |
| whatlef | watlef | leftovers |
| nomo | nomuo | only (two nomo lef) |
| notn | notn | nothing |
| sinting | sitn | something |
| smadi | sumadi | somebody |
| gaan | gaan | gone, used up |
Cassidy documents the completive in its post-verbal slot here — 'what is peculiarly Jamaican is the placement after the verb', where done loses verbal force and modifies the other verb. Pre-verbal don is not in his record and is treated here as later development. The a/is existentials are at p. 59.
The description of the grammar is checked against the published work above. The lesson, the examples and the wording are mine.
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