Lesson 14 of 48 · St. Mary
Tell past-time stories with bare verbs, did/en markers and neva negatives
Patois past tense is lighter than English past — the verb never changes form. Rule one: set the time once, then keep every verb bare. Yeside mi go a Port Maria, buy fish, see Miss Icy, come home (yesterday I went to Port Maria, bought fish, saw Miss Icy, came home). One yeside at the front does all the work — this 'present in the past' is an African inheritance. Rule two: when you want to mark past clearly, use did (modern) or en/ben (older, rural): Im did tell mi bout di wedding (he told me about the wedding). Mi en know di ansa (I knew the answer). Past progressive is did a: Dem did a cook when mi reach (they were cooking when I arrived). Rule three: the past negative is neva: Mi neva see im from Christmas (I haven't seen him since Christmas). Mi neva tell im no lie! (I didn't tell him any lie — the double negative is correct Patois). Examples: (1) Wa day mi buck up Miss Icy a maakit (the other day I ran into Miss Icy at the market). (2) Shi lick di ball, den shi run (she hit the ball, then she ran). (3) Mi did haffi wuk late (I had to work late). (4) Granny did a tell wi duppy story when current lock off (granny was telling us ghost stories when the power went out). (5) Dem gaan from maanin (they've been gone since morning). (6) Mi neva go a di dance — mi did tiyad (I didn't go to the dance — I was tired). Common errors to recast: adding -ed (mi walked — recast: mi walk); stacking did on every verb in a story (once the time is set, bare verbs flow better — recast the extra dids away); and using 'didn't' (recast to neva). Close by having the learner narrate yesterday morning in six bare-verb lines. An memba di likkle word eva — di positive partner fi neva: 'Yu eva climb coconut tree?' (have you ever...) Wan warning fi close pon, because a di easiest mistake fi mek inna dis whole area. Yu wi meet a form spell di-de (or de-de) inna older writing an inna deep country speech: Im di-de a yaad. I look like a past marker — like did wid someting hang pon i. I no. Di-de a di locative de doubled — 'is right there', 'is present' — an i have notn fi do wid past time at all. Read i as a past marker an yu wi put di whole story inna di wrong time.
| Patois | Cassidy-JLU | English |
|---|---|---|
| yeside | yeside | yesterday |
| wa day | wa die | the other day |
| did | did | past marker (did go = went) |
| en | en | older rural past marker |
| neva | neva | didn't, never |
| buck up | bok op | meet by chance |
| memba | memba | remember |
| figet | figet | forget |
| gaan | gaan | gone, went away |
| lef | lef | left |
| bruk | brok | broke, broken |
| from | fram | since |
| long time | lang taim | for ages |
He shows past time carried by an adverbial alone with every verb left bare ('Yesterday me buy salt fish'), and records ben/wen as the traditional past auxiliaries with did as the later, Standard-influenced past marker.
Cassidy identifies di-de as a reduplicated form of the locative de, explicitly not a form of did — a distinction easily lost because of the surface resemblance.
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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