Datapoint Hawai‘i Creole/Negation and tense, aspect, and mood marking

Negative clauses behave in the same way as affirmative clauses in all instances except for the past tense, for which there is a specific negative past marker nɛva, which does not carry any aspectual meaning (i.e. it is not a perfective marker). It only combines with the base form of the verb; in my database of more than 400,000 words (written and spoken Hawai'i Creole) neither no nor nɛva combines with either wɛn (PST.PFV) or the inflected past (Velupillai 2003: 54f, 79f). Thus the aspectual dichotomy IPFV versus PFV found in past affirmative clauses is cancelled out in past negative clauses.

Values

Different TAM marking in negated clauses

Example 26-60:
aɪ dono waɪ dɛ nɛva puɾ ɔm in a miɾol
aɪ
1sg
dono
neg.know
waɪ
why
dɛ
3pl
nɛva
neg.pst
puɾ
put
ɔm
3sg
in
in
a
def
miɾol
middle
I don't know why they didn't put it in the middle.

Source: Velupillai 2003: 54

Example 26-61:
ðat no saʊn ɹaɪt tu mi
ðat
dem
no
neg
saʊn
sound
ɹaɪt
right
tu
to
mi
1sg.obl
That doesn't sound right to me.

Source: Velupillai 2003: 23

Example 26-62:
a no wə˞k a ʤɛs sə˞f
a
1sg
no
neg
wə˞k
work
a
1sg
ʤɛs
just
sə˞f
surf
I don't work, I just surf.
Example 26-63:
a ænt goin in a waɾa
a
1sg
ænt
be.neg
go-in
go-prog
in
in
a
art
waɾa
water
I'm not going in the water.

Source: Velupillai 2003: 165

Example 26-64:
a tiŋ B. no gon bi gud
a
1sg
tiŋ
think
B.
B.
no
neg
gon
fut
bi
be
gud
good
I think that B. isn't going to be (any) good. OR: I don't think that B. is going to be (any) good.

Source: Velupillai 2003: 177

Confidence:
Very certain