Chapter 50: Negation and tense, aspect, and mood marking
1. Feature description ⇫ ¶
Some APiCS languages do not allow the standard negator (i.e. the negator occurring in declarative main clauses, see Miestamo 2005) to co-occur with one or more tense, aspect, or mood markers. In some languages, the TAM marker is deleted, in other languages, the marker is replaced by another TAM marker, and in still other languages, the TAM marker is replaced by a special marker (or negator) which does not belong to the set of markers which occur in affirmative sentences.
2. The values ⇫ ¶
We distinguish the following five values:
 | Same TAM marking in negated clauses | 47 |
 | Reduced TAM marking in negated clauses | 10 |
 | Different TAM marking in negated clauses | 9 |
 | Reduced and different TAM marking in negated clauses | 2 |
 | No TAM marker | 3 |
| Representation: | 71 | |
Value 1 (same tense, aspect, and mood marking in negated clauses as in affirmative clauses) is the most widespread value; it occurs in almost two thirds of the APiCS languages.
Value 2 (reduced tense, aspect, and mood marking in negated clauses compared to affirmative clauses) occurs in Principense (Portuguese-based), in Kriol, Bahamian Creole, and Chinese Pidgin English (English-based), in Reunion Creole and Mauritian Creole (French-based), in Berbice Dutch, in Ambon Malay, in Sri Lankan Malay, and in Chinese Pidgin Russian. Reduction can mean less differentiation (as in ex. 1), less overt marking (as in ex. 2-4), or less variation (as in ex. 5 and 6).
In Principense negated sentences, the habitual/future marker ka may not be used; instead, the progressive marker sa replaces ka:
In Berbice Dutch, the perfective marker -tɛ may not co-occur with the standard negator ka. The stative verb nimi ‘know’ is normally modified by the perfective marker -tɛ for present reference (as nimi in the object clause of the following example), but when negated, nimi occurs without -tɛ:
In Ambon Malay, the progressive marker ada cannot co-occur with the standard negator:
In Sri Lankan Malay, negation precludes the use of any tense, aspect, and mood marker.
In Reunion Creole, the perfect can be marked with la or la fin/fini, but in negative sentences only la occurs.
In Mauritian Creole, va marks the uncertain future and pu marks the definite future. Va cannot co-occur with the negator, whereas pu and all other preverbal markers can.
Value 3 (different tense, aspect, and mood marking) occurs in seven English-based languages (Belizean Creole, San Andres Creole English, Cameroon Pidgin English, Ghanaian Pidgin English, Nigerian Pidgin, Pichi, Hawai‘i Creole) and in two Portuguese-based languages (Korlai, Batavia Creole).
In the English-based languages, it is invariably a negative past marker neva (< English never) which precludes the use of general past markers, perfective aspect markers, perfects, or completive aspect markers (depending on the language).
In Korlai, most tense, aspect, and mood markers used in affirmative sentences are replaced by other markers or constructions in negative sentences; for example, the affirmative present progressive katan ‘(she) is singing’ is replaced by nu tɛ katan ‘(she) is not singing’. In Batavia Creole, the affirmative future marker lo is replaced by the negative future marker nada.
Value 4 (reduced and different tense, aspect, and mood marking) only occurs in Papiá Kristang, Batavia Creole, and in Sri Lanka Portuguese.
In Papiá Kristang, negators do not cooccur with the progressive aspect marker ta or the perfective marker ja (hence reduced marking). Furthermore, the future marker lo(gu) is replaced by nádi in negated sentences (hence different marking).
As for Sri Lanka Portuguese, Smith (2013) notes that “there is not always a one-to-one correspondence between positive and negative forms. The negative markers signal aspect and modality rather than tense; they cannot be accompanied by tense markers.”
Value 5, no TAM markers, refers to languages that use only time adverbs. This value occurs in three pidgin languages: Chinuk Wawa, Eskimo Pidgin, and Pidgin Hindustani.
3. Distribution ⇫ ¶
The same tense, aspect, and mood marking in affirmative and negated sentences (value 1) occurs in all areas, but not the same marking (values 2-4) is concentrated in West Africa and, generally speaking, in Asia, from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific area.
The only particular distribution according to the lexifiers is value 3 (different marking): out of nine languages exhibiting this feature, seven are English-based, the other two being Portuguese-based. Note, however, that the other twenty English-based APiCS languages do not display this value.