Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures Online

This feature deals with the prohibitive and is based on WALS feature 71, by Johan van der Auwera & Ludo Lejeune (with Valentin Goussev). The prohibitive is the negated counterpart of the affirmative imperative, as in Papiamentu No bai! ‘Don't go!’. Only the singular prohibitive is considered here.

Prohibitives often have special negators that are not used in declaratives, e.g. Tok Pisin maski 'don't!'.

They may also use a special imperative construction that is not used with affirmative imperatives, e.g. Pichi mek yù no laf [19-104] 'Don't laugh!' (using the special imperative/subjunctive marker mek).