Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures Online
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Example 30-98
Dios
ál dá
-u sórti!
Dios
God
ál
opt
dá=u
give=
2sg
sórti!
luck
May God grant you luck!
German:
Gott möge dir Glück schenken!
Comment:
In this sentence
ál
is clearly 'optative' ('May God …). In other contexts it has an epistemic meaning indicating that the speaker is uttering a supposition.
Type:
naturalistic spoken
Source:
Veiga 1987
: 132
Language:
Cape Verdean Creole of Santiago
by
Jürgen Lang
cite
Datapoints:
Position of tense, aspect, and mood markers in relation to the verb: Immediately preceding the verb
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