Datapoint Bahamian Creole/Negation and tense, aspect, and mood marking

As in Jamaican Creole (Patrick 1999: 199–202), Bahamian Creole employs never not just as an adverb meaning 'not at any time' (as in Example 118), but also as a negative past marker referring to a single, bounded verb situation, in which case never becomes interchangeable with didn't (as in Example 116). At least in my data, such uses of never are rare, though. For a brief account of negation and past marking in Bahamian Creole, cf. also McPhee (2003: 34–36).

Values

Reduced TAM marking in negated clauses

Example 12-62:
Fish’man never call his own fish stink.
Fish’man
fisherman[gener]
never
neg
call
call
his
3sg.m.poss.det
own
own
fish
fish
stink.
stink
A fisherman will never call his own fish smelly. OR: No one ever sees faults in anything connected with himself.

Source: Glinton-Meicholas 1995: 115

Example 12-116:
I didn't grow up like that [...] I wasn't grow up like that, my parents never grow us up like that, ain't none of us in gang violent.
I
1sg.sbj
didn't
neg.pst
grow
grow
up
up
like
like
that
that
[...]
[...]
I
1sg.sbj
wasn't
neg.pst
grow
grow
up
up
like
like
that,
that
my
my
parents
parents
never
neg
grow
grow
us
us
up
up
like
like
that
that
[...].
[...]
I didn't grow up like that [...] my parents didn't bring us up like that [...].
Example 12-117:
And - uh - after he die, I say, I ain't allow no man to do to me because my - my daddy ain't been in this world to beat me, so I ain't allow nobody to beat me. And when the teacher used to go - say the - I do wrong things, you know, when I do wrong things - I - uh - the teacher used to come and beat me.
[...]
[...]
my
my
daddy
daddy
ain't
neg
been
cop.pst
in
in
this
this
world
world
[...]
[...]
so
so
I
I
ain't
neg
allow
allow
nobody
indf
to
to
beat
beat
me
me
[...]
[...]
[...] my father wasn’t in this world (anymore) to beat me, so I didn’t allow anyone else to beat me (either) [...]
Example 12-118:
[Talking about her three children.] I never did want them. I try kill all of them. [...] Now I love them. Yeah.
I
1sg.sbj
never
neg
did
pst
want
want
them.
3pl.obj
I never wanted them.
Example 12-228:
I never had the chance - there ain't no shark around - that want bite.
[...]
[...]
there
there
ain't
neg
no
neg
shark
shark[pl]
around
around
-
 
that
rel
want
want
bite.
bite
[...] there weren't any sharks around that would have wanted to bite.
Confidence:
Certain