Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures Online

When uttered in isolation, unmarked stative verbs have present reference; unmarked dynamic verbs have past (perfective) reference.

Ghanaian Pidgin English’s tense system conforms to Bickerton’s Creole prototype only as far as absolute tense is concerned, i.e. when a situation is located on the time axis relative to the moment of speaking: unmarked state verbs can express nonpast and unmarked action verbs past. However, when it comes to relative tense, which locates a situation not in relation to the time of speaking but in relation to another moment on the time axis (anteriority), Ghanaian Pidgin English departs from the creole prototype. Bickerton (1980: 5)says that an anterior tense marker be present to signal past for state verbs and past-before-past for action verbs. Ghanaian Pidgin English does not have such an anterior tense marker (which takes the form bìn in Krio, NigPE, and CamPE). Therefore, unmarked verbs may also refer to an anterior situation. Note that the anterior interpretation of such sentences is entirely dependent on co(n)textual clues or time adverbials, which may optionally be inserted for disambiguation. In sum, then, a distinction between Ghanaian Pidgin English stative and active verbs cannot be made on the grounds of temporal reference of unmarked verbs: both types of verbs may refer to anterior or non-anterior situations when unmarked. That said, unmarked action verbs tend to be interpreted as past in isolation.

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Stative verbs with present reference and dynamic verbs with past perfective reference are both unmarked