Etymologically, the i of Example 116 may well be (at least partly) derived from the Portuguese personal pronominal ele (see various publications of Kihm (on Guinea-Bissau Kriyol) and Baptista (on Capeverdean) about this topic). However, in synchrony and in such a sentence as Joŋ ø i piskador 'John is a fisherman', i behaves just as another verbal predicate or another copula: see Example 120 Joŋ ø sá piskador 'John is now (=has turned into) a fisherman'), where sa behaves syntactically exactly the same way as i in Example 116.