Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures Online

In monotransitive constructions, animate patient NPs are obligatorily marked with the preposition pe (occasionally also a, which is functionally equivalent to pe but normally reserved for pronominal arguments). This preposition also marks recipients in ditransitive constructions, and therefore, for purely descriptive reasons, I will call it a marker of dative/accusative case.

Inanimate arguments are, as a rule, unmarked; cases of dative marking on inanimate patient NPs are rather exceptional and involve the conceptualization of the argument as a target or beneficiary. To illustrate this, consider the following sentences, both of which involve the verb ve 'to see':

(a) Yo vay ve sinem. 'I am going to watch a movie.'

(b) Vay ve pə leyt. 'Go check on the milk.'

In (b), it is dative-accusative marking, normally reserved for animate patients, which determines that 'milk' is not simply looked at, but looked after.

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Only animate patient NPs are marked