Datapoint Jamaican/Expletive subject of existential verb

The major existential construction in Jamaican is formed with gat (< English got) or hav (< English have) preceded by an indefinite pronoun, i.e. yu 'you' or dem 'they'. In some cases, even the 1st person plural wi 'we' is used. Which pronoun is selected depends on the speaker's attitude towards the thing which the discourse is about and whether or not s/he wants to be identified with it. Yu gat is the default construction which does not take this discourse feature into consideration.

Values

An expletive subject is used

Example 8-98:
Yu gat som piipl we groj yu fi evriting yu gat.
Yu
2sg
gat
get/have
som
some
piipl
people
we
rel
groj
grudge
yu
2sg
fi
for
evriting
everything
yu
2sg
gat.
have
There are some people who covet everything you have.
Confidence:
Very certain