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Gullah: Sea Island Creole |
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Nouns Verbs Pronouns Tense
Word Order Gender Glossary Speaking Gullah |
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VERB
C. da as a Verb of Incomplete Predication
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In Gullah the verb da 'to be' is used in present, past, or even future sense, dependent upon the context. Most often it can be rendered in English by a present or past tense, and the action to which it refers may or may not be continuous. When da is used in a future sense, it is often followed by the progressive form of some other verb. The following sentences illustrate the various ways in which da is used as a verb of incomplete predication. The tense of the verb in each sentence is determined by the context out of which the sentence is taken:
1. da god wak 'It is God's work'
2. oi no da ogas 'I know it was August'
3. mi da gwoin gon 'I am going to go'
4. den yu da brag 'Then you will brag'
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VERB
D. Verbal Adjective |
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Another characteristic common to both Gullah and the West African languages is the very extensive use of verbal adjectives. These words combine adjective and verb into one. They are also called descriptive or adjectival verbs. In the following sentences from Gullah the words mean and tall signify 'to be mean', 'to be tall': i min tid dat 'He was mean to do that'; i tol 'He is tall'. Employment of the verbal adjective results in a type of sentence in which the predicate complement is placed next to the subject without any sign of predication, being similar in structure to the appositional type of sentence widely used in English, especially in colloquial speech, advertisements, in the headlines of newspapers, etc. |
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VERB
E. Comparison of Adjective |
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The English verb pass (surpass) is sometimes used in Gullah to indicate the comparative and superlative degrees of the adjective, though mo na 'more than' is used more frequently to indicate the comparative and di moris 'the most', the superlative:
i tol pas mi "He is taller than I", lit. "He is tall, surpasses me'
i big pas ola una "He is the biggest of all", lit. "He is big, surpasses all of you"
i big mo na una "He is bigger than you", lit. "He is big, more than you" |
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