Jamaican Patois grammar

Generated from the engine's own marker tables and rule list, so this page cannot drift away from what the translator actually does. The “rendered” column is live output.

About the language

English-lexifier creole of Jamaica with West African (largely Akan) substrate. Pre-verbal markers carry tense and aspect ('a' progressive, 'did/en' past, 'wi' future, 'done' completive); 'a' is the equating copula; 'nuh' negates.

Endonym: Patwa / Jamiekan
ISO 639-3: jam
Speakers: ~3 million in Jamaica, plus a large UK, US and Canadian diaspora
Rules: 64 forward, 29 reverse

Pronouns

English	Subject	Object	Possessive
i	mi	mi	mi
you	yu	yu	yu
he	im	im	im
she	im	im	im
it	it	it	it
we	wi	wi	wi
they	dem	dem	dem
you (plural)	unu

mi — Serves as I, me and my — case is not marked
im — 3rd-person singular, all genders; 'shi' also occurs for 'she'
unu — 2nd-person plural, from Igbo 'únù'
dem — 3rd-person plural, and the post-nominal plural marker

Tense, aspect, mood and the copulas

the core of the system

Slot	Marker	Meaning	English	Jamaican Patois (live)
Progressive	a	ongoing action	I am eating	Mi a nyam
Completive	done	finished action, still relevant	I have eaten	Mi done nyam
Future	wi	action to come	I will eat	Mi wi nyam
Past	did	anterior reference	I was eating	Mi did a nyam
Habitual past	did a	used to do	I used to eat	Mi did a nyam
Negator	nuh	all-purpose negation	I do not eat	Mi nuh nyam
Negative perfect	neva	not yet	I have not eaten	Mi neva nyam
Ability	can	can / is able to	I can eat	Mi can nyam
Obligation	haffi	must / have to	I must eat	Mi haffi nyam
Advisory	shuda	should	I should eat	Mi shuda nyam
Desire	waan	want to	I want to eat	Mi waan nyam
Equating copula	a	X is a Y	This is my house	Dis a mi yaad
Locative copula	deh	X is at Y	He is here	Im deh yah
Existential	it have	there is / there are	There is food	It have food
Hortative	mek wi	let's	Let us go	Mek wi go
Complementizer	seh	introduces a reported clause (English "that")	I think that he is lying	Mi tink seh im a lie
Relative marker	weh	who / which / that after a noun	The man who came	Di man weh come
Plural marker	dem	post-nominal plural	the children	Di pickney dem
Intensifier	well	placed before the adjective	very good	Well gud
Comparative	dan	a conjunction, as in English	bigger than	Bigga dan

Every forward rule, in priority order

64 rules

The engine tries these top to bottom at each position, after looking for a multiword idiom and before falling back to the lexicon. Negation sits above the positive forms deliberately, and the copula rules are ordered from most specific to least.

#	Rule	What it does	Gloss shown
1	`let-us`	"let us / let me" → hortative	hortative
2	`a-lot-of`	"a lot of / lots of / plenty of" → bare quantifier	quantifier
3	`too-many`	"too much / too many" → intensified quantifier	quantifier
4	`neg-future`	"will not V" → negative future	negative future
5	`neg-ability`	"cannot V / could not V" → negative ability	negative ability
6	`neg-perfect`	"have not V-en" → not yet (negative perfect)	negative perfect
7	`neg-obligation`	"must not / should not V" → prohibition	prohibition
8	`neg-do`	"do/does/did not V" → bare negator (tense is unmarked)	negation
9	`neg-do-bare`	imperative "do not V" → bare negator	negative imperative
10	`neg-progressive`	"is not V-ing" → negated progressive	negative progressive
11	`neg-there-be`	"there is no X" → "X <negative existential>" (the subject moves front)	negative existential
12	`neg-cop-loc`	"is not <place>" → negative locative copula	negative locative copula
13	`neg-cop-prep`	"is not in/at/on …" → negative locative copula	negative locative copula
14	`neg-cop-np`	"is not a/the/my …" → negative equating copula	negative equating copula
15	`neg-cop-adj`	"is not <adjective>" → bare negator, copula dropped	negation, zero copula
16	`neg-have-possession`	"has no / have no" → negative possession	negative possession
17	`fut-going-to`	"be going to V" → future	future
18	`fut-will`	"will/shall V" → future	future
19	`perfect-progressive`	"have been V-ing" → completive + progressive	perfect progressive
20	`perfect-been-to`	"have been to <place>" → completive + go	experiential perfect
21	`perfect-been`	"have been <here / sick …>" → completive + locative copula	perfect copula
22	`perfect`	"have/has V-en" → completive	completive aspect
23	`past-perfect`	"had V-en" → completive (anterior)	anterior completive
24	`prog-present`	"am/is/are V-ing" → progressive	progressive aspect
25	`prog-past`	"was/were V-ing" → past progressive	past progressive
26	`used-to`	"used to V" → habitual past	habitual past
27	`have-to`	"have to / has to / had to V" → obligation	obligation
28	`need-to`	"need to V" → obligation	obligation
29	`want-to`	"want to V" → desiderative	desire
30	`able-to`	"be able to V" → ability	ability
31	`modal-can`	"can/could V" → ability	ability
32	`modal-must`	"must V" → obligation	obligation
33	`modal-should`	"should / ought to V" → advisory	advisory
34	`modal-may`	"may/might V" → possibility (expressed as ability)	possibility
35	`modal-would`	"would V" → conditional	conditional
36	`there-be`	"there is / there are" → existential	existential
37	`relative`	"the man who / that / which …" → relative marker	relative clause marker
38	`wh-subject-prog`	"what / who is V-ing" (wh-word as subject) → wh + progressive	progressive, wh-subject
39	`wh-subject-prog-past`	"what / who was V-ing" → wh + past progressive	past progressive, wh-subject
40	`wh-what-be`	"what is / what are" → interrogative with equating copula	interrogative copula
41	`wh-who-be`	"who is / who are" → interrogative with equating copula	interrogative copula
42	`wh-be-drop`	"where is / how is / when is" → copula dropped after wh-word	zero copula after wh-word
43	`cop-locative`	"is here / is at …" → locative copula	locative copula
44	`cop-locative-prep`	"is in / is at / is on …" → locative copula	locative copula
45	`cop-stative`	"is finished / is broken" → completive (a resulting state)	resultant state
46	`cop-adj-drop`	"is <adjective>" → zero copula	zero copula before adjective
47	`cop-past-adj-drop`	"was <adjective>" → past marker, zero copula	past, zero copula before adjective
48	`cop-past-locative`	"was here / was at …" → past locative copula	past locative copula
49	`cop-equating`	"is a/the/my <noun>" → equating copula	equating copula
50	`cop-equating-bare`	"is <noun phrase>" → equating copula (default)	equating copula
51	`cop-past`	"was / were" → past copula	past copula
52	`comparative-er-than`	"<adj>-er than X" → comparison	comparative
53	`comparative-more-than`	"more <adj> than X" → comparison	comparative
54	`superlative`	"the most <adj> / the <adj>-est" → superlative	superlative
55	`very-adj`	"very / really <adj>" → intensifier	intensifier
56	`indef-article`	"a / an <noun>" → bare noun (no indefinite article)	no indefinite article
57	`possessive-s`	"<noun>'s" → bare juxtaposition (no genitive marker)	zero genitive
58	`listen-to`	"listen to X" → "hear X" (no preposition)	transitive listen
59	`infinitive-to`	"to V" (surviving infinitive) → infinitive marker	infinitive marker
60	`comp-that`	"think / know / say that <clause>" → complementizer from "say"	complementizer
61	`comp-bare`	"I think he …" (no "that") → the complementizer is still required	complementizer
62	`comp-bare-ambiguous`	"I think you are / it is …" → complementizer before a finite clause	complementizer
63	`know-how-to`	"know how to V" → knowledge verb	acquired skill
64	`tag-right`	"…, right?" / "…, isn't it?" → clause-final tag	tag question

Orthography and sources

Two traditions exist: the phonemic Cassidy-JLU spelling (e.g. 'Jamiekan') and the English-influenced spelling most writers actually use (e.g. 'Jamaican'). This engine writes the English-influenced tradition, which diaspora readers parse fastest.

Cassidy, F. & Le Page, R. (1980) Dictionary of Jamaican English
Patrick, P. (2004) Jamaican Creole morphology and syntax
Jamaican Language Unit (UWI Mona) writing system guidance