Who Says Syntax
Must Be Orthodox?
Understand that no syntax expert sat down to draw up a set of rules for us to talk by. These things came about by - well, who knows how they came about?
The Perfect Imperative. This is the "had was to . ." construction. It is used to convey the idea or necessity or compulsion. It's favorite usage is when excuses have to be made.
"I had was to go home because . . ."
"She had was to buy a new one."
The use of ''up'' and 'down:
The verb followed by 'up' or 'down'. Up conveys a sense of goodness, rightness or euphoria or approval. And it is usually intransitive - no object.
So "dancing up'', 'eating up''. As in 'Eat up your food, boy'. (Implication: Its good for you)
But "down" usually implies some unsavory feature to the action. "He eat down all the food" - something that ought never to be done! Notice that there is always an object here.
If the action itself is naughty, the syntax allows you to use "up" instead of "down" here, as "up" takes on the character of the verb. Example: ''dirtying up the place''.
What Past Tense?
Ours is a contextual language. The syntax is in the context. If you are following the story, you know the context. So why bother with past tense, when the present will do. " I eat two mango". As you no doubt notice, we don't need the plural either. Everybody knows that two is more than one.
Suppose the action is taking place at this very moment. You say, 'I eating two mango.' The verb "to be" is to be understood from the context.
Now when it comes to describing the future, local syntax takes care of all possible cases by inserting "go" before the verb, like so: "The dog go bite you!"
Another curiousity of local parlance is the non-use of the possessive pronouns "his, her, our, their".
Instead one uses "he, she, we, and them".
We island for 'our island'.
Them problem.
He car instead of 'Their problem. His car'. Compare this with the Jamaican use of the objective pronoun - Him car.. Please remember, as said before, that most people know what the proper English usage is, and can use it with dexterity. It's just that on less formal occasions they prefer to lapse into the local way of talking.
Who, Which and That
The way to say "who", especially if you want to be forceful, is to repeat the subject of the sentence, add "does" and the verb.
"He is a man he does teif."
Or use "what" as a universal substitute for "who", "which" or "that".
"He is a man what does teif."
"This cat what you bring home here..."
Or you could always fall back on the old Scottish Expression - whae.
"De bus whae run down the hill".
Yes, .. we know what the right thing is - but de local ting is sweeter.
Some of Our More Curious Expressions
Click here to Get to the Root of Some of our Expressions
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