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Article published In:
Australian Contact Languages
Edited by Carmel O'Shannessy, Denise Angelo and Jane Simpson
[Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 39:1] 2024
► pp. 187–218

Event plurality and the verbal suffix ‑(a)bad in Australian Kriol

ORCID logo | University of Western Australia
ORCID logo | University of Western Australia
The verbal suffix ‑(a)bad is a frequent form in Australian Kriol and is well attested across all described varieties of the language. Despite the prevalence of this suffix, its precise semantics have so far gone undescribed in the literature. In this article, we present a semantic analysis of this suffix, drawing on data from a variety of Kriol spoken in the north-east Kimberley region of Western Australia. We argue that the diverse set of readings associated with ‑(a)bad can be best unified under an analysis of this form as a marker of verbal plurality (i.e. pluractionality). The suffix derives a set of plural events from a modified verb stem, which then interacts with aspect and argument structure to produce a wide range of readings, particularly readings of temporal, participant, and spatial plurality.
Keywords: Kriol, Kriol varieties, pluractionality, semantics, aspect, creoles
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Language background and methods
  • 3.The status of ‑(a)bad across northern Australia
    • 3.1-(a)bad in contact varieties beyond Kununurra
    • 3.2-(a)bad in Kununurra Kriol
  • 4.Background on verbal plurality
  • 5.The function of ‑(a)bad in Kununurra Kriol
    • 5.1Temporal plurality
    • 5.2Participant plurality
    • 5.3Spatial plurality
    • 5.4Evaluative functions
  • 6.Discussion
    • 6.1The pluractional core of -(a)bad
    • 6.2Relation to imperfectivity and the morpheme -in
    • 6.3Comparison to other pluractional markers
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations used in glosses follow the Leipzig glossing rules with the following exceptions
  • References
Published online: 14 December 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jpcl.00126.bro
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