Listed below are the grammatical categories used in the grammar overview, as well as other abbreviations seen in the entries.
1 |
first person – ‘I’, ‘we’ |
2 |
second person – ‘you’ |
3 |
third person – ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘it’, they’ |
adj |
adjective – describes a person, place or thing |
adv |
adverb – how an action is done |
ant |
antonym – opposite meaning |
arch |
archaic usage – not used in current speech |
ben |
benefactor; benefactive marker – for someone |
cal |
calendar – cyclically ordered events in the year |
cf |
compare with; see also |
conn |
connective; conjunction |
cop |
existential marker – ‘to be’ |
dem |
demonstrative |
dfut |
distant future tense – time after tomorrow |
dial. var. |
dialectal variant – form used by another dialect |
dpst |
distant past tense – time including yesterday and before |
ds |
different subject – the subject of the current verb is different from the subject of the following verb |
dt |
distant tense – includes past and distant future |
du |
dual number |
fr. var. |
free variant – another way to say the same meaning |
gen |
general term |
ifut |
immediate future tense – occurring later today or tomorrow |
inf. var. |
inflectional variant – an irregularly inflected form |
inform |
informal usage |
int |
interrogative pro-form – used to ask questions |
intj |
interjection; exclamation |
ipst |
immediate past tense – occurred earlier today |
irr |
irrealis – referring to future, possible or doubtful events |
it |
immediate tense – includes present and immediate future |
lit. |
literally |
N |
noun – a person, place, thing or idea |
neg |
negative |
Ni |
inalienable noun – cannot be separated from its owner |
Nprop |
proper noun; name |
nsg |
non-singular; dual or plural number |
num |
numeral; number |
obj |
object |
per |
personal pronoun |
pfv |
perfective aspect |
pl |
plural number |
poss |
possessive pronoun |
post |
postposition – placed at the end of a noun phrase. Similar to a preposition (prep) in English. |
pre |
preverb – comes before a verb to show tense or direction |
pres |
present tense |
prog |
progressive; continuous aspect |
pron |
pronoun – takes the place of a noun phrase |
prt |
particle |
q |
question – makes a statement into a yes/no questions |
quan |
quantifier – shows how many |
redup |
reduplicated syllable |
refl | reflexive pronoun – like myself or herself, in English |
sg |
singular number |
sim |
similar – word with a similar meaning |
sp. var. |
spelling variant – alternate spelling for the word |
spec |
specific term |
sr |
switch reference – used in discourse |
ss |
same subject – the subject of the current verb is also the subject of the following verb |
sub |
subject marker – shows the subject of a sentence |
syn |
synonym – word that has the same meaning |
Tok |
Tok Pisin |
V |
verb – doing or action word |
Vd |
ditransitive verb – see grammar section for more information |
Vi |
intransitive verb – verb in which someone or something does not do something to someone or something else |
Vt |
transitive verb – verb in which someone or something does something to someone or something else |
Vt2 |
transitive 2 verb – see grammar section for more information |
Vtb |
bound transitive verb – see grammar section for more info |