Abbreviations

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