I have already mentioned the disjunction between basilectal creole and English with regard to the morphological marking of verb forms in relation to the semantic opposition of past vs. non-past. Bickerton [Bickerton, D. 1975. Dynamics of a Creole System, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press] emphasizes that one of the most striking difference between basilectal and acrolectal grammars lies in their function for the verb-stem form of non-stative. The unmarked verb is ambiguously associated with past events in the basilect and with non-past events in the acrolect. Thus, past referents are marked in the acrolect and non-past one are marked in the basilect and mesolect […].
- Romaine (1988), Pag. 177