This is demonstrated in the example below. In these clauses, the subject marker is attached to the preverbal particle as a clitic. The subject proclitic attaches to the preverbal negative particles ‘hi’ (1) or to the irrealis particle ‘ni’ (2). Irrealis mood is how a speaker marks something as not known to have happened to them, as they are forming the utterance. The word order of a negative verbal phrase is Verb Phrase → Subject = ni (hi) HEAD tea. Neither the realis mood or telic aspect particles can be used within a negative verbal clause. Verbal negative clauses in the past tense are formed by using an unmarked subject marker. Clauses with an unmarked subject marker express present or past reference to time, or instead, are indicative of the habitual aspect. Example 3 shows how the pronoun ‘ga’ combined with the negative preverbal particle ‘hi’ forms the past tense negative displayed in the sentence. Nonverbal negation In nonverbal clauses, negative mood is expressed by the negative particle ‘hate’. ‘Hate’ can doubly function as a negative predicate that can only take a complement clause as its argument. There is no grammatical means to mark TAM (Tense, Aspect, Mood) in nonverbal clauses, therefore, tense may only be understood from the semantic context of the clause. Below is an example of a nonverbal negative clause. Negative clause structure Negative existential clauses To form a negative existential clause, the negative particle ‘hate’ is placed after the Noun Phrase. In order to investigate negative clause structure, it is important to contrast the formation process of affirmative clause structure. Minimally, a positive existential clause, contains a single constituent of the Noun Phrase, and this is a predicate. When this single Noun Phrase form is formed, the predication that follows is that referent in that Noun Phrase exists. In the corresponding negative existential clauses, what is predicated is that that referent of the subject Noun Phrase does not exist. It is worth noting that there are no existential verbs in East Ambae, and that all existential clauses are subsequently nonverbal. Formation of the negative existential clause involves the Noun Phrase becoming the subject and the negative particle becoming the predicate. This is shown in the example below. In positive existential clauses, modification of the head noun or a fronted topic must be present to construct these clauses. In contrast, for negative existential clauses, there is no