Swahili Verb I

Swahili Verb I Swahili word for Verb is Kitenzi What makes Swahili an interesting and friendly language to learn is the fact that one can construct a sentence with just one verb without the sentence having to be an imperative as seen in English. Depending on the message, the swahili verb is able to carry the subject, tense-marker, the object, either the positive or negative aspect. More so, the suffixes on the verbal stem are functional enough to reveal how an action has been done i.e -done, -done for/on behalf, cause(ed) to do and so forth. To understand this, lets look at the affixes in the verbal stem. The illustration below shows the subject prefixes that come before the verbal stem. In this post we shall concentrate on the personal pronouns. Personal Pronouns I. Singular Form Person Positive Negative 1st Ni (I, me) e.g. Ninaenda (I am going) Si (I.not) e.g. Siendi (I am not going)

2nd U (you) e.g. Unaenda( You are going) Hu(You. not Huendi( You are not going) 3rd A (he/she) e.g. Anaenda (S/he is going) Ha(S/He.not) e.g. Haendi( S/he is not going)

II. Plural Form Person Positive Negative

1st tu (we,us) e.g. tunaenda (we are going) Hatu(we.not) e.g. Hatuendi (I am not going) 2nd m(you) e.g. mnaenda( You are going) Ham(You. not Hamwendi( You are not going)

3rd wa(they)e.g. wanaenda (they are going) Hawa(They.not) e.g. Hawaendi( They are not going)

N/B: For the other noun classes, substitute the the personal pronouns above with the respective noun-class prefix. There are free morphemes for personal Pronouns which can be used before the verb in a sentence. These can be illustrated as shown below. However, the conjunction "with" can be used together with the pronouns after the verb. Bound morphemes from the free morphemes are used in this case. This can be illustrated in table a.2 below.

Table a.2 Free Morphemes Person Singular Plural 1st mimi (I, me) Sisi (we, us) e.g. mimi ninaenda (I am going) e.g. sisi tunaenda (we are going)

2nd wewe(you) Nyinyi (you) e.g. wewe unaenda( You are going) e.g. nyinyi mnaenda( You are going) 3rd Yeye (he/she) Wao (they)e.g. e.g.yeye anaenda (S/he is going) wao wanaenda(they are going)

Exercise Try this with the following verbs with different personal pronouns cheza(play) soma(read) lia(cry) omba(pray)

Referrences Habwe J. and Karanja P. (2004) Misingi ya sarufi ya Kiswahili. Phoenix Publishers: Nairobi, Kenya.

Mgullu, R. S. (2008). Mtalaa Wa Isimu: Fonetiki, Fonolojia na Mofolojia ya Kiswahili. Longhorn Publishers: Nairobi Kenya. Mohammed, A. M. (2001). Modern Swahili Grammar. The Jomo Kenyatta Foundation: Nairobi, Kenya. Njanje N. and Njogu K. (2006) Kiswahili kwa Vyuo vya Ualimu. The Jomo Kenyatta Foundation: Nairobi, Kenya.