“It”, “Which”, “To you” and more: Objects

This is the set of rules for adding nouns to verb phrases via object markers.

“I want to eat it”: Direct objects

You add a prefix after the tense prefix for a direct or indirect object.

A direct object is, for example, the “it” in “I bought it”.

There are also reflexive verbs, like “cook for myself” (see below for reflexive verbs)

Rules to add a direct or indirect object

• Insert the object prefix so it becomes: pronoun prefix + tense prefix + object prefix + verb
• For people, use the m/wa class
• For objects, generally the n class (though sometimes others)
• For monosyllabic verbs: remove the stem ku marker.

“I’ll give you your money tomorrow”: Indirect objects

You add a prefix after the tense prefix for an indirect object, too. But to indicate that you’re using an indirect object, you also have to modify the end of the verb.

An indirect object is the “her” in “I bought her a book”. It’s like “to her”.

You write this as nilimnunulia. If you wrote nilimnunua, without modifying the ending, it’d just mean “I bought her”, as in “I paid money and I got her for a price”.

How do you modify the endings?

It depends on the vowel in the emphasised consonant. The emphasised consonant is usually the second last one in a word in Swahili. There are three rules.

1. If the emphasised consonant has an i, a, or u (like in pika, taka or uza), the last vowel becomes an ia (e.g. pikia, takia, uzia)
2. If the emphasised consonant has an e or o (like in leta or soma), the last vowel becomes an ea (e.g. letea, somea)
3. If the emphasised consonant starts with a vowel (e.g. nunua), add in an l so it’s easier to pronounce. (e.g. nunulea)

Some examples

There is one more thing to note: when forming this new verb form, if the verb would end in a vowel you add an l (lowercase L) before the ending from the chart above. This helps with pronunciation.

For instance, take the verb -nunua. Following the rules from above, -nunua would become -nunuia. Pronouncing this is a little odd with the triple vowel, so we add an l to make it simpler to say: -nunulia.

“I cook for myself”: Reflexive objects

This form is almost identical to the object prefixes above.

Similar to object prefixes, we modify the standard sentence structure (pronoun prefix + tense prefix + verb root) to the modified one of: pronoun prefix + tense prefix + object prefix + modified verb

To refer to oneself, you use the object prefix of ji and the same verb ending modification for object prefixes.

For example:

“Who”: The tensed relative/referential concords

Use these to say “The person who comes from Melbourne”.

• The person comes from Melbourne: Mtu anatoka Melbourne
• The person who comes from Melbourne: Mtu anayetoka Melbourne
• The person who came from Melbourne: Mtu ameyetoka Melbourne

That little “ye” is a referential concord.

Rules

• Put the referential concord after the tense marker
• You can use this for more complex tenses, like me (perfect)
• For negatives, the tense marker changes to si.

Here are the referential concords for the major classes:

Examples of referential concords:

“The person who came here”: The relative marker, or amba-

There are two ways of forming this: with and without “amba”

Relative clauses without “amba”

• You can only use this for simple tenses: present, past, future. Not perfect (-me).
• Put a relative marker inside the word to show who you’re referring to.
• Use -ye for one person, or -o for plural people (M-Wa class)
• For other noun classes, you make the marker with the possessive prefix, plus an o. Like “My oranges” is machungwa yangu, because y- is the possessive prefix for Ji-Ma class in plural. “The oranges which you want” becomes machungwa unayotaka.

Relative clauses with “amba”

• Use this for all other clauses.
• Use amba- + -ye for one person, or -o for plural people (M-Wa class)
• For other noun classes, you make the marker with the possessive prefix, plus an o. Like “My oranges” is machungwa yangu, because y- is the possessive prefix for Ji-Ma class in plural. “The oranges which you bought” is machungwa ambayo ulinunua.

“The way you look tonight” and “When I was young”: Manner and Time

You can refer to “the way” or “the time” with putting vyo or po inside a verb.

Rules

• To say “the way”, put vyo before the verb stem.
• To say “the time” or “the place”, put po before the verb stem.