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CHAPTER 5
SYNOPSIS OF SWAHILI

augmentative nouns are sometimes in the LI-MA class. 11/ Many nouns are derived from verbs by putting them into the MU—MI class or into the MA class, often with a change of the final vowel to 9, 12/ Names of plants are often in the MU-MI class, and the corresponding fruits are often in the LI-MA class. 13/ Many nouns borrowed from English or Arabic are in the N class.

14/ Three of the concordial classes have meanings that relate to location. These classes are unlike the other classes in that they contain no nouns, except for mahali 'place' in the PA class. The PA class has to do with definite place or position, the KU class with direction or indefinite or wider place, and the MU class with location inside something. If a noun is put into any of these three classes, it takes the suffix -ni; instead of a prefix. Whether it is in the PA, KU or MU class must be determined by looking at the words that agree with it, if any.

15/ some nouns that stand for people or animals exhibit some characteristics of one class, but other characteristics of another class. Thus, some personal nouns have the prefixes of the KI-VI class, but words that agree with them have concords appropriate for the personal (MU-WA class). 16/ some nouns denoting close kin have no prefix in the singular (as in the N class) and either no prefix (N class) or ma (LI-MA class) in the plural. The words that agree with these nouns may have prefixes of the N class or of the MUHWA class.

17/ The actual form of a concordial prefix changes according to the stem or other element to which it is attached. Table l is a summary of the principal variations. The full forms of some of the most important word types are given in sections 18 - 26. 18/ The words that agree with nouns include

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