Re: OT: Another analytic question

--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Carsten Becker <naranoieati@B...>
wrote:
>This is called case marking and is already used in the Real
>Worldâ„¢. Swahili AFAIK even goes as far as marking verbs or
>so for both, subject and object in some way. I'd be glad if
>somebody could explain that again.
I would not call it marking verbs so much as simply affixing the
pronouns to the verb, much as in the Spanish "dámelo," give it to
me.

Nilisoma kitabu = I read the book
ni-li-soma
I-past-read.

Nilikisoma = I read it.
ni-li-ki-soma
I-past-it-read.

Interestingly, the object pronoun comes between the tense marker and
the verb.

There are other affixes, as well, so that the verb can be rather
long.  One of these affixes is the relative pronoun.

Chakula ki-li-tosha.
food it-past-suffice.
The food was enough.

Chakula ki-li-cho-tosha.
food it-past-which-suffice.
The food which was enough.

Also of interest: kitabu, book, is an Arabic loan word from "ktb"(?),
to read.  I am more familiar with the Hebrew triphonetic stem.  There
is a class of ki- nouns in Swahili which take the plural in vi-:
kisu, knife; visu, knives.  Kitabu is treated as a ki- class noun
with the plural vitabu, books!!!!

Charlie
http://wiki.frath.net/User:Caeruleancentaur

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