This is the second of four grammar explainers about copulatives, which are things that isiZulu has and English does not have.
| 1. izibanjalo (isiqephu sesibili) | copulatives (part 2) | overall grammar |
| Copulatives are one of the biggest headaches for isiZulu-learners, especially those starting from the perspective of Indo-European languages like English | isiZulu does not have a separate word (or even a verb!) for the concept of having: no verb for ‘have’ or ‘has’ or ‘had’ | Unlike Indo-European languages, what isiZulu does is that it changes the word to indicate possession (whether it’s a noun, a descriptive word or an adverb) by adding something to it. |
| In order to express having something, isiZulu begins with the idea of adding things together in a list: the key here is the idea of ‘and’ – see below to understand more. | Once the na- is added to the beginning of a noun, you can then add a Subject Concord to it to show who has something. | Have a look at the Linjani izulu? section to see how this construction can be used to describe something’s condition. |
| Copulatives with na-are super important, because they are a common part of description and statement. | Be careful: you have to make sure that the coalescence between vowels (aka umlumbaniso) happens in order for you to make these phrases. | This explainer focuses on the way you say ‘have’ before a noun. the next section of copulatives will look at descriptives. |
In English, we add things together using the word ‘AND’. It’s a conjunction, meaning that it links two parts of speech, phrases or clauses together. There are some specific rules about using it, but generally it’s easy – if you want to add ‘bread’ to ‘cheese’ on a shopping-list, you say ‘bread AND cheese’.
In isiZulu, the thing that works the same way as this example is the formative NA-. As you can see, from the dash following the two letters, this word doesn’t exist by itself. What you can also see is that it ends with an -A-, a vowel. Every single noun in isiZulu begins with a vowel, and the A of NA needs to join with those vowels. This results in three different sounds occurring commonly. The following examples will show this more clearly:
The three sounds, then, are A, E and O. You may be wondering where the combination of A+E is. You will never have to use that combination in isiZulu – not with na-, or with nga-, or with any of the other formatives.
So when you hear a word starting with ne- it means that the noun stem starts with an i-.
As well as being used to show that two things are being added together in a list, the NA- construction is used in the following way:
isiZulu doesn’t have a verb like English’s “to have”. This is the construction it uses to say that.
If you need more explanation, or a different explanation, you can set up a session with Mabhengwane, or ask a question, or leave a comment here.