Object Infixes for Things

In the last unit, you learned how to express the equivalent of object pronouns for human beings, such as “me,” “her,” or “us,” by using the M-Wa Class object infixes. The same goes for inanimate objects, which would be translated as “it” or “them.” Again, Swahili doesn’t have separate pronouns for these concepts; they are infixes within the verbs. And the infix depends—you guessed it—on the noun class of the noun the infix represents. The following table summarizes the object infixes for all of the noun classes that you know, apart from the M-Wa Class:

As you can see, the plural infix for the U- Class will depend on how the noun itself forms its plural. If it takes a plural like an N- Class noun, the infix is –zi–. If it takes a plural like a Ma- Class noun, the infix is –ya–. Of course, abstract concepts or non-count nouns in this class have no plural form, so they will never take a plural object infix. Also note that Ku- Class nouns have no plurals, so there is no possible plural object infix.

As you learned in the last unit, object infixes are placed between the tense marker and the verb stem:

As you learned in the last unit and can see in the first example above, it’s possible to use an object infix even if the noun itself appears in the sentence. This adds more emphasis to that object. If the object is already known from context, the object infix alone may be used, just as is the case with English direct object pronouns. Here are a few more examples, with the noun class indicated to help you pick out the relevant infixes.

There’s just one more point to make about object infixes in general. The infixes you learned in Unit 13 are the ones you use for people, so they are the ones that correspond to M-Wa nouns. However, as you know, there are several examples of nouns referring to people that belong to other noun classes: baba (father/s) or askari (soldier/s), from the N- Class, daktari/madaktari (doctor/s), from the Ji-Ma class, and so on. Just as with other types of agreement, these nouns denoting human beings use M-Wa object infixes, even though they’re technically in other classes: