Bambara/Verbs

Verbs are the most important and complex element of Bambara grammar. There are some important complications created by nontransitive verbs. Many of the most common and basic verbs in Bambara take no direct object and can only be used with a postpositional object. For example, "n be taa sugu la" is literally "I go to market" and "n be be bo Ameriki" is literally "I come from America." There is another class of verbs that are superficially intransitive, such as kalanke, baarake, monike, dumunike, etc... Such verbs are distinguished by the ending "-ke" which means to do and are more properly considered as a direct object fused to a verb. The direct objects here are gerund forms of transitive verbs, which are formed by adding the suffix "-li". Thus "ka tige" is "to cut", "n be jiri tige" is "I cut trees", "tigeli" is "cutting" and "n be tigelike" is "I do cutting."

Verb Conjugations

This difference between transitive and intransitive verbs is crucial when conjugating verbs in the past perfect. The formulae for the affirmative and negative present are as follows (parenthesis indicate that the term is optional depending on the construction of the verb):

Affirmative present

subject + be + (direct object) + verb;

 Example:  N be taa sugu la, N b'a don

Negative present

subjective + te + (direct object) + verb;

 Example:  N te taa sugu la, N t'a don

The formulae for affirmative present of transitive and intransitive verbs are as follows:

Affirmative past perfect transitive

subject + ye + direct object + verb;

 Example:  N y'a don, N y'a fo

Affirmative past perfect intransitivie

subject + verb + ra/na/la;

 Example:  N taara, N bora Ameriki

The formula for the negative past perfect is the same for both transitive and intransitive verbs:

Negative past perfect

subject + ma + (direct object) + verb;

 Example: N ma taa, N m'a don

As the formulae suggest, intransitive verbs are slightly irregular in that the ending varies depending on the verb and follows no fixed rule. Thus the perfect past of "ka bo" is "bora" while the perfect past of "ka men" is "mena" and the perfect past of "ka fili" is "filila." The distinction between transitive and intranstive verbs also plays a crucial role in passive constructions. For example, "ka ta" is a transitive verb meaning "to take" and "N b'a ta" means "I take it", but "a be ta" means "it is taken." In general, if a transitive verb is used with a direct object, the subject is the object of the verb in the passive voice.

In addition to the present and the past perfect tenses, Bambara includes an imperfect past, a pluperfect past, a future, and a present and past progressive tense, which are formulated as follows:

Affirmative imperfect past

subject + tun + be + (direct object) + verb

Negative imperfect past

subject + tun + be + (direct object) + verb

Affirmative pluperfect past transitive

subject + tun + ye + direct object + verb

Affirmative pluperfect past intransitive

subject + tun + verb + ra/na/la

Negative pluperfect past

subject + tun + ma + (direct object) + verb

Affirmative future

subject + bena + (direct object) + verb

Negative future

subject + tena + (direct object) + verb

Affirmative present progressive

subject + beka + (direct object) + verb

Negative present progressive

subject + teka + (direct object) + verb

Affirmative past progressive

subject + tun + beka + (direct object) + verb

Negative past progressive

subject + tun + teka + (direct object) + verb

These tenses are not used quite the same as in English. The future tense, for example, is closer to the English construction "going to..." and indicates relatively certain events in the near future. For other future events, one uses the present. The present is generally used more to indicate general states of affairs or habitual actions. Many expressions that we place in the present, would be placed in the past perfect in Bambara. Thus, the example we used above "n t'a don" (I don't know) is rarely used in Bambara - one usually says "n m'a don" (I didn't know). Use of the present tense in this case indicates a tendency not to know and usually connotes refusal or incapacity to know. The present and past progressive are also used much less frequently in Bambara than in English and serve primarily to emphasize the immediacy of an action or its contemporaneity with another.

There is also a subjunctive construction in Bambara that is used with certain prepositions and prepositional phrases including "sani", "walasa", "ka fe ka". The subjunctive is formed in the same way as the present indicative but with "ka" in the place of "be" or "kana" in the place of "te". For example "a y'ke, walasa a fa kana sa" would mean "He did it, so that his father would not die." "Walasa" here captures the idea of "so that" or "in order that" and "his father would not die", which is in the conditional in English, is conjugated in the subjunctive in Bambara.

The past perfect, the imperfect, and the pluperfect are also used to indicate conditionality in hypothetical statements. The past perfect is used in the antecedent of a conditional statement to indicate a potential situationt that has not yet arisen. For example, to say "if he comes, call me" one would say "ni a nana, n wele" which translates literally as if he has come, call me. Here the past perfect indicates that he has not in fact come yet, but that he may come. In counterfactual conditionals, where the antecedent is a clearly false statement (usually about the past), one uses the pluperfect. Thus "if he had come, I would have called you" is translated as "ni a tun nana, n tun b'i wele". As the example suggests, the consequent of the conditional must be placed in the imperfect tense to indicate that the past action was possible rather than actual.

Verb Modifiers

Verbs can also be modified with suffixes in several ways, and modified verbs constitute a substantial portion of the nouns, adjective, and adverbs in Bambara

verb + len

The suffix "-len" denotes the past participle of a verb. If the verb is transitive, the adjective denotes an object that has undergone the action, if the verb is intransitive, it indicates an object that has performed the action. Thus, as we saw above, "ka tige" is the transitive verb "to cut", so "yiri tigelen" indicates a tree that has been cut. "Ka taa", however, is the intransitive verb "to go", so "misi taalen" indicates that the cow is gone. We will discuss how to construct complete sentences using past participles later.

verb + to

The suffix "-to" corresponds roughly to the prepositional phrase "as verb-ing." Again, the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs is crucial. Thus, "yiri tigeto" means, as the tree is/was being cut, whereas "misi taato" means "as the cow is/was going." We will discuss how to form complete sentences using this construction later.

Most verbs also take indirect objects modified by a postposition. For example, "ka di", "to give" is usually constructed with "ma" in the following way: subject + direct object + di + indirect object + ma. Thus "N be wari di olu ma" means "I give money to them."

Some Bambara Verbs

ka bó

to come from

ka na

to come to

ka taa

to go

ka segin

to return

ke kalanké

to learn

ka tobiliké

to cook

ka duminiké

to eat

ka sébén

to write

ka kó

to shower

ka si

to pass the night

ka tilen

to pass the day

Also, "na" puts things in the past tense and "sa" at the end of a sentence gives it necessity, as in the French phrase "il faut."

The words "ka" and "man" are like the French verb "être" (to be). "ka" is positive and "man" is negative.