Afrikaans grammar

This article describes the grammar of Afrikaans, a language spoken in South Africa and Namibia from the Indo-European, West Germanic, Low Franconiane language family, which arose at the southern tip of Africa under the influence of various other languages ​​and language groups.

The article discusses, among other things, the various synonyms for Afrikaans concepts, common language errors, spelling patterns, the loose and fixed spelling of words and writing and punctuation marks. It also discusses the use of dictionaries, abbreviations and acronyms, the different types of parts of speech that one finds in Afrikaans, gender, plural and diminutive as well as intensive forms, loanwords and language concepts. The article also focuses on the different parts of speech found in the Afrikaans language, syntax and sentence analysis, gives an overview of literary terminology and finally focuses on figurative and rhetorical language and literary stylistic devices.

Standardised Afrikaans

Like in a lot of languages, there are regional spoken dialects of Afrikaans, but a standardised written form. Standardised Afrikaans is also the form used in dictionaries and most magazines and newspapers written in Afrikaans.

Vocabulary: Lexical categories

Articles

No grammatical case distinction exists for nouns, adjectives and articles.

Definite Article(s)			Indefinite Article
Gloss	Afrikaans	Dutch	Gloss	Afrikaans	Dutch
the	die	de/het	a(n)	ʼn	een/ʼn

See also: 'n

Nouns

Nouns can be used with ‘a and the and can have plural and diminutive forms.

Classification

1. Proper noun is the name of a person or place or object and is written with a capital letter, e.g. Thuli, Pretoria.
2. Common nouns can be plural or sometimes have a gender.
3. Abstract nouns indicates concepts that cannot be touched, e.g. liefde (love), haat (hate).
4. Collective nouns: indicates a collection, e.g. 'n swerm voëls (a flock of birds) or 'n skool visse (a school of fish).
5. Uncountable nouns indicate something that cannot be counted, e.g. goud, sand, water, suiker (gold, sand, water, sugar).
6. Measuring nouns are used with nouns to indicate quantity, e.g. 'n emmer sand, 'n koppie melk (a bucket of sand, a cup of milk).

Nouns in Afrikaans, as in modern Dutch, have no inflectional case system, and do not have grammatical gender (unlike modern Dutch). However, there is a distinction between the singular and plural forms of nouns. The most common plural marker is the suffix -e, but several common nouns form their plural instead by adding a final -s. A number of common nouns have irregular plurals:

English	Afrikaans	Dutch
child, children	kind, kinders	kind, kinderen
woman, women	vrou, vroue (vrouens)	vrouw, vrouwen
shirt, shirts	hemp, hemde	hemd, hemden

Adjectives

These describe nouns, e.g. die nuwe skool (the new school).

Adjectives can be inflected, e.g. bv. nuut – nuwe; (new – new). They can also have degrees of comparison, e.g. nuut; nuwer en nuutste (new (determinative); newer (augmentative) and newest (superlative)) AND they can also sometimes have intensive forms, such as splinternuut (brand new). (Note: intensive forms are always written as one word)

The adjective can be attributive – it comes before the noun, e.g. die nuwe skool  (the new school) - OR predicative – it comes after the noun. e.g. die skool is nuut (the school is new.)

Adjectives may, however, be inflected when they precede a noun. As a general rule, polysyllabic adjectives are normally inflected when used as attributive adjectives. Monosyllabic attributive adjectives may or may not be inflected, depending on the historical forms of the adjective. Inflected adjectives retain the ending -e and for some adjectives, word-final consonants that were lost in attributive uses are retained. For example, the final t following an /x/ sound that deleted in predicative uses in like reg (cf. Dutch recht), is retained when the adjective is inflected (regte). A similar phenomenon applies to the apocope of t after /s/. For example, the adjective vas becomes vaste when inflected. Conversely, adjectives ending in -d (pronounced /t/) or -g (pronounced /x/) following a long vowel or diphthong, lose the -d and -g when inflected. For example, look at the inflected form of:

Predicative	Gloss	Attributive	Notes
goed	good	goeie
laag	low	lae
hoog	high	hoë	(a diaeresis is used to mark a syllable break)

In some exceptional cases, after the syncope of the intervocalic consonant, there is also an additional apocope of the inflection marker. For example,

oud (old) – ou (when it precedes a noun)

Broadly speaking, the same morphological changes that apply to inflected adjectives also apply in the formation of the plural of nouns. For example, the plural of vraag (question) is vrae (questions).

Verbs

There are different kinds of verbs in Afrikaans.

Independent verbs/main verbs

Can stand alone in a sentence.

Transitive main verb

With the transitive main verb the action of the doer is transferred to the recipient, e.g. Sy doen haar werk. The word doen (do) is the transitive main verb here, because the action of doing is happening to the work. You can test this by asking who (for people) and what (for things) together with the subject and predicate, e.g. Wat doen sy? (What is she doing?) The answer is haar werk (her work) and that is the object in the sentence.

Intransitive main verb

With the intransitive main verb there is no recipient of the action, e.g. Die kind werk hard. (The child works hard.) Hence, there is no recipient of the work action.

Particle verbs/separable verbs

Particle verbs/separable verbs can be used as one word or separated in a sentence. E.g. unseparated verb: Jy moet opstaan. (You have to get up.) Separated: Jy staan vroeg op; (You get up early) or jy het vanoggend vroeg opgestaan (you got up early this morning.) (Note that the word in the past tense gets the –ge- between the two parts.)

Linking verbs

They cannot exist independently and are linked to a word or part of a sentence, e.g. Hy lyk vrolik. (He looks cheerful.) Sy is mooi. (She is beautiful.) More examples of inking verbs: is, was, word, lyk, blyk, skyn, klink, heet, bly, voel.

Auxiliary verbs

They cannot act alone in sentences, but must support the main verb.

1. Auxiliary time verb: het, e.g. Ek het my werk gedoen. (I have done my work.) (het = auxiliary verb; gedoen = main verb)
2. Auxiliary manner verb: kan, kon, wil, wou, sal, sou, moet, moes, mag (can, could, want to, would, would, would, would, must, must, might) e.g. Ek wil goed presteer. (I want to perform well.) (wil = auxiliary verb; presteer = main verb)
3. Auxiliary form verb: word, is (becomes, is) e.g. Die kind word gehelp. / Die kind is gehelp. (The child is / was helped.) This is a way to indicate the passive form.

Verb tenses

There are only 3 main verb tenses (and a 4th that is sometimes used) in Afrikaans.

1. Present tense - When something is happening now, regularly or is a fact, e.g. Ons skryf toets. (We write a test.)
2. Past tense - For something that has already happened, e.g. Ons het vanoggend toets geskryf (We wrote a test this morning.)
3. Future tense - Used for something that has yet to happen, e.g. Ons gaan / sal môre toets skryf. (We are going to / will write a test tomorrow.) The present tense is often also used here, e.g. Ons skryf môre toets. (We are writing a test tomorrow.).
4. Historical present tense: The word toe is sometimes used with something that happened in the past, but the verb/s remain in the present tense, e.g. Toe ek gister daar aankom, staan die vreemde man voor my. (When I arrived yesterday, the strange man stood before me.) The simple past tense can also be used in this case.

Verb forms

• The infinitive verb from is used after the words te of om te e.g. Dis goed om genoeg te slaap. ( It is good to sleep enough.) Jy hoef nie tuis te bly nie. (You do not have to stay home.)
• Demonstrative / indicative form: indicates an action in reality and is the usual way used in our times in the passive and active form, e.g. Ek eet 'n appel. 'n Appel word geëet. (I eat an apple. An apple is eaten.)
• Subjunctive: indicates a possibility, probability or wish, e.g. Sy sal seker nog kom. (She will probably still come.) As ek maar beter geluister het! (If only I had listened better!) Mag dit baie goed gaan! (May it go very well!)
• Imperative: indicates a request, desire or command, e.g. Was jou hande! (Wash your hands!)
• Interrogative: is indicated by a questioning sentence, e.g. Waarom is jy laat? Sal jy my help? (Why are you late? Will you help me?)

Other verb examples

There is no distinction for example between the infinitive and present forms of verbs, with the exception of these two verbs:

infinitive form	present indicative form	English
hê	het	have
wees	is	be

This phenomenon is somewhat akin to English verbs, since infinitives are mostly equivalent to verbs in the simple tense, except in English singular 3rd person forms, in which case an extra -s is added.

In addition, Afrikaans verbs do not conjugate differently depending on the subject. For example,

Afrikaans	Dutch	English
ek is	ik ben	I am
jy/u is	jij/u bent	you are (SG)
hy/sy/dit is	hij/zij/het is	he/she/it is
ons is	wij zijn	we are
julle is	jullie zijn	you are (PL)
hulle is	zij zijn	they are

For most verbs, the preterite (e.g. I watched) has been completely replaced by the perfect (e.g. I have watched), or in storytelling by the present tense (i.e. the use of a historical present, which is sometimes also employed in Dutch). The only common exceptions to this are the modal verbs (see the following table) and the verb wees "be" (preterite form was).

Modal verbs

present form			preterite form
Afrikaans	Dutch (3SG)	English	Afrikaans	Dutch (3SG)	English
kan	kan	can	kon	kon	could
sal	zal	shall (will)	sou	zou	should (would)
moet	moet	mote (must)	moes	moest	must (had to)
mag	mag	may	mog (arch.)	mocht	might (was allowed to)
wil	wil	will (want to)	wou	wilde / wou	would (wanted to)

The following four full verbs also have (rarely used) preterite forms:

Afrikaans		Dutch (3SG)		English
present	preterite	present	preterite
dink	dag / dog	denkt	dacht	think
het	had	heeft	had	have
weet	wis	weet	wist	know
word	werd	wordt	werd	become

Several verbs have irregular perfect forms which are used alongside regular forms, sometimes with different meanings:

Afrikaans			Dutch (3SG)		English
present	perfect		present	perfect
	irregular	regular
baar	gebore	gebaar	baart	gebaard / geboren	bear, give birth
dink	dag(arch.)/dog	gedink	denkt	gedacht	think
oorly	oorlede	oorly	overlijdt	overleden	die
sterf	gestorwe (arch.)/gesterwe	gesterf	sterft	gestorven	die
trou	getroud	getrou	trouwt	getrouwd	marry

The verb baar (to bear, to give birth) has two past participles: gebaar and gebore. The former is used in the active voice ("she has borne") and the latter in the passive voice ("she was born"). This is akin to Dutch, in which the verb baren has the past participles gebaard and geboren, with a similar distinction. Compare also the distinction between English born and borne.

Modern Afrikaans also lacks a pluperfect (e.g. I had watched). Instead, the pluperfect, like the preterite, is expressed using the perfect.

The perfect is constructed with the auxiliary verb het + past participle, which—except for the verb hê (past participle gehad), separable verbs such as reghelp (past participle reggehelp) and verbs with beginnings such as ver- and ont- (verkoop, ontmoet are both infinitive and past participle)—is formed regularly by adding the prefix ge- to the verb's infinitive/present form. For example,

Ek breek – I break

Ek het dit gebreek – I broke it, I have broken it, I had broken it

An object is necessary in this case, otherwise it implies that the subject (ek) is broken.

The future tense is in turn indicated using the auxiliary sal + infinitive. For example,

Ek sal kom – I will come (or lit. I shall come)

The conditional is indicated by the preterite form sou + infinitive. For example,

Ek sou kom – I would come (lit. I should come)

Like other Germanic languages, Afrikaans also has an analytic passive voice that is formed in the present tense by using the auxiliary verb word (to become) + past participle, and, in the past tense, by using the auxiliary is + past participle. For example,

Dit word gemaak – It is being made

Dit is (Dis) gemaak – It is made, It was made, It has been made (so it already exists)

Formal written Afrikaans also admits the construction of was gemaak to indicate passive voice in the pluperfect, which in this case corresponds to had been made. The meaning of the sentence can change based on which auxiliary verb is used (is/was), e.g. is gemaak implies that something has been made and is still in existence today, whereas was gemaak implies that something had been made, but was destroyed or lost.

The present participle is normally formed with the suffix -ende (kom/komende), but sometimes it is irregular (wees/synde, hê/hebbende, sterf/sterwende, bly/blywende), although this is considered archaic for function verbs. Sometimes there is a spelling change to the root which does not affect the pronunciation (maak/makende, weet/wetende)

The verb wees uniquely has subjunctive forms, although they are seldom ever used in the present day: sy is the present subjunctive form, and ware is the past subjunctive form.

Pronouns

These can take the place of nouns.

1. Personal pronouns replace the noun. e.g. Hy (in plaas van die seun) doen sy werk. (He (instead of the boy) does his work.)
2. Deictic pronouns are often found with natural phenomena, e.g. Dit reën. (It is raining. ) Daar was eendag 'n liewe heksie. (There was once a dear little witch.)
3. Possessive pronouns indicate possession, e.g. Ek lees jou boek.(I am reading your book. ) Myne is weg. (Mine is gone.) (Also: syne, hare, ons s’n, hulle s’n, etc.)
4. Interrogative pronouns form questions: Wie is daar? (Who is there?) (Also: wat, waar, hoe, hoekom, waarom).
5. Relative pronouns' further describe the noun, e.g. Die stoel waarop ek sit, is hard. (The chair on which' I sit is hard. ) (Also: waaruit, waarmee, waarin, wie se, wat.)
6. Indefinite pronouns do not refer to anyone or anything specific, e.g. Iemand het die deur gesluit. (Someone locked the door. (Also: niemand, almal, diegene).
7. Reciprocal pronouns indicate that the person or thing performing and undergoing the action is the same, e.g. Ek vererg my. (I get annoyed.) Hy skaam hom .(He feels embarrassed)
8. Reciprocal pronoun (only the word mekaar): Hulle help mekaar. (They help each other).

Remnants of the case distinction remain in the pronoun system. For example,

Personal Pronouns

Subject Pronouns			Object pronouns
Afrikaans	Dutch	English	Afrikaans	Dutch	English
ek	ik	I	my	mij/me	me
jy/u	jij/u/gij	ye/you (SG)	jou/u	jou/u	you (SG)
hy/sy/dit	hij/zij/het	he/she/it	hom/haar/dit	hem/haar/het	him/her/it
ons	wij	we	ons	ons	us
julle	jullie/gij	you (PL)	julle	jullie	you (PL)
hulle	zij	they	hulle	hen	them

No case distinction is made for the plural pronouns. There is often no distinction between object and possessive pronouns when used before nouns. For example,

my – my, me

ons – our (the alternative form onse is now considered archaic)

An exception to the previous rule is the 3rd person singular masculine or neuter, where Afrikaans clearly distinguishes between hom (him) and sy (his). Likewise, the neuter pronoun dit (it, subject or object) is distinguished from the possessive sy (its), and the term hy can emphatically be used to describe inanimate objects in the same way as the feminine in English, such as in the Rooibaard hot sauce brand's slogan "hy brand mooi rooi" ("He burns beautifully red"), referring to its product's intense spice. For 3rd person plural pronouns, whereas hulle can also mean their, a variant hul is frequently used to mean "their" so as to differentiate between their and they/them. Similarly, julle when meaning your has a possessive variant jul.

Syntax

Word order

Afrikaans has a strict word order, described in many South African textbooks using the so-called "STOMPI rule". The name of the rule indicates the order in which the parts of a sentence should appear.

The "STOMPI" rule

S	v1	T	O	M	P	v2	I
Subject	First verb	Time	Object	Manner	Place	Second verb	Infinitive

Word order in Afrikaans follows broadly the same rules as in Dutch: in main clauses, the finite verb appears in "second position" (V2 word order), while subordinate clauses (e.g. content clauses and relative clauses) have subject–object–verb order, with the verb at (or near) the end of the clause.

Afrikaans	Dutch	English
Hy is siek.	Hij is ziek.	He is sick.
Ek weet dat hy siek is.	Ik weet dat hij ziek is.	I know that he is sick.

As in Dutch and German, infinitives and past participles appear in final position in main clauses, split from the corresponding auxiliary verb. For example,

Afrikaans: Hy het 'n huis gekoop.

Dutch: Hij heeft een huis gekocht.

English: He (has) bought a house.

Relative clauses usually begin with the pronoun "wat", used both for personal and non-personal antecedents. For example,

Afrikaans: Die man wat hier gebly het was ʼn Amerikaner.

Dutch: De man die hier bleef was een Amerikaan.

English: The man who stayed here was an American.

Alternatively, a relative clause may begin with a preposition + "wie" when referring to a personal antecedent, or an agglutination between "waar" and a preposition when referring to a non-personal antecedent.

Double negative

A particular feature of Afrikaans is its use of the double negative. For example,

Afrikaans: Hy kan nie Afrikaans praat nie. (lit. He can not Afrikaans speak not.)

Dutch: Hij kan geen Afrikaans spreken.

English: He cannot speak Afrikaans.

Both French and San origins have been suggested for double negation in Afrikaans. While double negation is still found in Low Franconian dialects in West-Flanders and in some "isolated" villages in the centre of the Netherlands (i.e. Garderen), it takes a different form, which is not found in Afrikaans. The following is an example:

Afrikaans	Dutch	English
Ek wil dit nie doen nie.	Ik wil dit niet doen.	I do not want to do it.

^*Compare with "Ek wil nie dit doen nie", which changes the meaning to "I do not want to do this specific thing." Whereas "Ek wil dit nie doen nie" emphasises the unwillingness to act, "Ek wil nie dit doen nie" emphasises the unwillingness to do the specified action.

The double negative construction has been fully integrated into standard Afrikaans and its proper use follows a set of fairly complex rules as the examples below show:

Afrikaans	Dutch	English
Ek het nie geweet dat hy sou kom nie.	Ik heb niet geweten dat hij zou komen.1	I did not know that he would be coming
Ek het geweet dat hy nie sou kom nie.	Ik heb geweten dat hij niet zou komen.²	I knew that he would not come.
Ek het nie geweet dat hy nie sou kom nie.	Ik heb niet geweten dat hij niet zou komen.³	I did not know that he would not come.
Hy sal nie kom nie, want hy is siek.	Hij zal niet komen, want hij is ziek.4	He will not be coming because he is sick.
Dis (Dit is) nie so moeilik om Afrikaans te leer nie.	Het is niet zo moeilijk om Afrikaans te leren.	It is not so difficult to learn Afrikaans.

The word het in Dutch does not correspond to het in Afrikaans. The het in Dutch means it in English. The Dutch word that corresponds to het in Afrikaans (in these cases) is heb.

Note that in these cases, most Dutch speakers would say instead:

No.	Dutch	English
1	Ik wist niet dat hij zou komen.	I knew not that he would come.
2	Ik wist dat hij niet zou komen.	I knew that he would not come.
3	Ik wist niet dat hij niet zou komen.	I knew not that he would not come.
4	Hij komt niet, want hij is ziek. (or more commonly Hij komt niet omdat hij ziek is.)	He does not come because he is sick.

A notable exception to this is the use of the negating grammar form that coincides with negating the English present participle. In this case there is only a single negation.

Afrikaans	English
Hy is in die hospitaal, maar hy eet nie. (lit. ...he eats not.)	He is in hospital, but he isn't eating.

Certain words in Afrikaans arise due to grammar. For example, moet nie, which literally means "must not", usually becomes moenie; although one does not have to write or say it like this, virtually all Afrikaans speakers will change the two words to moenie in the same way as do not shifts to don't in English.

See also

• His genitive

References

• de Stadler, Leon G. (1996). "The indirect object in Afrikaans". In van Belle, William; Langendonck, Willy (eds.). The Dative. Vol. 1. pp. 251–288.
• Donaldson, Bruce C. (1993). A Grammar of Afrikaans. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
• Donaldson, Bruce C. (2000). Colloquial Afrikaans. London/New York: Routledge.
• de Villiers, Meyer (1951). Werkwoordsvorme in Afrikaans in die verlede tyd. Stellenbosch: Universiteit van Stellenbosch. See also Roy F. Fallis, Jr.; De Villiers (1954). "Review of de Villiers (1951)". Language. 30 (4): 544–549. doi:10.2307/410487. JSTOR 410487.