Afrikaans grammar

The grammar of Afrikaans is very analytic—indeed it may be said to be the most analytic of the Indo-European languages. Compared to most other Indo-European languages, verb paradigms in Afrikaans are relatively simple.

Verbs

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

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

Adjectives

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 though, depending mostly on a set of rather complex phonological rules. When an adjective is inflected, it usually takes the ending -e and a series of morphological changes may result. For example, the final t following an /x/ sound, which disappears in uninflected adjectives like "reg" (cf. Dutch "recht"), is restored 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:

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.

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:

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.

One must note, however, that 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.

References

*cite book| last=Donaldson| first=Bruce C.| title=A Grammar of Afrikaans| publisher=Mouton de Gruyter| location=Berlin| year=1993
*cite book| last=Donaldson| first=Bruce C.| title=Colloquial Afrikaans| publisher=Routledge| location=London/New York| year=2000
*cite book| last=de Villiers| first=Meyer| title=Werkwoordsvorme in Afrikaans in die verlede tyd| publisher=Universiteit van Stellenbosch| location=Stellenbosch| year=1951 See also cite journal| author=Roy F. Fallis, Jr.| title=Review of de Villiers (1951)| journal=Language| volume=30| issue=4| year=1954| pages=544–549| doi=10.2307/410487

ee also

*His genitive