Swahili Adverbs

Adverbs are words that tell more about adjectives, verbs or other adverbs. In Swahili, the order of the sentence having adverbs is as follows:

Noun + Adjective + Adverb+ Verb+ Adverb e.g.

Paka mkubwa sana ameumia vibaya (A very big cat has been injured badly)

In cases where the sentence has copular verbs the order becomes:

Either;

Noun+ copular verb+ Adjective+ Adverb(with reference to the adjective e.g.

Kikombe ni kirefu sana (The cup is very tall)

Or

Noun+ Adjective + Adverb+ Copular Verb+ Adjective+ with reference to the latter adjective). e.g.

Yai zuri tamu si muhimu kwa sasa ( A good sweet egg is not important for now)

Lets look at the types of adjverbs

a. Adverbs of place

They show the place at which an action takes place. In this category, the suffix ni is placed at the end of a noun to to indicate the place for most words. Mohammed(2001) explains that the adverbs could be names of places, and other dimensions that are connected with the locative aspect.

Yohana anaenda mjini (John is going to the city)

Atakuja hapa (He will come here)

Maria haendi Nairobi (Maria is not going to Nairobi)

b. Adverbs of frequency

They answer the questions, 'How often?' Or 'How many times?'

Here is a list of words that can be used as adverbs of frequency

kila wakati everytime

tena (again)

Mara moja (once)

daima (always)

kwa wingi (in plenty)

kwa mapana (in details)

Example in a Sentence

Paulo anahubiri tena (Paul is preaching again)

Nitakuwa nikija kila siku (I will be coming everyday)

c. Adverbs of manner

They show how an action takes place. There are those that appear as free morphemes and those that take the prefix ki- or vi-. Starting with the former category, we have those that take the form of ideophones e.g.

Alinyamaza jii! (He kept quiet)

The others which do not take ideophonic forms include words such as:

Haraka (fast)

Polepole (slowly)

Kwa upole (politely)

Example in a sentence;

Kioko anatembea polepole (Kioko is walking slowly)

In the second category, the stem words are attached with the prefixes ki-/vi-

Example:

Maina anakula kilafi (Maina is eating greedily)

Mtoto mwembamba vibaya atakaguliwa ( A badly thin child will be checked)

d. Adverbs of time

These tell us when an action is performed. They include times of the day, names of days, weeks, months and so forth. Example:

Simba ataletwa kesho (The lion will be brought tommorrow).

Aliniona Jumamosi (She saw me on Saturday)

Exercise:

Construct 5 sentences in each of the above categories of adverbs.

Kila la heri (All the Best)