ABSTRACT
There are very few real adjectives in Bantu. Their place is often supplied by nouns and verbs. Thus Nyanja has no adjective to express ‘bad’ or ‘-black’ ; but there are verbs to be bad’ (ku-ipa) and ‘to be black’ (ku-dd), and the place of the adjective is taken by a kind of participle formed of the infinitive with the possessive particle prefixed to it. ‘Black’ is wa ku-da ‘of being black,’ or, more literally, of to-be-black,’ and ‘bad’ wa ku-ipa, usually contracted into woipa 1 This construction, which has a genitive or partitive force, as the Chwana participle in ng has a locative force, sometimes replaces a relative pronoun. We can say, for instance, mnyamata wosaka (for wa-ku-saka) nyania,’ the youth who hunts 119game,’ mzungu wosakala ‘the white man who never sits down.’ (Sa is a negative particle, to be explained in a later chapter.)
