ABSTRACT

This chapter talks about the plural of nouns, the present tense of verbs, modal verbs, and how to express actions that started in the past and is still continuing. Afrikaans etiquette with regard to the use of 'please' and 'thank you' is exactly as in English, and thus different from most other European languages. Forming the plural of nouns is a complex issue in Afrikaans. Although the vast majority of nouns form their plural in either -s or -e, there are several other ways of pluralising certain nouns, but these are exceptional and concern only a minority of nouns. Afrikaans verbs are very simple and it has only two forms, the stem, which is used to form the infinitive, the present tense and the imperative, and a past tense form. The basic form of the verb is called the infinitive. The modal verbs are all auxiliary verbs; they are used in combination with other verbs.