Afrikaans grammar
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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.
There is no distinction for example between the infinitive and present forms of verbs, with the exception of the verbs "wees" (to be), that admits the present form "is", and the verb "hê" (to have), whose present form is "het". In addition, verbs do not conjugate differently depending on the subject, e.g. Ek is, "I am"; Jy is, "you are"; Hy is, "he is", Ons is, "we are"; etc.
The preterite (e.g. Eng. "I watched") has been completely replaced by the perfect (e.g. Eng. "I have watched") the only exceptions to this rule being again the verb "wees", which admits the preterite form "was", and the modal verbs "kan", "sal", "moet" and "wil" whose preterite forms are respectively "kon", "sou", "moes" and "wou". Other less common preterite forms include "dag" (preterite of "dink" = Eng. "to think") and "wis" (preterite of "weet" = Eng. "to know").
Modern Afrikaans also lacks a pluperfect (e.g. Eng. "I had watched"). Instead, the pluperfect, like the preterite, is expressed using the perfect tense.
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[edit] Morphology
[edit] Word order
Afrikaans has a very strict word order and is quite hard for first time learners of the language to master. To overcome this, many South African text books use the so-called "stompi" rule, which is usually written as such: S v1 T O M P v2 I. This tells you in what order words should go in in a sentence. S = subject, v1 = first verb, T = time, O = object, M = manner, P = place, v2 = second verb and I = infinitive.
[edit] Verbs
The perfect is constructed with the auxiliary verb "het" + the 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" = Eng. "I break", "ek het gebreek" = Eng. "I broke, I have broken, I had broken".
The future tense is in turn indicated using the auxiliary "sal" + infinitive, e.g. "ek sal kom" = Eng. "I will come", more closely "I shall come"
The conditional is indicated by the preterite form "sou" + infinitive, e.g. "ek sou kom" = Eng. "I would come", more closely "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" + past participle, and, in the past tense, by using the auxiliary "is" + past participle, i.e. "word gemaak" = Eng. "is made", while "is gemaak" = Eng. "was/has been made".
Formal written Afrikaans also admits the construction "was gemaak" to indicate the pluperfect tense, cf. Eng. "had been made". It is unclear though whether a distinction between "is gemaak" and "was gemaak" is actually made or not in modern colloquial spoken Afrikaans.
[edit] Nouns
Unlike in Dutch, Afrikaans nouns do not have grammatical gender, but 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 (Kinders; Dutch: Kinderen; West- and East-Flemish Kinders)
No grammatical case distinction exists for nouns, adjectives and articles, with the universal definite article being "die" (Eng. "the", Dutch "de/het") and the universal indefinite article being "'n" (Eng. "a"/"an", Dutch "een").
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, final "t" following a /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/, e.g. 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 the "g" when inflected, e.g. the inflected form of "goed" (Eng. "good") is "goeie", "laag" (Eng. "low") becomes "lae", and "hoog" (Eng. "high") becomes "hoë" (the diaeresis used here to mark the hiatus). In some exceptional cases, after the syncope of the intervocalic consonant, there is also an additional apocope of the inflection marker, e.g. "oud" (Eng. "old") becomes "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, e.g. the plural of "vraag" (Eng. "question") is "vrae" (Eng. "questions").
[edit] Personal pronouns
Vestiges of case distinction remain for certain personal pronouns, e.g. "ek" (Eng. "I") vs. "my" (Eng. "me"), "jy" (Eng. you (subj.)) vs. "jou" (Eng. you (obj.)), "hy" (Eng. "he") vs."hom" (Eng. "him"), and "sy" (subj.) (Eng. "she") vs. "haar" (Eng. "her"). No case distinction is made though for the plural forms of personal pronouns, i.e "ons" means both "we" and "us"; "julle" means "you" (plural, subj. and obj.), and "hulle" means both "they" and "them".
There is often no distinction either between objective pronouns and possessive pronouns when used before nouns, e.g. "my" also means Eng. "my" (in addition to Eng. "me") and "ons" also means "our" (the alternative form "onse" is now considered archaic). An exception to the previous rule is the 3rd person singular, where Afrikaans clearly distinguishes between "hom" (Eng. "him") and "sy" (Eng. "his"). Likewise, the neuter pronoun "dit" (Eng. "it" subj. or obj.) is distinguished from the possessive "sy" (Eng. "its"). For 3rd person plural pronouns, whereas "hulle" can also mean "their", a variant "hul" is frequently used in practice to differentiate between "their" and "they"/"them". Similarly , "julle" when meaning "your" admits a variant "jul".
[edit] Syntax
In terms of syntax, word order in Afrikaans follows broadly the same rules as in Dutch, i.e. finite verbs appear in second position in main and coordinate clauses, and in final position in subordinate clauses, e.g. Hy is siek (Eng. "He is sick") vs Ek weet dat hy siek is (Eng. "I know that he is sick").
Like in Dutch and German, infinitives and past participles appear in final position in main clauses, split from the corresponding auxiliary verb, e.g. Hy het 'n huis gekoop (Eng. He bought/has bought a house). Relative clauses usually begin with the pronoun "wat", used both for personal and non-personal antecedents, e.g. Die man wat hier gebly het was 'n Amerikaner (Eng. "The man who lived 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.
[edit] Double negative
A particular feature of Afrikaans is its use of the double negative, something that is absent from the other West Germanic standard languages, e.g:Hy kan nie Afrikaans praat nie. (literally 'he cannot Afrikaans speak not'). 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 center of the Netherlands (i.e. Garderen), it takes a different form, which is not found in Afrikaans (ie. ikne wil dat nie doen - I not will that not do). The -ne was the Old Franconian way to negate, but it is suggested that since it became highly non-voiced 'nie' or 'niet' was needed to complement the -ne. With time the -ne disappeared in most Low Franconian ("Dutch") dialects.
The double negative construction has been fully grammaticalized in standard Afrikaans and its proper use follows a set of fairly complex rules as the examples below (provided by Bruce Donaldson) show:
Ek het nie geweet dat hy sou kom nie = Eng. I didn't know that he would be coming.
Ek het geweet dat hy nie sou kom nie = Eng. I knew that he wouldn't be coming.
Ek het nie geweet dat hy nie sou kom nie = Eng. I didn't know that he wouldn't be coming.
Hy sal nie kom nie, want hy is siek = Eng. He won't be coming because he is sick.
Dis (=Dit is) nie so moeilik om Afrikaans te leer nie = Eng. It's not so difficult to learn Afrikaans.
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.
Reference: Donaldson, B.C. "A grammar of Afrikaans", Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin, 1993
