Kabyle grammar

Gender

As an Afro-Asiatic language, Kabyle has only two genders, Masculine and Feminine. Like most Berber languages, masculine nouns and adjectives generally start with a vowel (a-, i-, u-), while the feminine nouns generally start with t- and end with a -t (there are some exceptions, however). Note that most feminine nouns are in fact feminized versions of masculine nouns.

Examples:

Pluralization

Singular nouns generally start with an a-, and do not have a suffix. Plural nouns generally start with an i- and often have a suffix such as -en. There are three types of plural : External, Internal, Mixed:

Free and annexed state

As in all Berber languages, Kabyle has two types of states or cases of the noun, organized ergatively: one is unmarked, while the other serves as the subject of a transitive verb and the object of a preposition, among other contexts. The former is often called free state, the latter construct state. The construct state of the noun derives from the free state through one of the following rules:

The first involves a vowel alternation, whereby the vowel a become u :

The second involves the loss of the initial vowel in the case of some feminine nouns (the sound represented by the letter 'e' is not considered a true vowel):

The third involves the addition of a semi-vowel (w or y) word-initially:

Finally, some nouns do not change for free state:

Depending on the role of the noun in the sentence, it takes either its free or annexed state:

After a preposition (at the exception of "ar" and "s"), all nouns take their annexed state:

Verbs

There are three tenses : the Preterite (past), intensive Aorist (present perfect, present continuous, past continuous) and the future (Ad+Aoriste). Unlike other Berber languages, the aorist alone is rarely used in Kabyle (In the other languages it is used to express the present).

Conjugation

Conjugation in Kabyle is done by adding suffixes (prefixes, postfixes or both). These suffixes are static and identical for all tenses (only the theme changes):

Verb framing

Kabyle is a satellite-framed based language, Kabyle verbs use two particles to show the path of motion:

Examples:

Negation

Kabyle usually expresses negation in two parts, with the particle ur attached to the verb, and one or more negative words that modify the verb or one of its arguments. For example, simple verbal negation is expressed by « ur » before the verb and the particle « ara » after the verb:

Other negative words (acemma...etc.) are used in combination with ur to express more complex types of negation.

Verb derivation

Verb derivation is done by adding affixes. There are three types of derivation forms : Causative, reflexive and Passive.

Interestingly, two prefixes can cancel each other:

Agent noun

Every verb has a corresponding agent noun. In English it could be translated into verb+er. It is obtained by prefixing the verb with « am- » or with « an- » if the first letter is b / f / m / w (there are exceptions however).

Action noun

Every verb has a corresponding action noun, which in English it could be translated into verb+ing:

There are 6 regular stems of forming action nouns, and the 7th is for quality verbs : (C for consonant, V for vowel)

Predicative particle "d"

The predicative particle "d" is an indispensable tool in speaking Kabyle, "d" is equivalent to both "it is + adjective" and "to be + adjective", but cannot be replaced by the verb "ili" (to be). It is always followed by a noun (free state).

Examples:

The predicative particle "d" should not be confused with the particle of coordination "d"; indeed, the latter is followed by a noun at its annexed state while the first is always followed by a noun at its free state.

Personal pronouns

Example : « Ula d nekk. » — "Me too."

Possessive pronouns

Example : « Axxam-nneɣ. » — "Our house." (House-our)

Pronouns of the verb

Example : « Yuɣ-it. » — "He bought it." (He.bought-it)

Demonstratives

There are three demonstratives, near-deictic ('this, these'), far-deictic ('that, those') and absence:

Numerotation

Only the first two numbers are Berber; for higher numbers, Arabic is used. They are yiwen (f. yiwet) "one", sin (f. snat) "two". The noun being counted follows it in the genitive: sin n yirgazen "two men".

"First" and "last" are respectively amezwaru and aneggaru (regular adjectives). Other ordinals are formed with the prefix wis (f. tis): wis sin "second (m.)", tis tlata "third (f.)", etc.

Prepositions

Prepositions precede their objects: « i medden » "to the people", « si temdint » "from the town". All words preceded by a preposition (at the exception of « s » and « ar », "towards", "until" ) take their annexed state.

Some prepositions have two forms : one is used with pronominal suffixes and the other form is used in all other contexts.

Also some of these prepositions have a corresponding relative pronoun (or interrogative), example:

Conjunctions

Conjunctions precede the verb: mi yiwweḍ "when he arrived", muqel ma yusa-d "see if he came".