Language/Lingala/Grammar/Subject-pronouns

Subject pronouns – Lingala Language

There are seven subject pronouns in Lingala and they’re one of the key building blocks of the language, so it helps to memorise them as soon as possible.

na – (nah) – I

o – (oh) – you

a – (ah) – he/she

to – (toh) – we

bo – (boh) – you (plural)

ba – (bah) – they

e – (eh) – it

Unlike a lot of other languages in which the subject pronouns and the conjugated verbs are two separate words, Lingala combines the two into a single word. Subject pronouns are never used by themselves. Instead, they are always joined with the form of the verb that you want to use at the beginning of the verb. Always.

So, ‘I am’ becomes nazali (na+zali, the first-person singular form of kozala, ‘to be’) and ‘you are’ becomes ozali (o+zali, the second-person singular form) and so on.

Here’s how it works for each of the seven subject pronoun forms for kozala:

na+zali – nazali – (nah-ZAH-lee) – I am

o+zali – ozali – (oh-ZAH-lee) – you are

a+zali – azali – (ah-ZAH-lee) – he/she is

to+zali – tozali – (toh-ZAH-lee) – we are

bo+zali – bozali – (boh-ZAH-lee) – you are (plural)

ba+zali – bazali – (bah-ZAH-lee) – they are

e+zali – ezali – (eh-ZAH-lee) – it is

We’ll look at the methods for conjugating in more detail in the next section, but you’ll likely already begin to see how reassuringly regular things can be.

Source

https://lobalingala.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/23042014-loba-lingala.pdf

Related Lessons

• Gender
• Prepositions
• Irregular verbs – kokende – to go
• The present tense To be
• Adjectives
• The First 10 Verbs
• The Past Tense To Be
• Present Tense
• Present progressive tense
• Using infinitive verb forms
• Verb To Have and To Be
• Questions
• Nouns
• Time adverbs
• Irregular verbs – koya – to come