Breakdown of Sufuria inaweza kujazwa maji ya moto kabla ya kupika chapati.
kupika
to cook
ya
of
maji
the water
kabla ya
before
kuweza
to be able
moto
hot
sufuria
the cooking pot
chapati
the chapati
kujazwa
to be filled
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Questions & Answers about Sufuria inaweza kujazwa maji ya moto kabla ya kupika chapati.
What is sufuria, and how does its noun class affect the sentence?
Sufuria means ‘cooking pot.’ It’s a loanword in noun class 9 (singular) and class 10 (plural), sharing the same form for both. Here it’s singular, so we use the class 9 subject prefix i- on inaweza (instead of a- or u-).
Break down inaweza into its morphemes.
inaweza = i- (class 9 subject prefix) + -na- (present-tense marker) + weza (verb root ‘be able’). Put together as i-na-weza, it contracts to inaweza (‘it can’).
What does kujazwa mean, and how is the passive formed in Swahili?
Kujazwa is the infinitive passive of jaza (‘fill’). It’s built as ku- (infinitive) + jaza (root) + -w- (passive marker) + -a (verb ending), giving ku-jaz-w-a: ‘to be filled.’
Why is it maji ya moto and not maji moto for ‘hot water’?
In Swahili moto is a noun (‘heat/fire’), not a true adjective. To say ‘water of heat’ (i.e. ‘hot water’) you link two nouns with the genitive ya: maji ya moto. You cannot treat moto as an adjectival concord here.
What is the function of kabla ya, and why is it followed by kupika?
Kabla ya means ‘before.’ It requires a noun or nominalized verb to follow. To attach a verb, you use its infinitive form ku-. Hence kabla ya kupika = ‘before cooking.’
Why does chapati come after kupika rather than before?
Swahili infinitives (ku- form) behave like verbs: they take their objects directly after them. So kupika chapati literally means ‘to cook chapati,’ with chapati as the verb’s object.
How would you say ‘pots can be filled with hot water before cooking chapati’ in clear plural?
Keep sufuria unchanged (class 9/10), add nyingi (‘many’) to show plurality, and switch the subject prefix to class 10 zi-:
Sufuria nyingi zinaweza kujazwa maji ya moto kabla ya kupika chapati.
Why use the passive kujazwa here instead of the active kujaza, and how would the active look?
The passive kujazwa (‘to be filled’) highlights the pot’s capacity to receive water, not the person doing the filling. If you focused on the filler, you’d use the active infinitive kujaza, for example:
Unaweza kujaza sufuria maji ya moto kabla ya kupika chapati.