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Mama amenunua kinywaji kipya cha miwa ambacho hakina sukari nyingi.

Mama amenunua kinywaji kipya cha miwa ambacho hakina sukari nyingi.
Mother has bought a new sugar-cane drink that does not have a lot of sugar.
FromLesson 35inHardcore Swahili
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More from this lesson

juziJuzi tulitembelea maktaba mpya ambayo ina vitabu vingi vya hadithi.tathminiMwalimu anafanya tathmini kila mwisho wa wiki.alamaMimi nilipata alama nzuri katika mtihani.Leo hii tumeanza tathmini ya kwanza, na kila mwanafunzi atapata alama baadaye.Alama ambazo tutapata zitatueleza kama tumefikia lengo letu au la.

Questions & Answers about Mama amenunua kinywaji kipya cha miwa ambacho hakina sukari nyingi.

What do the prefixes a- and me- in amenunua indicate?

a- is the subject concord for class 1 (people, e.g. Mama), corresponding to “she.”
me- is the perfect (completed) aspect marker, meaning “has.”
Together with the verb nunua (“buy”), amenunua means “she has bought.”

Why is the adjective “new” kipya and not just pya?
In Swahili, adjectives agree with the noun class. Kinywaji (“drink”) is in noun class 7, so the adjective takes the class-7 prefix ki- plus the stem -pya, yielding kipya.
Why do we use cha for “of sugarcane” instead of ya or la?
Genitive concords depend on noun class. Class 7 nouns like kinywaji take cha before the thing possessed. Hence cha miwa = “of sugarcane.”
What is the role of ambacho in the sentence?
Ambacho is a relative pronoun introducing the clause that describes kinywaji. For class 7 (and class 8) singular, the standard relative word is ambacho (“that/which”).
Why is “does not have” expressed as hakina instead of hakuna?

Hakina = ha- (negative) + ki- (class 7 subject prefix) + -na (present “have”) = “it does not have.”
By contrast, hakuna is a fixed form meaning “there is/are none,” used for general absence.

Why does nyingi come after sukari rather than before it?
Quantifiers like nyingi (“much/many”) follow the noun they modify in Swahili. So sukari nyingi literally means “sugar much,” i.e. “much sugar.”
Can you break down the entire sentence, morpheme by morpheme?
  • Mama – “mother” (noun, class 1)
  • a- – class 1 subject prefix (“she”)
  • me- – perfect aspect marker (“has”)
  • nunua – verb stem “buy”
  • kinywaji – ki- (class 7) + nywaji (“drink”)
  • kipya – ki- (class 7 adjective prefix) + pya (“new”)
  • cha – genitive concord for class 7 (“of”)
  • miwa – “sugarcane”
  • ambacho – class 7 relative pronoun (“that/which”)
  • ha- – negative marker
  • ki- – class 7 subject prefix
  • -na – present tense “have”
  • sukari – “sugar”
  • nyingi – “much/many”