Somali grammar


is an agglutinative language, using many affixes and particles to determine and alter the meaning of words.

Morphology

As in other related Afroasiatic languages, Somali nouns are inflected for gender, number and case.
Affixes change according to a number of rules. The definite article is a suffix, with the basic form being -ki or -ka for masculine nouns and -ti or -ta for feminine nouns. The k or t is the actual article marker, although it can change depending on the preceding consonant, with the following vowel determined by the case of the noun. Articles do not change for singular or plural.

Nouns

Absolutive case

The basic form of a Somali noun is in absolutive case. In this case, the article maintains the vowel -a.
SomaliEnglish
buug book
buuggathe book
gacan hand
gacantathe hand

Nominative case

The subject of a sentence takes nominative case. In this case, the article takes the vowel -u. If the subject of the sentence includes multiple nouns, only the last takes the nominative ending for the article.
If there is no article, a tonal change signifies nominative case, although this is not represented in the orthography. Some feminine nouns take the suffix -i in nominative case without an article.
SomaliEnglish
ninman
nin-kathe man
nin-ku...the man...
nin-ka iyo wiil-ku...the man and the boy...

Genitive case

is generally indicated through a tonal change. Some feminine nouns take an ending, -eed, -aad or -od, depending on the final consonant of the root word.
SomaliEnglish
áf language
carabArab
áf carabiArabic language

Vocative case

is indicated either through a tonal change or with the suffixes -ow, -ohow, -eey/-aay/-ooy or -yahay.

Gender

Gender is not marked in nouns without the definite article. The gender of nouns does not follow any particular rule and is not generally obvious.

Number

Nouns form their plural in three ways, including reduplication. Many nouns exhibit gender polarity, whereby they change gender in the plural form, e.g. buug-ga is masculine in the singular, but buugag-ta is feminine.

Pronouns

There are both subject and object forms for each personal pronoun, with each form further divided into short and emphatic forms.

Verbs

Somali verbs consist of a stem to which suffixes are added. Verbs in indicative mood exist in four tenses, present, present continuous, past and past continuous, in addition to a subjunctive mood form for present and future tense. Verbs in Somali conjugate mainly through the addition of suffixes, although a very small number of common verbs use a conjugation using prefixes.

Infinitive and verbal nouns

The infinitive is created through the suffix -i or -n depending on verb class, e.g. keeni and siin. The infinitive is used in present tense only with the modal verb karid. Verbal nouns are formed with the endings -id, -n and -sho, e.g. keenid, siin and barasho and are used and declined as per normal nouns.

Pareto principle

According to Ahmad, the Pareto principle is in effect with regard to Somali grammar. When applied to Standard Somali, the adjective and verb, which collectively represent around 20% of Somali grammatical categories, would thereby constitute about 80% of both spoken and written Somali. This is due to the fact that tenses have an effect on both grammatical categories.

Indicative mood

Present
Present tense refers to an action which may or may not be happening at present. It may be used to express something which happens habitually or repeatedly. The present tense conjugation of keen follows:
PersonPresentEnglish
1. Sing.' keenaaI bring
2. Sing.' keentaayou bring
3. Sing. m.' keenaahe brings
3. Sing. f.' keentaashe brings
1. Pl.' keennaawe bring
2. Pl.' keentaanyou bring
3. Pl. keenaanthey bring
Past
Past tense is used to describe a completed action in the past with a discrete duration. The conjugation of keen is:
PersonFormEnglish
1. Sing. keenayI brought
2. Sing. keentayyou brought
3. Sing. m. keenayhe brought
3. Sing. f. keentayshe brought
1. Pl. keennaywe brought
2. Pl. keenteenyou brought
3. Pl. keeneenthey brought

nb: The final -ay can also be pronounced and written -ey.
Present continuous
The present continuous tense is formed with the suffix -ay- / -na- and the endings from the present tense. The present continuous forms of keen are:
PersonFormEnglish
1. Sing. keenayaaI am bringing
2. Sing. keenaysaayou are bringing
3. Sing. m. keenayaahe is bringing
3. Sing. f. keenaysaashe is bringing
1. Pl. keenaynaawe are bringing
2. Pl. keenaysaanyou are bringing
3. Pl. keenayaanthey are bringing
Past continuous
Past continuous is formed with the suffix -na / -ay and the past tense endings: keen+ay+ey = keenayey = I was bringing. Is it used to describe actions in the past which happened over a period of time: Intuu akhrinayey wargeyska wuu quracanayey. = While he was reading the newspaper, he was eating breakfast.
PersonFormEnglish
1. Sing. keenayeyI was bringing
2. Sing. keenayseyyou were bringing
3. Sing. m. keenayeyhe was bringing
3. Sing. f. keenayseyshe was bringing
1. Pl. keenayneywe were bringing
2. Pl. keenayseenyou were bringing
3. Pl. keenayeenthey were bringing
Future
Future tense is formed with the infinitive of the required verb and the present tense of doon :
PersonFormEnglish
1. Sing. keeni doonaaI will bring
2. Sing. keeni doontaayou will bring
3. Sing. m. keeni doonaahe will bring
3. Sing. f. keeni doontaashe will bring
1. Pl. keeni doonnaawe will bring
2. Pl. keeni doontaanyou will bring
3. Pl. keeni doonaanthey will bring

Subjunctive mood

The subjunctive is used only in subordinate clauses and certain prepositional phrases. The present subjunctive differs from the indicative only in that the vowel in the endings changes from a to o. Future subjunctive uses the infinitive plus the present subjunctive form of doon.

Syntax

Somali has several strategies to indicate where the intention or the interest or the focus is located in the phrase: a topic-comment or focus construction. The words baa, ayaa, and waxaa put the focus on nouns and noun phrases.
Example:
  1. John baa baxay - John Focus went out
  2. John ayaa baxay - John Focus went out
  3. Waxaa baxay John - Focus went out John
Thus, the words baa, ayaa, and waxaa unconsciously raise the question of who went out? Therefore the noun.
Somali also has the word waa which puts the focus on verbs and verb phrases.
Example:
John wuu baxay - John Focus meaning has, or 'way' if female, in which case the last word would change to 'baxday'.
E.g.: Sarah way baxday
Waa is different from other previous one we have just seen, because it
raises the question of what did John do? Therefore the verb.
Sentences in Somali are typically of the order Subject-Object-Verb. Nouns have different tonal markings for number, gender, and case or role in the sentence.