This article describes the grammar of Afrikaans, a language spoken in South Africa and Namibia which originated from 17th century Dutch.
This is akin to Dutch, in which the verb baren has the past participles gebaard and geboren, with a similar distinction.
For example, Formal written Afrikaans also admits the construction of was gemaak to indicate passive voice in the pluperfect, which in this case corresponds to had been made.
The present participle is normally formed with the suffix -ende (kom/komende), but sometimes it is irregular (wees/synde, hê/hebbende, sterf/sterwende, bly/blywende), although this is considered archaic for function verbs.
For example, An exception to the previous rule is the 3rd person singular masculine or neuter, where Afrikaans clearly distinguishes between hom (him) and sy (his).
Likewise, the neuter pronoun dit (it, subject or object) is distinguished from the possessive sy (its), and the term hy can emphatically be used to describe inanimate objects in the same way as the feminine in English, such as in the Rooibaard hot sauce brand's slogan "hy brand mooi rooi" ("He burns beautifully red"), referring to its product's intense spice.
Afrikaans has a strict word order, described in many South African textbooks using the so-called "STOMPI rule".
As in Dutch and German, infinitives and past participles appear in final position in main clauses, split from the corresponding auxiliary verb.
For example, Relative clauses usually begin with the pronoun "wat", used both for personal and non-personal antecedents.
For example, Both French and San origins have been suggested for double negation in Afrikaans.
The double negative construction has been fully integrated into standard Afrikaans and its proper use follows a set of fairly complex rules as the examples below show: The word het in Dutch does not correspond to het in Afrikaans.
The Dutch word that corresponds to het in Afrikaans (in these cases) is heb.