These include agglutinativity, a rich array of noun classes, extensive inflection for person (both subject and object), tense, aspect and mood, and generally a subject–verb–object word order.
The genitive pronominal forms -angu, -ako, -ake, -etu, -enu and -ao are frequently inflected with a group of nouns referring to close human relationships with their appropriate class 9/10 concords, regardless of the fact that they are animate (giving yangu, yako, yetu etc.
The equivalent of compound words is usually formed using the genitive construction such as mpira wa kikapu "basketball" (literally "ball of basket").
This is similar to the compounding process found in many languages such as French fin de semaine "weekend" (literally "end of week").
Whereas in English, a hypothetical equivalent compound would place the noun for the stripes first and also require the singular: "stripe-donkey", the word for "donkey" appears first in Swahili.
There is a good deal of variation among different authors as to whether the nouns are written together, hyphenated or separated and thus the word for "zebra(s)" may appear as any of pundamilia, punda-milia or punda milia.
The exceptions to this include cases when the copula ni (or its negative counterpart si) is used, as well as with the habitual form of the verb, which lacks subject prefixes.
In informal speech, when pronouns are unstressed, they may appear in a reduced form, such as mi or mie for mimi, we or wee for wewe etc.
In the following table, all forms given have a subject prefix and a relative affix that correspond to the same noun class as this is always the case when verbs are used in this simple adjectival manner.
Examples of this in use: Similarly, although the adjective -fu "dead", "deceased" exists, it is comparatively infrequently used, its meaning often instead being expressed through a relativisation of the verb kufa "to die".
In many cases, the noun introduced in a genitive adjective phrase receives an additional ki- prefix, such as -a kimataifa "international" (from mataifa "nations") and -a kihistoria "historic" (from historia "history").
Some examples of adjectival phrases with -enye include -enye nguvu "strong" (with strength), -enye nywele fupi "short-haired" (having short hair), and -enye senta moja "concentric" (having one centre).
The final -a is replaced with another vowel in certain grammatical contexts, becoming -i in the present negative, and -e in the subjunctive and imperative forms involving an object prefix.
The plural address marker -ni also triggers this final -a to become -e. Short verbs are those which, in their infinitive form, consist of only two syllables, such as kula "to eat", kunywa "to drink", kuja "to come", kupa "to give".
In modern, standard Swahili, however, there is no great difference in meaning between these two forms as the "indefinite present" is more or less obsolete and rarely used other than its frequent appearance in media headlines.
In informal Swahili, it is very common for the first person singular concord ni- to collapse into the -na- of the definite present tense marker and become inaudible (and unwritten).
These suffixes mean either the performance of an action as a habit or that it occurs "once in a while", as these examples show: Although there are many ways in which the habitual aspect with hu- is avoided in informal speech, it is, however, very commonly used in proverbs dealing with eternal truisms.
")In generalisations about the habits of groups of people, speakers often synecdochically pair a singular subject with a verb taking the hu- prefix.
Pointing out an eagle hovering above a hamlet, Yule mtu anakula kuku, "That type of guy eats chicken."
The class of loan verbs, which do not end in -a, do not undergo this change and the subjunctive form is made by simply omitting any tense marker.
If needed for clarity or emphasis, a word meaning if, such as kama, ikiwa or endapo may be added to the beginning of the clause (which allows the speaker to choose a different TAM marker).
"In the usage of many speakers, the distinction between the present and past irrealis forms is somewhat blurred so that the final example above may commonly be spoken as "(Kama) ningejua hiyo, nisingekuja hapa."
miminimimi niI ammimisimimi siI am notnilikuwanilikuwaI wassikuwasikuwaI was notweweniwewe niyou arewewesiwewe siyou are notulikuwaulikuwayou werehukuwahukuwayou were notyeyeniyeye nis/he isyeyesiyeye sis/he is notalikuwaalikuwas/he washakuwahakuwas/he was notsisinisisi niwe aresisisisisi siwe are nottulikuwatulikuwawe werehatukuwahatukuwawe were notnyinyininyinyi niyou arenyinyisinyinyi siyou are notmlikuwamlikuwayou werehamkuwahamkuwayou were notwaoniwao nithey arewaosiwao sithey are notwalikuwawalikuwathey werehawakuwahawakuwathey were notA sentence begun with ni or si without an overtly marked pronoun is typically translated with the subject "it" in English.
konokonosnails(CL10)snailshaoDEM.CL2.MEDthose aforementionedwa-ngali-poCL2-COP.CONT-REF.CL16they are still therehadiuntiluntilleotodaytodaykonokono hao wa-ngali-po hadi leosnails(CL10) DEM.CL2.MED CL2-COP.CONT-REF.CL16 until todaysnails {those aforementioned} {they are still there} until today"Those snails still exist to this day.
"Compound tenses showing anteriority are frequently used with inchoative verbs in order to indicate static states at times other than the present.
"As with the compound tenses of anteriority, negation applied to the auxiliary kuwa is frequently used to contradict affirmative presuppositions, as shown in the following examples.
"These compound tenses with may also be used to talk about habitual actions at times other than the present, extending their meaning beyond that of a continuous or a progressive and towards that of an imperfective.
"The applicative suffix, frequently called the 'prepositional extension' in learning resources, adds one of various meanings to a verb usually represented by a preposition in English such as "to", "for", "in", "with" or even "from".
Verb stems that end with l or either of the semivowels w or y (but not ny as that is a single consonant written with two letters, as illustrated by -danganywa above) take a suffix -iwa; if the preceding syllable contains e or o, it will be -ewa instead.
"Thus, in many cases, kwenye is preferred over the locative -ni as it allows a complex noun-phrase to retain its usual noun class and concords, as in the following example.