Qualitative Verbs

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In this chapter, we're gonna cover so-called qualitative verbs that allow you to describe the quality of things, so that you can say things equivalent to "I am healthy", "My dad is tall", "That isn't difficult", etc.

Specifically, we'll go over:

• how qualitative verbs are different from presentatives and equatives
• affirmative qualitative verb constructions
• negative qualitative verb constructions

Describing the quality of things

Thus far, we've covered presentatives and equatives. Both of them can be translated with the verb "to be" in English.

For example, a presentative sentence with don:

N kɔrɔ don.

'It's my elder sibling.'

Or, an equative sentence with ye ... ye:

Mali ye n faso ye.

'Mali is my homeland.'

(NOTE: If you are in the Beginner Bambara course, you have not yet learned equatives, but don't worry you don't need to know them yet.)

Notice how both of these kinds of constructions are rendered into English with a combination of the verb "to be" and nouns. One of them presents or identifies a noun and the one states that a noun is equivalent to another noun.

But what happens if we want to describe a noun and say something like "Burkina is big" or "My mom is tall"?

In this case, we typically use qualitative verbs (which some scholars call things like "predicate adjectives". Don't worry too much about the name; use whichever one is easiest for you.)

Affirmative constructions

Let's tackle qualitative verb constructions with a simple example that you've likely already encountered in the course of greetings:

I ka kɛnɛ?
You VQ.AFF healthy

'You are healthy?'

Note that in this example, I have purposely not glossed ka as 'are' or any other form of the verb "to be." This is because—as we have already seen with presentatives and equatives—it's important to not think of there being one word that can be translated as "to be" in Bambara (or Manding in general).

Keeping that in mind, you can see that underlying structure of an affirmative sentence with a qualitative verb then is straightforward:

[NOUN] + ka + [QUAL.VERB]
[NOUN] + is + [QUAL.VERB]

First, we take a noun. It can be a proper name like "Aminata" or a common name like dɔgɔ ('younger sibling').

Next, we have the "predicate marker" ka, which is basically a supporting grammatical word that allows to use qualitative verbs in the affirmative.

After that, we can add whichever qualitative verb that we like. They never change regardless of the subject's number, gender, etc., so nothing special to memorize!

In many cases, Bambara qualitative verbs line up nicely with English adjectives, but not always. Some English words used as adjectives related to colors or mood, for instance, require using different kinds of grammatical constructions if you want to express them in Bambara. For now, it's better to start from Bambara by learning some common qualitative verbs via examples. You could say things like:

Fanta ka jan

'Fanta is tall'

Or:

To ka di

'Tô is pleasing'

(as in, "Tô is good/tasty")

(NOTE: To is a West African food dish of a pounded starch that one dips into sauce. Learn more here.)

Or:

Bamanankan ka gɛlɛn

'Bamabara is difficult'

Negative constructions

To use qualitative verbs in negative sentences is very easy! You simply change the predicate marker ka to man. So, for instance, let's imagine you are at a party. You might say something like:

Mɔgɔ ka ca!

'People are numerous!' (lit. 'Person is numerous')

(as in, "There's a lot of people!")

If the party was a bust though, you would instead say:

Mɔgɔ man ca!

'People are not numerous!'

► Asking about the quality of something

To ask someone how or what something is like—that is, about the quality of a person or thing (e.g., “Is Adama tall?”)—we can form a question using the word di ‘how’ (or cogo di [lit. ’manner how’]).

(NOTE: You have learned two distinct words that have the same written form [linguists call such words homonyms] in this chapter: di 'how' and the qualitative verb di 'pleasing'.)

What is unique though is that, though responding will require a qualitative verb, the question does not require the use of ka or man. Instead, we idiomatically use bɛ (which you will learn more about in "Situatives").

For instance, if you were visiting West Africa, someone might ask you:

Mali bɛ (cogo) di?

‘Mali is how?’

(as in, ‘What is Mali like?’)

And you would respond with a qualitative verb using ka or man:

Mali ka ɲi!

'Mali is good!'

(as in, 'Mali is a good place to be!')

You cannot respond back with bɛ and a qualitative verb:

Mali bɛ ɲi!

'Mali is good!'

The form that you can use or should recognize for asking basic questions about what things are like therefore is:

X bɛ (cogo) di?
'X is how?'

►Not adjectives

Qualitative verbs are like adjectives in English when we say things like, "He is not fat," (À man bon) or "Adama is good" (Adama ka ɲi).

But they are not the same.

This is because we cannot simply put any qualitative verb right next to a noun like we can with an adjective in English (e.g., "He is fat" → "the fat man").

For instance, we can say:

Cɛ ka bon

'The man is fat'

But we cannot say:

Cɛ bon

'the fat man'

In a future chapter, we'll cover more of the details about adjectives (including how to turn qualitative verbs into them), but for now, let's just say that you need to have a structure NOUN + ka/man + QUAL.VERB to use a qualitative verb correctly.

Summary

Ayiwa! In this chapter, we covered the following:

• Qualitative verbs (sometimes called "predicate adjectives") are formed like this:

NOUN + ka/man + QUAL.VERB

• Qualitative verbs allow you to make sentences where you describe nouns.

• To ask a question that requires a qualitative verb, you can use the structure X bɛ (cogo) di? 'X is how?'

• They are like adjectives in English when we say things like, "He is tall," (À ka jan) or "Adama is good" (Adama ka ɲi). But they are not the same. This is because we CANNOT necessarily use the form jan or ɲi directly next to a noun like cɛ to say "the good man" (cɛ ɲi).