Situatives

In this chapter, we're gonna cover so-called "situative" (also sometimes called "locative") constructions.

This the final of the four non-verbal constructions that can often be translated with the verb "to be" in English (the others being: presentatives, equatives, and qualitative verbs).

As you might guess, they are prototypically used to state where something is "situated" or "located"; for instance, in sentences like, "I am in Mali", "The child is on the mat", or, more abstractly, "They are in peace."

But, as you'll see and later experience in your learning, they are also used to express things that in English we normally express in a different way; such as, "It is hot" (when commenting on the weather) or "My stomach hurts."

How does it all work? Dɔɔnin-dɔɔnin—little by little!

Specifically, we're gonna cover:

• When you will likely use situatives
• Affirmative situative constructions
• Negative situative constructions
• The basics of postpositions
• The postposition la

When to use situatives

Thus far in Basic Bambara, we have learned three types of constructions that all can be translated with "to be" in English even though they do completely different kinds of work.

Presentatives identify or "present" people, places or things:

Nɛgɛso don.

'It's a bike.'

Equatives equate things to other things:

N ye kalanden ye.

'I am a student'

And qualitative verb constructions describe things:

So ka bon.

'The house is large.'

But what happens if we want to say where something is; something like, "We are in Abidjan," or "I am at home"? In that case, we need to use situatives.

Affirmative situatives

Situatives are not difficult to form. Let's start with a simple example:

N bɛ Bamakɔ.
I SITUATED Bamako

'I am in Bamako.''

The underlying structure of a situative construction therefore is:

SUBJECT + bɛ + LOCATION

For linguists, the word bɛ in this context is a situative "copula," which is to say that it's a verb-like word, but it can't be used in the same way as normal verbs. In this way, it is similar to the words don and ye that are the copulas of the presentative and equative constructions that we learned earlier.

Following the situative construction's structure, we can say things like:

Adama bɛ yan.

'Adama is here.'

Or:

N ba bɛ so.

'My mom is at home.'

Note that none of these examples have an explicit word for the English prepositions "in" or "at."

When it comes to situative constructions where the location is a city, a country, or the word so (when it's used as an adverb to mean 'home'; e.g., N bɛ so 'I am at home'), you don't need to use anything equivalent to a preposition.

So if we were thinking like the many people that migrate to Côte d'Ivoire for work, we could say something like:

Wari bɛ Kɔdiwari.

'There's money in Côte d'Ivoire.'

There's one major exception to the rule in terms of countries. And that's Mali:

Sita bɛ Mali la.

'Sita is in Mali.'

As you can see in the example, there is a word la (which we can translate here as 'in'), which functions like a preposition in English. But it appears after the noun, Mali. For this reason, it is called a postposition instead of a preposition.

Let's put postpositions aside for now though, we'll talk a bit more about them in just a bit. We still need to talk about situative constructions in the affirmative!

In a small number of cases, situative constructions can be used without a location specified. In these cases, it is used to express a general state of existence. For instance, in greeting people often ask:

Hɛɛrɛ bɛ?

'Is there peace?'

Or, you might be sweating profusely in April in Mali and say:

Funteni bɛ!

'There is heat.'

(as in, 'It is hot' when speaking of the weather)

More rarely, the situative copula can show up in some idiomatic expressions where its meaning is close to "to be." For instance:

À bɛ di?

'How is it?

(lit. 'It is how?'; similar to "How is it going?" as an informal greeting in English)

Or you might recognize it from an expression we already covered in the chapter on names and introductions:

I tɔgɔ bɛ di?

'Your name is how?'

(as in, 'What's your name?'')

Negative situative

Making a situative construction negative is very straightforward. You simply switch the copula bɛ to its negative equivalent tɛ. For instance, if someone called and asked you:

I bɛ Bamakɔ?

'You are in Bamako?'

But you were, in fact, visiting a friend in Ségou, you could answer:

Ayi. N tɛ Bamakɔ.

'No. I am not in Bamako.'

This same pattern applies to to the other types of examples that we just covered.

For instance, we can comment on the general existence of things. If your friend was wearing a ski jacket despite the fact that it was 85 degrees Fahrenheit, you could say:

Nɛnɛ tɛ.

'It's not cold.'

(literally, 'There isn't cold.')

Or, in the course of greetings like those covered in "Greetings Extended", instead of saying hɛɛrɛ ('peace'), you could respond:

Tɔɔrɔ tɛ.

'There isn't suffering.'

Similarly, the situative constructions can also be used more atypically in a way that is easiest to translate with "to be" in English.

For instance, if a politician claimed that you could protect yourself from an illness by injecting household cleaners, you might respond:

À tɛ ten.
It NOT that.way

'It is not like that.'
(as in, "That's not how things work.")

You've probably already noticed that the negative copula for situatives, tɛ, looks the same as the negative copula for presentatives like in the following example:

Den tɛ!

'It's not a/the child'

While they are written and pronounced the same way, from a linguistic perspective, they are not in fact the same word. Just something to keep in mind as we work our way through the basics—whenever you see tɛ, you'll want to ask yourself if you are looking at a situative sentence or a presentative sentence.

Introduction to postpositions

In all of the examples thus far, except for one, we looked at the simplest kinds of situatives; ones with the structure: SUBJECT + bɛ/tɛ + LOCATION. With the country Mali, however, we saw that situatives can also involve the use of a postposition that follows the location noun.

Using situatives in conjunction with postpositions lets us specify particular kinds of spatial relationship such as "on", "under", "in", "at", etc., so that we can say things like, "Sugar is in the tea," or "I am at Adama's (place)."

More broadly, in Bambara and Manding in general, postpositions are quite important; they figure in a number of different kinds of constructions that allow us to express things like possession, want, comparison and preference.

For now though, let me give you a few simple examples related purely to location, each with a different postpostion.

We can say things like:

U bɛ dugu kɔnɔ.

'They are in town.'

Or:

An bɛ Amadu fɛ.

'We are chez Amadu.' (as in, 'We are at Amadu's.')

(Ok, chez is French not English, but it makes the translation one-to-one!)

Or:

Sukaro bɛ te la.

'Sugar is in the tea.'

(as in, 'There's sugar in the tea.')

The postposition la

Let's take a closer look at the postposition la since it is extremely common and useful in the context of situatives.

In the previous example, I translated it by 'in', but in fact, it covers a wide range of meanings related to location. Sometimes, it can be fruitfully translated as 'on' or 'at', for instance:

Kɔngɔ bɛ Isa la.

'Hunger is on Isa.'

(as in, 'Isa is hungry')

This kind of formulation, where a situative with a postposition metaphorically says something about someone or something, is extremely common in Bambara and Manding in general.

For instance, you may have already heard people in greetings respond to a question like, I den dun? ('And your child?') in one of two ways. Positively, you may have heard:

Hɛɛrɛ b'à la. (or more slowly, Hɛɛrɛ bɛ à la.)

'Peace is upon him/her.'

Or negatively (but in a good way), they might say:

Tɔɔrɔ t'à la. (or more slowly, Tɔɔrɔ tɛ à la.)

'Suffering is not upon them'

(as in, 'There is no ill upon them.')

One last thing about la; depending on the sounds that precede it, it typically changes to na (unless someone is speaking very slowly, for instance).

This happens when it is preceded by a nasal consonant (like n, ɲ or ŋ) or a nasalized vowel (like in bon ['house; room']). For instance, let's change the above example to focus on ourselves. If someone asked you I ka kɛnɛ? ('Are you healthy?'), you could respond:

Tɔɔrɔ tɛ n na.

'There's no suffering upon me.'

(as in, 'I am doing fine.')

Summary

Ayiwa! Here's what we covered in this chapter:

• Situative constructions are generally formed like this:

  SUBJECT + bɛ/tɛ + LOCATION + (POSTPOSITION)

• Situatives are prototypically used to state where something is located or situated.

• Situatives can have an unspecified location:

  Hɛɛrɛ bɛ?

  'Is there peace?'

• Situatives can sometimes be used idiomatically in a way that is close to "to be":

  I tɔgɔ bɛ di?

  'What is your name?' (lit. 'Your name is how?')

• Situatives often incorporate postpositions that follow the location noun to specify spatial relations:

  Den bɛ dɛbɛ kan.

  'The child is on the mat.'

• The general location postposition la ('on; at; in') has a few particularities:

  • la is not used with cities, countries or the word so ('home'):

    N bɛ so

    'I am at home'

    • There is one exception though: Mali!

      N bɛ Mali la

      'I am in Mali'

  • la becomes na before a nasal sound:

    Tɔɔrɔ tɛ n na

    'There is no suffering upon me'

  • la ('on; at; in') is often used to metaphorically express feelings, qualities, etc.

    Nafa tɛ à la.

    'It's not useful.'' (lit. 'Usefulness isn't in it')