"To Have"

Earlier, I covered possessive noun phrases like n ka nɛgɛso ('my bike') or à den ('his/her child'). But what happens if we want to say things like "I have a bike" or "He has a child"?

In Bambara this kind of thing is not expressed with a verb, but rather with something that we've already covered: situatives (e.g., Mobili bɛ Bamakɔ 'The car is in Bamako') that are used in conjunction with various postpositions. Most often:

• bolo (from the word for 'arm')
• fɛ 'at the place of'; 'in the direction of' (cf. French, chez)

So in this chapter, we're going to cover how to express the idea of the English verb "to have" (or what we could also refer to as the concept of possession) in Bambara. The general principles apply to Manding in general.

Specifically, we're going to go over:

• Using situatives to express "to have" (with the postposition bolo)
• Expressing "To have" with the postposition fɛ
• Choosing between bolo and fɛ
• Other postposition (kun and la/na)

Situatives to express "to have" (using bolo)

For starters, let's remember that situatives work like this:

Mobili bɛ Bamakɔ
Car is.located Bamako

'The car is in Bamako'

Remember that we often use situatives with a postposition that follows the location:

Gɔngɔn bɛ Mali la
Dust is.located in Mali

'There's dust in Mali'

In Bambara, this underlying structure SUBJECT + bɛ/tɛ + LOCATION + (POSTPOSITION) is used to express the idea of possession behind the English verb "to have".

What is tricky for beginners at first is that possessive sentences in Bambara work the other way around from English; that is, instead of saying "I have a car", we say something akin to "A car is located at/with me". This means that we start the sentence with the thing that is possessed and we end it with the possessor and a postposition such as bolo.

For instance:

Mobili bɛ n bolo
Car is.located my arm

'I have a car'

Or (if your friend is hard on his luck and doesn't have any money or possessions):

Foyi tɛ Adama bolo
Nothing is.not.located Adama's arm

"Adama has nothing"
(as in, "Adama don't have nothing")

In these examples, the "postpositional phrase" n bolo comes from the expression that means 'my arm'. For this reason, some people find it useful to think of using bolo to express "to have" as being a little bit like the the turn of phrase "on hand" in English; as in, "I have something on hand".

In any case, when bolo is used this way in Bambara, linguists refer to as as a "lexical postposition" because it clearly comes from a normal word, but it's used in a semi-grammatical fashion to express the idea of "to have".

"To have" with fɛ

The formal postposition fɛ (which can frequently be translated as 'at the place of'; cf. French chez [It comes from a general sense of 'direction/towards']) can also be used to express "to have"; it takes the same exact place as bolo. For instance:

Mobili bɛ n fɛ
Car is.located my place

'I have a car'

Or:

Foyi tɛ Adama fɛ
Nothing is.not.located Adama's place

"Adama has nothing"
(lit. "There ain't nothing at Adama's place"

Using bolo or fɛ?

Practically speaking, for beginners, the choice of whether to use bolo or fɛ is a more or less a free one.

(Technically, there can be nuances in whether someone "has something but doesn't have it available" (e.g., fɛ), "has something but isn't the owner" (e.g., bolo), etc. But it's not an essential distinction to worry about. Both forms will work perfectly well in most situations!)

That said, there is one thing to watch out for: fɛ is also the word that is used to express the idea behind the English verb "to want". This means that there can be two ways to interpret sentences such as Muso bɛ n fɛ. For instance:

Muso bɛ n fɛ
'I have a woman/wife'

OR:

'The woman wants/loves me'

The context generally means that you aren't going to actually be confused by this sort of thing, but some beginners prefer to use bolo at first to avoid any confusion in their own mind. There is no ambiguity in that case:

Muso bɛ n bolo

'I have a woman/wife'
'The woman wants/love me'

Curious how it can be that fɛ is used to express both "to have" and "to want"? Want to know how to say "to want" or "to love someone" in Bambara? Siɲɛ wɛrɛ! Next time!

Other postpositions

In most situations, you are going to bolo or fɛ to express the idea of possession. But, since it'll be helpful down the road, let's look at two other postpositions that are used with situatives and can often be translated as "to have" in English.

Using kun ("to have something on oneself")

In cases where you need to express the nuance of "having something on yourself" (as in, "I have money on me", that is, "in my actual pocket right now"), you can use another lexical postposition, which like bolo comes from a body part: kun 'head'.

Again, kun is used exactly like fɛ and bolo. It slots into the postpositional phrase that represents the location of the situative sentence:

Wari bɛ n kun

'I have money (on me)'
(literally, < 'Money is located at my head')

Using la/na for part-whole possession (and more)

When expressing part-whole relationships, Bambara typically uses the uses postposition la/na ('at; on') instead of bolo, fɛ, or kun:

Sen fila bɛ nɛgɛso la

'A bike has two wheels'
(lit. 'There are two wheels/feet on a bike')

Or:

Kunsigi tɛ n na

'I have no hair' (lit. 'Hair isn't on me')

Here, it's worth noting that is the hardly the only time that situatives are used with la/na. They are so prevalent that you've already learned one as part of greetings! And note, we don't translate it with the verb "to have":

Tɔɔrɔ tɛ n na

'There is no suffering on me'

And, of course, there's many more such examples. For instance:

I tulo bɛ dɔnkili la?

'Do you hear the song?'
(lit. 'Is your ear on the song?')

In other cases, however, situative constructions with la/na can be translated with the verb "to have" in English, even if it's not really a matter of true possession. This is notably the case for illness and afflictions. For instance:

Mura bɛ n na

'I have a cold'
(lit. 'A sickness is on me')

Or:

Farigan bɛ an den na

'Our child has a fever'
(lit. 'A fever is on our child')

Summary

Ayiwa! In this chapter, we covered the following:

• The idea of "to have" or possession in Bambara is expressed using a combination of situatives (with bɛ/tɛ) and the postpositions bolo, fɛ (or kun and la/na in other more limited cases)

• This means that we start sentences with the thing possessed and end it with the possessor:

Wari tɛ n bolo

"I don't have money"
(lit. 'Money is located my arm')